| 1 | <head><title>History Of Cities And City Planning</title></head><body> |
| 2 | |
| 3 | <h1>History Of Cities And City Planning</h1> |
| 4 | |
| 5 | <h1>By Cliff Ellis</h1> |
| 6 | |
| 7 | <h2>Introduction</h2> |
| 8 | |
| 9 | The building of cities has a long and complex history. Although city |
| 10 | planning as an organized profession has existed for less than a |
| 11 | century, all cities display various degrees of forethought and |
| 12 | conscious design in their layout and functioning. <p> |
| 13 | |
| 14 | Early humans led a nomadic existence, relying on hunting and gathering |
| 15 | for sustenance. Between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago, systematic |
| 16 | cultivation of plants and the domestication of animals allowed for |
| 17 | more permanent settlements. During the fourth millennium B.C., the |
| 18 | requirements for the "urban revolution" were finally met: the |
| 19 | production of a surplus of storable food, a system of writing, a more |
| 20 | complex social organization, and technological advances such as the |
| 21 | plough, potter's wheel, loom, and metallurgy. <p> |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Cities exist for many reasons, and the diversity of urban forms can be |
| 24 | traced to the complex functions that cities perform. Cities serve as |
| 25 | centers of storage, trade, and manufacture. The agricultural surplus |
| 26 | from the surrounding countryside is processed and distributed in |
| 27 | cities. Cities also grew up around marketplaces, where goods from |
| 28 | distant places could be exchanged for local products. Throughout |
| 29 | history, cities have been founded at the intersections of |
| 30 | transportation routes, or at points where goods must shift from one |
| 31 | mode of transportation to another, as at river and ocean ports. <p> |
| 32 | |
| 33 | Religious elements have been crucial throughout urban history. Ancient |
| 34 | peoples had sacred places, often associated with cemeteries or |
| 35 | shrines, around which cities grew. Ancient cities usually had large |
| 36 | temple precincts with monumental religious buildings. Many medieval |
| 37 | cities were built near monasteries and cathedrals. <p> |
| 38 | |
| 39 | Cities often provide protection in a precarious world. During attacks, |
| 40 | the rural populace could flee behind city walls, where defence forces |
| 41 | assembled to repel the enemy. The wall served this purpose for |
| 42 | millennia, until the invention of heavy artillery rendered walls |
| 43 | useless in warfare. With the advent of modern aerial warfare, cities |
| 44 | have become prime targets for destruction rather than safe havens. |
| 45 | <p> |
| 46 | |
| 47 | Cities serve as centers of government. In particular, the emergence of |
| 48 | the great nation-states of Europe between 1400 and 1800 led to the |
| 49 | creation of new capital cities or the investing of existing cities |
| 50 | with expanded governmental functions. <p> |
| 51 | |
| 52 | Washington, D.C., for example, displays the monumental buildings, |
| 53 | radial street pattern, and large public spaces typical of capital |
| 54 | cities. <p> |
| 55 | |
| 56 | Cities, with their concentration of talent, mixture of peoples, and |
| 57 | economic surplus, have provided a fertile ground for the evolution of |
| 58 | human culture: the arts, scientific research, and technical |
| 59 | innovation. They serve as centers of communication, where new ideas |
| 60 | and information are spread to the surrounding territory and to foreign |
| 61 | lands. <p> |
| 62 | |
| 63 | <h2>Constraints on City Form</h2> |
| 64 | |
| 65 | Cities are physical artifacts inserted into a preexisting natural |
| 66 | world, and natural constraints must be respected if a settlement is to |
| 67 | survive and prosper. Cities must conform to the landscape in which |
| 68 | they are located, although technologies have gradually been developed |
| 69 | to reorganize the land to suit human purposes. Moderately sloping land |
| 70 | provides the best urban site, but spectacular effects have been |
| 71 | achieved on hilly sites such as San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, and |
| 72 | Athens. <p> |
| 73 | |
| 74 | Climate influences city form. For example, streets have been aligned |
| 75 | to take advantage of cooling breezes, and arcades designed to shield |
| 76 | pedestrians from sun and rain. The architecture of individual |
| 77 | buildings often reflects adaptations to temperature, rainfall, snow, |
| 78 | wind and other climatic characteristics. <p> |
| 79 | |
| 80 | Cities must have a healthy water supply, and locations along rivers |
| 81 | and streams, or near underground watercourses, have always been |
| 82 | favored. Many large modern cities have outgrown their local water |
| 83 | supplies and rely upon distant water sources diverted by elaborate |
| 84 | systems of pipes and canals. <p> |
| 85 | |
| 86 | City location and internal structure have been profoundly influenced |
| 87 | by natural transportation routes. Cities have often been sited near |
