With an eye to the future, the planners of London's Olympics have built the Olympics venues in a depressed part of town. They're hoping their work will turn the area around.
"The 250-hectare, or 618-acre, Olympic Park around Stratford, northeast of the City, London's financial center, is transforming.
Settlement here predates Roman times. Later, it became an industrial zone, but starting in the 19th century, deprivation set in. More recently, the site had become contaminated as tar, gasoline, lead and chemicals like arsenic and vinyl chloride seeped into the ground. The landscape was blighted by factories, refrigerator mountains and scrap merchants, all owned by hundreds of landlords, preventing renewal.
One million cubic meters of contaminated soil have been cleaned, organizers say, a large parkland has been created around the Lea River, waterways dredged and three networks of high-speed cable laid."
Some critics argue that the plans won't live up to their ambitious goals.
FULL STORY: Will the Olympics Save East London?
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Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research