Planning Capital Cities

Urban planning through major planning documents after 1999: urban centrality between vision and reality

The second category is widely spread, the former industrial locations,

especially in the North and West are favored locations, although it has to be

pointed out the fact that the level of dispersion of office buildings does not take

advantage of the advantages of proximity and agglomeration; their relative or

high dispersion is in fact visible and leads to a growing incoherence to which

largely unfinished office buildings, stopped as an effect of the economic crisis,

are adding. Industrial platforms such as Pipera, Semapark etc., although similar

in their past configuration and activity are valued differently by office buildings:

while Semapark is being developed according to a coherent plan, Pipera is

clearly the result of a speculative development, non-related with the urban

context: high density, mono-functionnality, total absence of public spaces,

vacant or untamed lands, the lack of landscape arrangements etc., but above

all the missed opportunity to make an integrated urban development project

that could turn the former industrial platform into an emblematic project.

In conclusion, a criticial aspect regarding the

development of Bucharest is the lack of coagulation in

consolidated poles while pressure rises on the central

area; as professor Cristea states: the regeneration

and the protection through a raise in coherence of

the central area have to be done in parallel with the

development of new multimodal of business and

commercial poles, that can furthermore contribute

to the XXI century representative image of Bucharest.

The overall intra-urban centrality

Another, more efficient way to measure centrality is

by taking into account the level of diversity, density,

hierarchy and intensity of activities. As it can be seen in

figure 5, at the overall level, Bucharest is characterized

by a higher degree of centrality in its central area and

some extensions, especially to the North but also by

some older centralities that have been reinforced

recently due to an intensification in service and

commercial activity of the city; places such as Obor,

Piața Sudului, Piața Victoriei as well as places that

are usually centers of diverse neighborhoods, have

gained in centrality over the last years, maintaining an

important place in the urban structure.

Places invested with highly specialized functions,

or very rare functions such as the National Arena

(in the eastern part of the city) are also gaining a

certain interest materialized in the development of

surrounding places.

Fig. 5
Bucharest: functional intensity and diversity.
(CSB2035, interpretation by Alexandru)