| 88 | natural harbors, on navigable rivers, or along land routes determined |
| 89 | by regional topography. <p> |
| 90 | |
| 91 | Finally, cities have had to survive periodic natural disasters such as |
| 92 | earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, and floods. The San Francisco |
| 93 | earthquake of 1906 demonstrated how natural forces can undo decades of |
| 94 | human labor in a very short time. <p> |
| 95 | |
| 96 | <h2>Elements of Urban Structure</h2> |
| 97 | |
| 98 | City planners must weave a complex, ever-changing array of elements |
| 99 | into a working whole: that is the perennial challenge of city |
| 100 | planning. The physical elements of the city can be divided into three |
| 101 | categories: networks, buildings, and open spaces. Many alternative |
| 102 | arrangements of these components have been tried throughout history, |
| 103 | but no ideal city form has ever been agreed upon. Lively debates about |
| 104 | the best way to arrange urban anatomies continue to rage, and show no |
| 105 | signs of abating. <p> |
| 106 | |
| 107 | <h3>Networks</h3> |
| 108 | |
| 109 | Every modern city contains an amazing array of pathways to carry flows |
| 110 | of people, goods, water, energy, and information. Transportation |
| 111 | networks are the largest and most visible of these. Ancient cities |
| 112 | relied on streets, most of them quite narrow by modern standards, to |
| 113 | carry foot traffic and carts. The modern city contains a complex |
| 114 | hierarchy of transportation channels, ranging from ten-lane freeways |
| 115 | to sidewalks. In the United States, the bulk of trips are carried by |
| 116 | the private automobile, with mass transit a distant second. American |
| 117 | cities display the low-density sprawl characteristic of auto-centered |
| 118 | urban development. In contrast, many European cities have the high |
| 119 | densities necessary to support rail transit. <p> |
| 120 | |
| 121 | Modern cities rely on complex networks of utilities. When cities were |
| 122 | small, obtaining pure water and disposing of wastes was not a major |
| 123 | problem, but cities with large populations and high densities require |
| 124 | expensive public infrastructure. During the nineteenth century, rapid |
| 125 | urban growth and industrialization caused overcrowding, pollution, and |
| 126 | disease in urban areas. After the connection between impure water and |
| 127 | disease was established, American and European cities began to install |
| 128 | adequate sewer and water systems. Since the late nineteenth century, |
| 129 | cities have also been laced with wires and conduits carrying |
| 130 | electricity, gas, and communications signals. <p> |
| 131 | |
| 132 | <h3>Buildings</h3> |
| 133 | |
| 134 | Buildings are the most visible elements of the city, the features that |
| 135 | give each city its unique character. Residential structures occupy |
| 136 | almost half of all urban land, with the building types ranging from |
| 137 | scattered single-family homes to dense high-rise apartments. |
| 138 | Commercial buildings are clustered downtown and at various subcenters, |
| 139 | with skyscrapers packed into the central business district and |
| 140 | low-rise structures prevailing elsewhere, although tall buildings are |
| 141 | becoming more common in the suburbs. Industrial buildings come in many |
| 142 | forms ranging from large factory complexes in industrial districts to |
| 143 | small workshops. <p> |
| 144 | |
| 145 | City planners engage in a constant search for the proper arrangement |
| 146 | of these different types of land use, paying particular attention to |
| 147 | the compatibility of different activities, population densities, |
| 148 | traffic generation, economic efficiency, social relationships, and the |
| 149 | height and bulk of buildings. <p> |
| 150 | |
| 151 | <h3>Open Spaces</h3> |
| 152 | |
| 153 | Open space is sometimes treated as a leftover, but it contributes |
| 154 | greatly to the quality of urban life. "Hard" spaces such as plazas, |
| 155 | malls, and courtyards provide settings for public activities of all |
| 156 | kinds. "Soft" spaces such as parks, gardens, lawns, and nature |
| 157 | preserves provide essential relief from harsh urban conditions and |
| 158 | serve as space for recreational activities. These "amenities" |
| 159 | increasingly influence which cities will be perceived as desirable |
| 160 | places to live. <p> |
| 161 | |
| 162 | <h2>Evolution of Urban Form</h2> |
| 163 | |
| 164 | The first true urban settlements appeared around 3,000 B.C. in ancient |
| 165 | Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley. Ancient cities displayed |
| 166 | both "organic" and "planned" types of urban form. These societies had |
| 167 | elaborate religious, political, and military hierarchies. Precincts |
| 168 | devoted to the activities of the elite were often highly planned and |
| 169 | regular in form. In contrast, residential areas often grew by a slow |
| 170 | process of accretion, producing complex, irregular patterns that we |
| 171 | term "organic." Two typical features of the ancient city are the wall |
| 172 | and the citadel: the wall for defense in regions periodically swept by |
| 173 | conquering armies, and the citadel -- a large, elevated precinct |
| 174 | within the city -- devoted to religious and state functions. <p> |
| 175 | |
| 176 | Greek cities did not follow a single pattern. Cities growing slowly |
| 177 | from old villages often had an irregular, organic form, adapting |
| 178 | gradually to the accidents of topography and history. Colonial cities, |
| 179 | however, were planned prior to settlement using the grid system. The |
| 180 | grid is easy to lay out, easy to comprehend, and divides urban land |
| 181 | into uniform rectangular lots suitable for development. <p> |
| 182 | |
| 183 | The Romans engaged in extensive city-building activities as they |
| 184 | consolidated their empire. Rome itself displayed the informal |
| 185 | complexity created by centuries of organic growth, although particular |
| 186 | temple and public districts were highly planned. In contrast, the |
| 187 | Roman military and colonial towns were laid out in a variation of the |
| 188 | grid. Many European cities, like London and Paris, sprang from these |
| 189 | Roman origins. <p> |
| 190 | |
| 191 | We usually associate medieval cities with narrow winding streets |
| 192 | converging on a market square with a cathedral and city hall. Many |
| 193 | cities of this period display this pattern, the product of thousands |
| 194 | of incremental additions to the urban fabric. However, new towns |
| 195 | seeded throughout undeveloped regions of Europe were based upon the |
| 196 | familiar grid. In either case, large encircling walls were built for |
| 197 | defense against marauding armies; new walls enclosing more land were |
| 198 | built as the city expanded and outgrew its former container. <p> |
| 199 | |
| 200 | During the Renaissance, architects began to systematically study the |
| 201 | shaping of urban space, as though the city itself were a piece of |
| 202 | architecture that could be given an aesthetically pleasing and |
| 203 | functional order. Many of the great public spaces of Rome and other |
| 204 | Italian cities date from this era. Parts of old cities were rebuilt to |
| 205 | create elegant squares, long street vistas, and symmetrical building |
| 206 | arrangements. Responding to advances in firearms during the fifteenth |
| 207 | century, new city walls were designed with large earthworks to deflect |
| 208 | artillery, and star-shaped points to provide defenders with sweeping |
| 209 | lines of fire. Spanish colonial cities in the New World were built |
| 210 | according to rules codified in the Laws of the Indies of 1573, |
| 211 | specifying an orderly grid of streets with a central plaza, defensive |
| 212 | wall, and uniform building style. <p> |
| 213 | |
| 214 | We associate the baroque city with the emergence of great |
| 215 | nation-states between 1600 and 1750. Ambitious monarchs constructed |
| 216 | new palaces, courts, and bureaucratic offices. The grand scale was |
| 217 | sought in urban public spaces: long avenues, radial street networks, |
| 218 | monumental squares, geometric parks and gardens. Versailles is a clear |
| 219 | expression of this city-building model; Washington, D.C. is an example |
| 220 | from the United States. Baroque principles of urban design were used |
| 221 | by Baron Haussmann in his celebrated restructuring of Paris between |
| 222 | 1853 and 1870. Haussmann carved broad new thoroughfares through the |
| 223 | tangled web of old Parisian streets, linking major subcenters of the |
| 224 | city with one another in a pattern which has served as a model for |
| 225 | many other modernization plans. <p> |
| 226 | |
| 227 | Toward the latter half of the eighteenth century, particularly in |
| 228 | America, the city as a setting for commerce assumed primacy. The |
| 229 | buildings of the bourgeoisie expand along with their owners' |
| 230 | prosperity: banks, office buildings, warehouses, hotels, and small |
| 231 | factories. New towns founded during this period were conceived as |
| 232 | commercial enterprises, and the neutral grid was the most effective |
| 233 | means to divide land up into parcels for sale. The city became a |
| 234 | checkerboard on which players speculated on shifting land values. No |
| 235 | longer would religious, political, and cultural imperatives shape |
| 236 | urban development; rather, the market would be allowed to determine |
| 237 | the pattern of urban growth. New York, Philadelphia, and Boston around |
| 238 | 1920 exemplify the commercial city of this era, with their bustling, |
| 239 | mixed-use waterfront districts. <p> |
| 240 | |
| 241 | <h2>Transition to the Industrial City</h2> |
| 242 | |
| 243 | Cities have changed more since the Industrial Revolution than in all |
| 244 | the previous centuries of their existence. New York had a population |
| 245 | of about 313,000 in 1840 but had reached 4,767,000 in 1910. Chicago |
| 246 | exploded from 4.000 to 2,185,000 during the same period. Millions of |
| 247 | rural dwellers no longer needed on farms flocked to the cities, where |
| 248 | new factories churned out products for the new markets made accessible |
| 249 | by railroads and steamships. In the United States, millions of |
| 250 | immigrants from Europe swelled the urban populations. Increasingly, |
| 251 | urban economies were being woven more rightly into the national and |
| 252 | international economies. <p> |
| 253 | |
| 254 | Technological innovations poured forth, many with profound impacts on |
| 255 | urban form. Railroad tracks were driven into the heart of the city. |
| 256 | Internal rail transportation systems greatly expanded the radius of |
| 257 | urban settlement: horsecars beginning in the 1830s, cable cars in the |
| 258 | 1870s, and electric trolleys in the 1880s. In the 1880s, the first |
| 259 | central power plants began providing electrical power to urban areas. |
| 260 | The rapid communication provided by the telegraph and the telephone |
| 261 | allowed formerly concentrated urban activities to disperse across a |
| 262 | wider field. <p> |
| 263 | |
| 264 | The industrial city still focused on the city center, which contained |
| 265 | both the central business district, defined by large office buildings, |
| 266 | and substantial numbers of factory and warehouse structures. Both |
| 267 | trolleys and railroad systems converged on the center of the city, |
| 268 | which boasted the premier entertainment and shopping establishments. |
| 269 | The working class lived in crowded districts close to the city center, |
| 270 | near their place of employment. <p> |
| 271 | |
| 272 | Early American factories were located outside of major cities along |
| 273 | rivers which provided water power for machinery. After steam power |
| 274 | became widely available in the 1930s, factories could be located |
| 275 | within the city in proximity to port facilities, rail lines, and the |
| 276 | urban labor force. Large manufacturing zones emerged within the major |
| 277 | northeastern and midwestern cities such as Pittsburgh, Detroit, and |
| 278 | Cleveland. But by the late nineteenth century, factory |
| 279 | decentralization had already begun, as manufacturers sought larger |
| 280 | parcels of land away from the congestion of the city. Gary, Indiana, |
| 281 | for example, was founded in 1906 on the southern shore of Lake |
| 282 | Michigan by the United States Steel Company. <p> |
| 283 | |
| 284 | The increasing crowding, pollution, and disease in the central city |
| 285 | produced a growing desire to escape to a healthier environment in the |
| 286 | suburbs. The upper classes had always been able to retreat to homes in |
| 287 | the countryside. Beginning in the 1830s, commuter railroads enabled |
| 288 | the upper middle class to commute in to the city center. Horsecar |
| 289 | lines were built in many cities between the 1830s and 1880s, allowing |
| 290 | the middle class to move out from the central cities into more |
| 291 | spacious suburbs. Finally, during the 1890s electric trolleys and |
| 292 | elevated rapid transit lines proliferated, providing cheap urban |
| 293 | transportation for the majority of the population. <p> |
| 294 | |
| 295 | The central business district of the city underwent a radical |
| 296 | transformation with the development of the skyscraper between 1870 and |
| 297 | 1900. These tall buildings were not technically feasible until the |
| 298 | invention of the elevator and steel-frame construction methods. |
| 299 | Skyscrapers reflect the dynamics of the real estate market; the tall |
| 300 | building extracts the maximum economic value from a limited parcel of |
| 301 | land. These office buildings housed the growing numbers of |
| 302 | white-collar employees in banking, finance, management, and business |
| 303 | services, all manifestations of the shift from an economy of small |
| 304 | firms to one of large corporations. <p> |
| 305 | |
| 306 | <h3>The Form of the Modern City |
| 307 | in the Age of the Automobile</h3> |
| 308 | |
| 309 | The city of today may be divided into two parts: <p> |
| 310 | |
| 311 | <ul> |
| 312 | |
| 313 | <li>An inner zone, coextensive with the boundaries of the old industrial city. |
| 314 | |
| 315 | <li>Suburban areas, dating from the 1920s, which have been designed for the automobile from the beginning. |
| 316 | |
| 317 | </ul> |
| 318 | |
| 319 | The central business districts of American cities have become centers |
| 320 | of information processing, finance, and administration rather than |
| 321 | manufacturing. White-collar employees in these economic sectors |
| 322 | commute in from the suburbs on a network of urban freeways built |
| 323 | during the 1950s and 1960s; this "hub-and-wheel" freeway pattern can |
| 324 | be observed on many city maps. New bridges have spanned rivers and |
| 325 | bays, as in New York and San Francisco, linking together formerly |
