In the recent 10 years, people started to consider the environmental concerns and the culture preservation, since the global-warming has noticed the world our earth is sick and the globalisation makes people worry not only the goods and services but also social and cultural influences, gradually become similar in all parts of the world, it has noticed them to consider the culture preservation. In the past, when people didn't realise how important the environmental concerns and the culture preservation are, when they develop a city, they had ignored and mainly developed in an economical way. So some people claim that it is just a dream that culture preservation, environment and economic development can do well in one city. Is it really a true?
In fact, there are lots of examples of good economic development have to give up environment protestation. Some of it has geographical reason, such as Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is a small island in the south of China, from the small village changed to be the international city the changing in the recent 40 years is most important and it has the fastest develop which have ever been. 1970'S are the period of economy and the population growing, Hong Kong government had to develop new town and industrial area in order to solve the population problem and the fast growing industry.( Renaud, 1997)
In 1980'S, under the China open policy, Hong Kong have changed from an industrial city to be a enter port city, since most the industry had moved to China. Because of that, Hong Kong government have to construct the logistics system to support the logistics devolvement in Hong Kong. In this time the land space was nearly fully used.( K. Fung, 2001)
In the first part of 1990'S was the best time for Hong Kong economy, more skyscraper have built up and Hong Kong start being the most Active Cities in terms of High-rise Construction,( Emporis,2009) which is two thousand skyscraper more than New York. It is a type of representative of Hong Kong economy but also it has made the environment being worse. Urban heat island is happening in Hong Kong, it makes Hong Kong total temperature increasing. It caused by the storage of solar energy in the urban fabric during the day and release of the energy into the atmosphere at night. (Urban Heat Island in Hong Kong, 2007, p.3) and the height of buildings and the way in which they are arranged affects the rate of escape at night of the sun's energy absorbed during the day by building materials.(Urban Heat Island in Hong Kong, 2007, p.13)
Urban heat island is not the only matter caused by the city economic development but also by constructed the new air-port, new high-way system and the reclamation have caused the air pollution, noise pollution and the water pollution. ( K. Fung, 2001)
"In Hong Kong, culture preservation is not based on historical or cultural but land using and economic." Claimed by Dr. LEE Ho Yin.(HKU, 2010) Environment is not the only thing which had been ignored, culture preservation is another one. There are huge amount of the case which historical buildings or areas had been removed or even destroyed because of the economic reason. Here are two the most representative cases, Murray House and Nga Tsin Wai Tsuen.
Murray House is a Victorian-era building; it was one of the oldest surviving public buildings in Hong Kong. Originally built in Centre, because of the economic development and it was replaced by Bank of China Tower and relocated in Stanley.(AMO, 2010) Even though Hong Kong government has relocated it, the value of Murray House from Grade First listed building changed to be unclassified, since the location and the building materials have been changed.( Ackbar, 1997) This is a example of how economic development more important than culture preservation in Hong Kong, even a listed building still could be replaced by a new business building.
Wai Tusen is Chinese name in English which means walled village. This Nga Tsin Wai Tsuen was established in 14th century, in this walled village all the residents mainly with the last name Chan, Ng and Lee,( P.H. Hase, 1999) since the was established by the people whose with these three last name. Dr. Patrick H Hase claimed that is the last walled village and also that is the last construction was built in Kowloon before United Kingdom take over Kowloon and Hong Kong should preservation it.( P.H. Hase, 1999) However Hong Kong government did nothing. They allow the Cheung Kong Limited to purchase it and rebuilding it since the development department thought that was non-valuable. Rebuild the Nga Tsin Wai Tsuen, it destroyed both the constriction and the special festival in that walled village.
On the other hand, some of the cities have good environment protestation or culture preservation but without a good economic development, KyÅto is one of the good examples. Kyoto is a cultural and historical city, not only it was a capital of Japan but also it is a very rare city in Japan. The reason why Kyoto so rare is because of its intact, without any doubt the city has been changed a lot since it was developed till to now; in here the term of intact it means it still has an abundance of pre-war buildings and it is the only one city still has such large amount of pre-war construction in Japan.
