kaupunkimaisuus

06:19 Dec 16, 2013 

One thing I've learned in recent days, US editors would have no problem with 'urbanness', though it seems UK editors dislike the term. Anu's suggestion of 'urbanicity' is interesting; it seems to be used a lot in health-related urban research. W. Allen Martin even claims "Urbanicity is a term, a concept, and a measure that I invented and copyrighted in 1974" where it refers to "the impact of living in urban areas". Within the context of the article being translated, the emphasis is on the negativity of modernist architects towards traditional urbanisation and an urban lifestyle; to talk of "producing successful urbanicity" sounds perhaps awkward or perhaps better "producing a successful feeling of urbanicity". But I still prefer to expand the sentence, if possible.

08:57 Dec 14, 2013 

Again, thank you all for your suggestions. I spent some time gathering examples from academic articles, and it seems that 'urbanness' is used without problem in US articles but is more or less avoided in UK articles or placed in scare quotes. The article in question is destined for the UK. The word occurs just 6 times in the article, but unfortunately also in its title. I have gone for re-writing the first sentence as I gave above. Desmond has a good point regarding sentence 2; 'urbanness' can be considered part of a long process and isn't achieved 'in one go'. However, 'townscape', is still not right here, as explained above. Hence I've gone for: Therefore, producing a successful feeling of urbanisation in completely new environments planned at one go could be considered the litmus test of change in urban planning. Having said all this, the author may well stick with 'urbanness', as he's googled it, too.

09:08 Dec 12, 2013 

Urbanness googles - for that it's worth. I have no problem with this word personally.

19:40 Dec 11, 2013 

It is easy to slip into 'Finglish' when translating too literally. Given that 'urbanness' is not accepted English, it is better avoided. The alternatives would be to use "urban characteristics" (Minna) or, as you suggest, "the process of urbanisation". Since urbanisation is a lengthy process, it does not fit with "kerralla suunniteltu", a visual whole. 'Townscape' might better convey the meaning in this case.

16:59 Dec 11, 2013 

Rephrasing along the lines of Minna's suggestion might be best if there's no compelling reason to pick a single term. Does the word occur only in these two sentences in a long essay, or is it a key concept that the author returns to again and again?

06:40 Dec 11, 2013 

Thank you for your suggestions. Let us consider sentences where the word 'kaupunkimaisuus' occurs:

Moderni suunnittelu jätti kaupunkimaisuuden syrjään joko turmiollisena tai epäolennaisena. Modern planning discarded townscape/urbanness as either detrimental or irrelevant.

Niinpä kaupunkimaisuuden onnistunutta tuottamista kokonaan uusiin, kerralla suunniteltuihin ympäristöihin voi pitää yhdyskuntasuunnittelun muutoksen lakmustestinä. Therefore, producing successful townscape/urbanness in completely new environments planned at one go could be considered the litmus test of change in urban planning.

The problem is that 'townscape' emphasises the physical structure from more of an aesthetic point of view, whereas 'urbanness', for all its lack of use in academic writing, also covers aspects such as density and urban life. 'Townscape' might fit better in the second sentence; but again, the point being made was more than simply the aesthetic quality of the fabric. For now, the favoured choice is urbannness, though ideally it should be written differently; e.g. Modern planning discarded the process of urbanisation and the typical urban fabric as either detrimental or irrelevant.