| 326 | separate cities into vast urbanized regions. <p> |
| 327 | |
| 328 | Waves of demolition and rebuilding have produced "Manhattanized" |
| 329 | downtowns across the land. During the 1950s and 1960s, urban renewal |
| 330 | programs cleared away large areas of the old city, releasing the land |
| 331 | for new office buildings, convention centers, hotels, and sports |
| 332 | complexes. Building surges have converted the downtowns of American |
| 333 | cities into forests of tall office buildings. More recently, office |
| 334 | functions not requiring a downtown location have been moved to huge |
| 335 | office parks in the suburbs. <p> |
| 336 | |
| 337 | Surrounding the central business area lies a large band of old |
| 338 | mixed-use and residential buildings which hose the urban poor. High |
| 339 | crime, low income, deteriorating services, inadequate housing, and |
| 340 | intractable social problems plague these neglected areas of urban |
| 341 | America. The manufacturing jobs formerly available to inner city |
| 342 | residents are no longer there, and resources have not been committed |
| 343 | to replace them. <p> |
| 344 | |
| 345 | These inner city areas have been left behind by a massive migration to |
| 346 | the suburbs, which began in the late nineteenth century but |
| 347 | accelerated in the 1920s with the spread of the automobile. Freeway |
| 348 | building after World War II opened up even larger areas of suburban |
| 349 | land, which were quickly filled by people fleeing central city |
| 350 | decline. Today, more people live in suburbs than in cities proper. |
| 351 | Manufacturers have also moved their production facilities to suburban |
| 352 | locations which have freeway and rail accessibility. <p> |
| 353 | |
| 354 | Indeed, we have reached a new stage of urbanization beyond the |
| 355 | metropolis. Most major cities are no longer focused exclusively on the |
| 356 | traditional downtown. New subcenters have arisen round the periphery, |
| 357 | and these subcenters supply most of the daily needs of their adjacent |
| 358 | populations. The old metropolis has become a multi-centered urban |
| 359 | region. In turn, many of these urban regions have expanded to the |
| 360 | point where they have coalesced into vast belts of urbanization -- |
| 361 | what the geographer Jean Gottman termed "megalopolis." The prime |
| 362 | example is the eastern seaboard of the United States from Boston to |
| 363 | Washington. The planner C.A. Doxiadis has speculated that similar vast |
| 364 | corridors of urbanization will appear throughout the world during the |
| 365 | next century. Thus far, American planners have not had much success in |
| 366 | imposing a rational form on this process. However, New Town and |
| 367 | greenbelt programs in Britain and the Scandinavian countries have, to |
| 368 | some extent, prevented formless sprawl from engulfing the countryside. |
| 369 | <p> |
| 370 | |
| 371 | <h3>The Economics of Urban Areas</h3> |
| 372 | |
| 373 | Since the 1950s, city planners have increasingly paid attention to the |
| 374 | economics of urban areas. When many American cities experienced fiscal |
| 375 | crises during the 1970s, urban financial management assumed even |
| 376 | greater importance. Today, planners routinely assess the economic |
| 377 | consequences of all major changes in the form of the city. <p> |
| 378 | |
| 379 | Several basic concepts underlie urban and regional economic analysis. |
| 380 | First, cities cannot grow if their residents simply provide services |
| 381 | for one another. The city must create products which can be sold to an |
| 382 | external purchaser, bringing in money which can be reinvested in new |
| 383 | production facilities and raw materials. This "economic base" of |
| 384 | production for external markets is crucial. Without it, the economic |
| 385 | engine of the city grinds to a halt. <p> |
| 386 | |
| 387 | Once the economic base is established, an elaborate internal market |
| 388 | can evolve. This market includes the production of goods and services |
| 389 | for businesses and residents within the city. Obviously, a large part |
| 390 | of the city's physical plant is devoted to facilities for internal |
| 391 | transactions: retail stores of all kinds, restaurants, local |
| 392 | professional services, and so on. <p> |
| 393 | |
| 394 | Modern cities are increasingly engaged in competition for economic |
| 395 | resources such as industrial plants, corporate headquarters, |
| 396 | high-technology firms, and government facilities. Cities try to lure |
| 397 | investment with an array of features: low tax rates, improved |
| 398 | transportation and utility infrastructure, cheap land, and skilled |
| 399 | labor force. Amenities such as climate, proximity to recreation, |
| 400 | parks, elegant architecture, and cultural activities influence the |
| 401 | location decisions of businesses and individuals. Many older cities |
| 402 | have difficulty surviving in this new economic game. Abandoned by |
