When Suburbs become Urban RAND CITY: The Case for a Full-Scale Urbanization of the Rand around Brussels. A presentation from Proff Alexander D'hooghe, Director, MIT Platform for Permanent Modernity, ORG

1. When Suburbs become Urban
RAND CITY: The Case for a Full-Scale Urbanization of the Rand around Brussels.

3. Early suburbanization in Los Angeles

4. A Levitt development company postcard: its early post-war suburban homes celebrate 25 years of ongoing
development success.

11. The USA East Coast
A case of sociological urbanization: increased diversity,
density, poverty-wealth oppositions, and a complete
dominance of hardscapes, tarmacs and infrastructures

12. = SUBURBIA is a development space
defined by an idealized nature:

14. GREY GOO =
A development space form which
nature as a perceived dominant
structure has been exhausted, but in
which the city as a form of cultural
attraction is not present

15. No r t h- Ea s t e r n Gr e y Go o
Dar k e s t = hi gh e s t i nt e n s i t y of d e v e l o pme n t
Bo s t o n
M l wa uke e
i
De t r o i t
Ne w Yo r k/ Ne w J e r s e y
Cl e v e l a nd
Chi c a g o
Phi l a de l phi a
Pi t t s bur g h
Ba l t i m r e
o
Washington DC
St Lo ui s

16. 70,000,000
12,000
60,000,000
10,000
oo
Grey G
n in
latio
50,000,000 opu
es P ver
ed Stat Co
rn Unit nd 8,000
easte La
oo
North ry G
40,000,000 Ge
es
tat
dS
i te
Un 6,000
er n
30,000,000 east
rth
No
4,000
20,000,000
10,000,00 2,000
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

19. The material apparatus of grey goo is aging - it has gone through more than
one cycle of users or inhabitants, and as a result it has been depreciating,
deteriorating, and patched up again...as one of the first parts of the world
subjected to a long and merciless suburbanization, it is here that the long-
term resiliency of the post-urban logic will be first tested.

25. Los Angeles:
A case of gradual densification: lot by lot, parcel by parcel,
this has become from the thinnest city (in the 1950s), by
now the densest city.

31. Edge Cities:
Tyson’s Corner, VA is an example of an edge city – fast
urbanization of an area with a priviliegd centrality in the
interstate and highway network, but no longer close to any
historical city.

38. The RAND
An urbanizing suburbia that dares not speak its name

55. Shenzhen
This suburb simply out-accelerated the city it first
depended on and became bigger in size in less than 20
years.

69. New Infrastructural Thinking for an Urbanizing Rand

76. Promenade Samuel de Champlain, Quebec, Canada

77. Burle Marx

78. Burle Marx

79. 2 De nieuwe Gordelboulevard. Precedenten
Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazilie