Milton Keynes Milton Keynes was planned on the basis of four midsize and 13 smaller settlements, amongst which are Blechley, Stony Stanford, Wolverton and New Bradwell. They are situated along the main roads and railways which run through the area. Smaller settlements follow the rural roads and rivers in between.

Cergy-Pontoise The New Town Cergy-Pontoise was one of the five New Towns of Paris that were built from the 1960s onwards and it is assumed to be the most successful one. About 30 km northwest of Paris, this urban agglomeration was built ‘on top of’ 15 ancient villages in the loop of the river Oise, to be named after only two of them eventually - Cergy and Pontoise. This publication is part of a series of Alternative Travel Guides initiated by the International New Town Institute. We’ve done the research so you can enjoy these undiscovered and unloved New Towns—before the rest of the world finds them!

Shenzhen The spectacular story of Shenzhen is well known: a collection of rural villages became a new town in 1979 when the central Chinese government gave it the status of Special Economic Zone. Shenzhen turned into a metropolis and became a prototype for both economic and urban reform within China.

Cape Town Twenty years after democracy, Cape Town suffers from extensive urban sprawl, due to the legacy of the Apartheid spatial policy and the middle class ideal of single-family homes on individual plots of land. Sprawl is causing huge economical, environmental and social problems. Can we envisage a more compact and dense Cape Town, curing the many engrained patterns of unequal and unjust spatial divisions?

New Towns & Politics The ultimate political act in town planning is the building of a New Town. Governments, developers and planners conspire to create a brand new community on a tabula rasa, based on the latest models of social and economic behavior. Or is the idea to build a New Town from scratch just proof of a fatal misunderstanding of what makes a city a city? Is it a sign of a gross ignorance on the part of politicians, planners and all those involved in this process of the complexity and the unpredictability of the urban? Whatever the situation might be, New Towns and Politics are closely related, (...)

Kwetsbare middenklasse? Treden er in de sociaaleconomische positie en financiële draagkracht van huishoudens behorende tot de lagere middenklasse veranderingen op die wijzen op toenemende kwetsbaarheid? Op welke wijze en in welke mate voelen zij zich betrokken bij hun directe woonomgeving en de stad als geheel?

Volume Magazine #34 Launch of Volume: City in a Box Volume and INTI invite you to come and have a drink with us at the launch of the new issue, online documentation by tegenlicht.vpro.nl and a toast to the New Year! Come join us at Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum, Spui, Amsterdam on Friday, January 11, 2013 from 5pm until 7pm. See facebook for more information about the launch.

Work in progress 2011-2013 A little more than three years ago, in the beginning of 2009, the International New Town Institute (INTI) officially opened its doors. Since then, INTI is steadily developing its mission statement: to study the past, present and future of planned communities in an urbanizing world, and to use this knowledge to improve the quality of New Towns worldwide. INTI is becoming an international platform for the exchange of knowledge and experience on New Towns. The Institute serves a unique role in bringing together cross-disciplinary expertise in collaboration with public, private and academic (...)