| 403 | traditional industries, they're now trying to create a new economic |
| 404 | base involving growth sectors such as high technology. <p> |
| 405 | |
| 406 | Today, cities no longer compete in mere regional or national markets: |
| 407 | the market is an international one. Multinational firms close plants |
| 408 | in Chicago or Detroit and build replacements in Asia or Latin America. |
| 409 | Foreign products dominate whole sectors of the American consumer goods |
| 410 | market. Huge sums of money shift around the globe in instantaneous |
| 411 | electronic transactions. Cities must struggle for survival in a |
| 412 | volatile environment in which the rules are always changing. This |
| 413 | makes city planning even more challenging than before. <p> |
| 414 | |
| 415 | <h2>Modern City Planning</h2> |
| 416 | |
| 417 | Modern city planning can be divided into two distinct but related |
| 418 | types of planning. visionary city planning proposes radical changes in |
| 419 | the form of the city, often in conjunction with sweeping changes in |
| 420 | the social and economic order. Institutionalized city planning is |
| 421 | lodged within the existing structures of government, and modifies |
| 422 | urban growth processes in moderate, pragmatic ways. It is constrained |
| 423 | by the prevailing alignment of political and economic forces within |
| 424 | the city. <p> |
| 425 | |
| 426 | <h3>Visionary or Utopian City Planning</h3> |
| 427 | |
| 428 | People have imagined ideal cities for millennia. Plato's Republic was |
| 429 | an ideal city, although lacking in the spatial detail of later |
| 430 | schemes. Renaissance architects designed numerous geometric cities, |
| 431 | and ever since architects have been the chief source of imaginative |
| 432 | urban proposals. In the twentieth century, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd |
| 433 | Wright, Paolo Soleri, and dozens of other architects have designed |
| 434 | cities on paper. Although few have been realized in pure form, they |
| 435 | have influenced the layout of many new towns and urban redevelopment |
| 436 | projects. <p> |
| 437 | |
| 438 | In his "Contemporary City for Three Million People" of 1922 and |
| 439 | "Radiant City" of 1935, Le Corbusier advocated a high-density urban |
| 440 | alternative, with skyscraper office buildings and mid-rise apartments |
| 441 | placed within park-like open spaces. Different land uses were located |
| 442 | in separate districts, forming a rigid geometric pattern with a |
| 443 | sophisticated system of superhighways and rail transit. <p> |
| 444 | |
| 445 | Frank Lloyd Wright envisioned a decentralized low-density city in |
| 446 | keeping with his distaste for large cities and belief in frontier |
| 447 | individualism. The Broadacre City plan of 1935 is a large grid of |
| 448 | arterials spread across the countryside, with most of the internal |
| 449 | space devoted to single-family homes on large lots. Areas are also |
| 450 | carefully set aside for small farms, light industry, orchards, |
| 451 | recreation areas, and other urban facilities. A network of |
| 452 | superhighways knits the region together, so spatially dispersed |
| 453 | facilities are actually very close in terms of travel time. In many |
| 454 | ways, Wright's Broadacre City resembles American suburban and exurban |
| 455 | developments of the post-WWII period. <p> |
| 456 | |
| 457 | Many other utopian plans could be catalogued, but the point is that |
| 458 | planners and architects have generated a complex array of urban |
| 459 | patterns from which to draw ideas and inspiration. Most city planners, |
| 460 | however, do not work on a blank canvas; they can only make incremental |
| 461 | changes to an urban scene already shaped by a complicated historical |
| 462 | process. <p> |
| 463 | |
| 464 | <h3>Institutionalized City Planning</h3> |
| 465 | |
| 466 | The form of the city is determined primarily by thousands of private |
| 467 | decisions to construct buildings, within a framework of public |
| 468 | infrastructure and regulations administered by the city, state, and |
| 469 | federal governments. City planning actions can have enormous impacts |
| 470 | on land values. From the point of view of land economics, the city is |
| 471 | an enormous playing field on which thousands of competitors struggle |
| 472 | to capture value by constructing or trading land and buildings. The |
| 473 | goal of city planning is to intervene in this game in order to protect |
| 474 | widely shared public values such as health, safety, environmental |
| 475 | quality, social equality, and aesthetics. <p> |
| 476 | |
| 477 | The roots of American city planning lie in an array of reform efforts |
| 478 | of the late nineteenth century: the Parks movement, the City Beautiful |
| 479 | movement, campaigns for housing regulations, the Progressive movement |
| 480 | for government reform, and efforts to improve public health through |
| 481 | the provision of sanitary sewers and clean water supplies. The First |
| 482 | National Conference on City Planning occurred in 1909, the same year |