Even though there were earthquake and war happened in Kyoto, since it was taken out from the American atomic bomb attack list by Henry L. Stimson,( Bruce,1999) also not like Tokyo was attacked by Napalm. There are more than 2000 pre-war constructions in Kyoto such as traditional townhouse like manchiya. There are 20% of Japan National Treasures and 14% of Important Cultural Properties in Kyoto, and there are 17 locations such as To-ji, Kiyomizu-dera, Ninna-ji et cetera, which are inside the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto and these locations have been designated as world Heritage by UNESCO in 1994 as well.( UNESCO ,2010) If constructions are hard-ware preservation then soft-ware of Kyoto must be festivals. The festivals in Kyoto are special only appear in Kyoto, the most famous one must be Gion Matsuri which is one of the 3 greatest festivals of Japan. It last for the whole July, the most crowded day is 17th july, since there will have parade of yamaboko floats with 29 different yamabokos from each area in Kyoto.( Wiki Pedia, 2010)
As mentioned above, Kyoto do very well in the cultural preservation and it has award by UNESCO. But in term of economic development, they didn't do well. Because of the cultural preservation, Japan government have set a lots different law to limit the city development and the business growing in Kyoto, such as in 1972 Kyoto has controlled and lowered the heights in some of the area such as historical city areas, residential areas in mountain foothills and industrial areas. In these areas, the heights lowered in 30% if urbanization. They have controlled all the outdoor advertisements, the limited include display location, size and palette on outdoor advertisements, also in Kyoto the flashing lights are not allowed to use on the outdoor advertisements. Because of the law above, Kyoto can always remain Kyoto.( Kyoto City Landscape Policy, 2007) Even though Kyoto didn't have a serious destroy like Tokyo, based on the cultural preservation limited, the economic development was slow down. Fortunately, start from 2003 Japan has been focus on the tourism and according to the 2007 statistic;( japannewsreview ,2007) it had setting new record on the number of visitor and it is because of the title "most attractive town".( j-cast ,2007 ) The tourism is the main income for Kyoto and it has recovered the economy. In this case, the economy doesn't turn really turn down but slow down.
There is no absolute answer in this argument. All the things are depend on different state, since when the town planner start planning the city, they have to consider the best way for the city and the different city will have a different plan since different city have different difficulty. Which one is more important? Everyone stand on a different position will have different point of view and that is an argument about opportunity cost, when we have to make a decision between more than one thing, we have to calculate the cost of another choice. Such as the examples above, Hong Kong is an example which has to sacrifice the environment and some of the cultural building to solve the living problem which caused by densely populated, also because of the land limited, the architect have to design building become skyscraper in order to use the maximum Floor Area Ratio and it makes the urban heat effect become more serious. In Japan, Kyoto is the only city without the World War II destroys and still can have an abundance of pre-war buildings. In the Japanese point of view, to protect these valuable and rare cultural constructions is more important than the economic development since they know if they don't take this chance and preserve it, it won't be appear any more.
If it is only a dream that culture preservation, environment and economic develop can prosper in one city, then the dream has come true in Bilbao, Spain.
Bilbao is a small city in Spain; it was the richest city in Spain during the beginning of 20th century, just after the Industrial Revolution. Since in the 19th century's industrial revolution was crucial for Bilbao development. At that time, the city has started developing of steel, strong mining and shipbuilding industries. It had made Bilbao be the best and made it in a worst state. Because of the industries development, Bilbao was a city full of pollution by the industrial development, such as air pollution, water pollution and land pollution. Since the major industry in Bilbao are steel, strong mining and shipbuilding, three of them also release the heavy metal and it will either dissolved in air and water, after that it will get into soil through water.( Wiki 2010) In the middle to the last of 20th century, the industries had been turn down and the city had a serious pollution problem and the economic problem, high unemployment was caused by the declined port. In 1990'S the local government has plant to renewal the city and changes it from the industrial city to instead focus on tourism and services.( Designbuild,2010) After lots of new construct, such as new metro system, new tram line and the new Guggenheim Museum, finally the dream has been come true. You may ask that, just built up a new building can we consider as a cultural preservation? To do the cultural preservation, faradism is not the best way, which means to demolish a building but leaving its façade and reconstruction the inside of the building. In the same way, in a new museum with the cultural idea or the art works inside, it still better than a preserved corpse. Financial; estimated that Guggenheim Museum had generated €500 million in the first 3years in 2001, but is it really generated by the Guggenheim Museum?
In the whole project the most noticeable is the new Guggenheim Museum which was built in 1997. Some of the people say the successes in Bilbao are all based on the "Guggenheim effect", I don't agree with that. I think this is a kind of sweeping generalization, even though the Guggenheim museum is very huge and grand, it just a linking point of the whole renewal project. The function of the museum is not only as a land mark but also to link all the "point". There are point, line and plane in the planning. It can be explained, plane is grouped by many lines; line is grouped by many points. The function of the new museum is an important point to link all the other points (construction) to be a line and the plane (city). For example it linked the traditional Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, this museum one of the main painting and sculpture museums of Spain and it was founded in 1908.( Museobilbao,2010)
The Guggenheim museum cannot be successful, if there are no such good transport and the improved environment coordinate, so rather than named "Guggenheim effect", "Bilbao effect" will be much better.
To conclude, none of the city can develop without culture, environment or economy. The different between each city is which way they have focused more and it could be changed after a period like Bilbao has changed from industrial city to tourism city. Even though that is not the easy thing to prosper those three elements in one city, still that is not only the dream. The key thing is how can the planner to make a well balance on it and this work just like making a tripod; once it is balanced everyone will be happy to sit upon that.