| 483 | as Daniel Burnham's famous Plan of Chicago. That date may be used to |
| 484 | mark the inauguration of the new profession. The early city planners |
| 485 | actually came from diverse backgrounds such as architecture, landscape |
| 486 | architecture, engineering, and law, but they shared a common desire to |
| 487 | produce a more orderly urban pattern. <p> |
| 488 | |
| 489 | The zoning of land became, and still is, the most potent instrument |
| 490 | available to American city planners for controlling urban development. |
| 491 | Zoning is basically the dividing of the city into discrete areas |
| 492 | within which only certain land uses and types of buildings can be |
| 493 | constructed. The rationale is that certain activities of building |
| 494 | types don't mix well; factories and homes, for example. Illogical |
| 495 | mixtures create nuisances for the parties involved and lower land |
| 496 | values. After several decades of gradual development, land-use zoning |
| 497 | received legal approval from the Supreme Court in 1926. <p> |
| 498 | |
| 499 | Zoning isn't the same as planning: it is a legal tool for the |
| 500 | implementation of plans. Zoning should be closely integrated with a |
| 501 | Master Plan or Comprehensive Plan that spells out a logical path for |
| 502 | the city's future in areas such as land use, transportation, parks and |
| 503 | recreation, environmental quality, and public works construction. In |
| 504 | the early days of zoning this was often neglected, but this lack of |
| 505 | coordination between zoning and planning is less common now. <p> |
| 506 | |
| 507 | The other important elements of existing city planning are subdivision |
| 508 | regulations and environmental regulations. Subdivision regulations |
| 509 | require that land being subdivided for development be provided with |
| 510 | adequate street, sewers, water, schools, utilities, and various design |
| 511 | features. The goal is to prevent shabby, deficient developments that |
| 512 | produce headaches for both their residents and the city. Since the |
| 513 | late 1960s, environmental regulations have exerted a stronger |
| 514 | influence on patterns of urban growth by restricting development in |
| 515 | floodplains, on unstable slopes, on earthquake faults, or near |
| 516 | sensitive natural areas. Businesses have been forced to reduce smoke |
| 517 | emissions and the disposal of wastes has been more closely monitored. |
| 518 | Overall, the pace of environmental degradation has been slowed, but |
| 519 | certainly not stopped, and a dismaying backlog of environmental |
| 520 | hazards remains to be cleaned up. City planners have plenty of work to |
| 521 | do as we move into the twenty-first century. <p> |
| 522 | |
| 523 | <h2>Conclusion: Good City Form</h2> |
| 524 | |
| 525 | What is the good city? We are unlikely to arrive at an unequivocal |
| 526 | answer; the diversity of human needs and tastes frustrates all |
| 527 | attempts to provide recipes or instruction manuals for the building of |
| 528 | cities. However, we can identify the crucial dimensions of city |
| 529 | performance, and specify the many ways in which cities can achieve |
| 530 | success along these dimensions. <p> |
| 531 | |
| 532 | A most useful guide in this enterprise is Kevin Lynch's A Theory of |
| 533 | Good City Form (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1981). Lynch offers five |
| 534 | basic dimensions of city performance: vitality, sense, fit, access, |
| 535 | and control. To these he adds two "meta-criteria," efficiency and |
| 536 | justice. <p> |
| 537 | |
| 538 | For Lynch, a vital city successfully fulfils the biological needs of |
| 539 | its inhabitants, and provides a safe environment for their activities. |
| 540 | A sensible city is organized so that its residents can perceive and |
| 541 | understand the city's form and function. A city with good fit provides |
| 542 | the buildings, spaces, and networks required for its residents to |
| 543 | pursue their projects successfully. An accessible city allows people |
| 544 | of all ages and background to gain the activities, resources, |
| 545 | services, and information that they need. A city with good control is |
| 546 | arranged so that its citizens have a say in the management of the |
| 547 | spaces in which they work and reside. <p> |
| 548 | |
| 549 | Finally, an efficient city achieves the goals listed above at the |
| 550 | least cost, and balances the achievement of the goals with one |
| 551 | another. They cannot all be maximized at the same time. And a just |
| 552 | city distributes benefits among its citizens according to some fair |
| 553 | standard. Clearly, these two meta-criteria raise difficult issues |
| 554 | which will continue to spark debates for the foreseeable future. <p> |
| 555 | |
| 556 | These criteria tell aspiring city builders where to aim, while |
| 557 | acknowledging the diverse ways of achieving good city form. Cities are |
| 558 | endlessly fascinating because each is unique, the product of decades, |
| 559 | centuries, or even millennia of historical evolution. As we walk |
| 560 | through city streets, we walk through time, encountering the |
| 561 | city-building legacy of past generations. Paris, Venice, Rome, New |
| 562 | York, Chicago, San Francisco -- each has its glories and its failures. |
| 563 | In theory, we should be able to learn the lessons of history and build |
| 564 | cities that our descendants will admire and wish to preserve. That |
| 565 | remains a constant challenge for all those who undertake the task of |
| 566 | city planning. <p> |
| 567 | |
| 568 | <p> |
| 569 | |
| 570 | <hr> |
| 571 | <p> |
| 572 | <h2>Micropolis, Unix Version.</h2> |
| 573 | This game was released for the Unix platform |
| 574 | in or about 1990 and has been modified for inclusion in the One Laptop |
| 575 | Per Child program. Copyright © 1989 - 2007 Electronic Arts Inc. If |
| 576 | you need assistance with this program, you may contact: |
| 577 | <a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Micropolis">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Micropolis</a> or email <a href="mailto:micropolis@laptop.org">micropolis@laptop.org</a>. |
| 578 | </p><p> |
| 579 | |
| 580 | This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify |
| 581 | it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by |
| 582 | the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at |
| 583 | your option) any later version. |
| 584 | </p><p> |
| 585 | |
| 586 | This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but |
| 587 | WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of |
| 588 | MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU |
| 589 | General Public License for more details. You should have received a |
| 590 | copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If |
| 591 | not, see <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/">http://www.gnu.org/licenses/</a>. |
| 592 | </p><p> |
| 593 | |
| 594 | <h3 align="center">ADDITIONAL TERMS per GNU GPL Section 7</h3> |
| 595 | |
| 596 | </p><p> |
| 597 | No trademark or publicity rights are granted. This license does NOT |
| 598 | give you any right, title or interest in the trademark SimCity or any |
| 599 | other Electronic Arts trademark. You may not distribute any |
| 600 | modification of this program using the trademark SimCity or claim any |
| 601 | affliation or association with Electronic Arts Inc. or its employees. |
| 602 | </p><p> |
| 603 | |
| 604 | Any propagation or conveyance of this program must include this |
| 605 | copyright notice and these terms. |
| 606 | </p><p> |
| 607 | |
| 608 | If you convey this program (or any modifications of it) and assume |
| 609 | contractual liability for the program to recipients of it, you agree |
| 610 | to indemnify Electronic Arts for any liability that those contractual |
| 611 | assumptions impose on Electronic Arts. |
| 612 | </p><p> |
| 613 | |
| 614 | You may not misrepresent the origins of this program; modified |
| 615 | versions of the program must be marked as such and not identified as |
| 616 | the original program. |
| 617 | </p><p> |
| 618 | |
| 619 | This disclaimer supplements the one included in the General Public |
| 620 | License. <b>TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE UNDER APPLICABLE LAW, THIS |
| 621 | PROGRAM IS PROVIDED TO YOU "AS IS," WITH ALL FAULTS, WITHOUT WARRANTY |
| 622 | OF ANY KIND, AND YOUR USE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. THE ENTIRE RISK OF |
| 623 | SATISFACTORY QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE RESIDES WITH YOU. ELECTRONIC ARTS |
| 624 | DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY WARRANTIES, |
| 625 | INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, SATISFACTORY QUALITY, |
| 626 | FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NONINFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY |
| 627 | RIGHTS, AND WARRANTIES (IF ANY) ARISING FROM A COURSE OF DEALING, |
| 628 | USAGE, OR TRADE PRACTICE. ELECTRONIC ARTS DOES NOT WARRANT AGAINST |
| 629 | INTERFERENCE WITH YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THE PROGRAM; THAT THE PROGRAM WILL |
| 630 | MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS; THAT OPERATION OF THE PROGRAM WILL BE |
| 631 | UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, OR THAT THE PROGRAM WILL BE COMPATIBLE |
| 632 | WITH THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE OR THAT ANY ERRORS IN THE PROGRAM WILL BE |
| 633 | CORRECTED. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN ADVICE PROVIDED BY ELECTRONIC ARTS OR |
| 634 | ANY AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE SHALL CREATE A WARRANTY. SOME |
| 635 | JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF OR LIMITATIONS ON IMPLIED |
| 636 | WARRANTIES OR THE LIMITATIONS ON THE APPLICABLE STATUTORY RIGHTS OF A |
| 637 | CONSUMER, SO SOME OR ALL OF THE ABOVE EXCLUSIONS AND LIMITATIONS MAY |
| 638 | NOT APPLY TO YOU.</b> |
| 639 | </p> |
| 640 | </body> |