This week we discussed how city planning came into origin. The dawn of the industrial era brought with it new towns and urban settlements as people started moving out of villages to work in areas in close proximity to industries and coal mines. As more and more people migrated into these towns they started to expand without required infrastructure. This led these new cities to face challenges never known before; of health and sanitation, traffic,over crowding,and erosion of nature, very similar to the problems our modern cities face.
To manage the growth effectively, or rather as a solution to these problems, new planning principles were laid.Its interesting to note that Europe where the industrial towns first appeared was conscious of the fact the the uncontrolled growth of its cities will someday engulf all the rural landscape.Hence,to protect the nature,laws were established. This is where America is getting to today and the world is awakening to. But a century of uncontrolled spread of our cities has affected nature in ways hard to reverse or replenish.
Its sad that some of the theories of leading architects, like Corbusier and Frank Lyold wright contributed to this pattern. Their visions though utopian in their ideology and modern in their embrace of automobile, led to creation of cities which are car dependent, lack 'street life' and a cohesive fabric. Most of the cities reflect this model today.
Our discussion from here turned its course towards future. Based on the reading of Peter Calthorpe,we discussed principals of regional planning. Congruent with smart growth, we zoomed into the planning of a region, to a city,to a neighborhood and down to street. key points that came out were conservation and restoration of what exists;of nature, culture and communities.The community is defined as made up of civic places, commercial , residential and natural systems. This very beautifully translated a concept into a picture.
To manage the growth effectively, or rather as a solution to these problems, new planning principles were laid.Its interesting to note that Europe where the industrial towns first appeared was conscious of the fact the the uncontrolled growth of its cities will someday engulf all the rural landscape.Hence,to protect the nature,laws were established. This is where America is getting to today and the world is awakening to. But a century of uncontrolled spread of our cities has affected nature in ways hard to reverse or replenish.
Its sad that some of the theories of leading architects, like Corbusier and Frank Lyold wright contributed to this pattern. Their visions though utopian in their ideology and modern in their embrace of automobile, led to creation of cities which are car dependent, lack 'street life' and a cohesive fabric. Most of the cities reflect this model today.
Our discussion from here turned its course towards future. Based on the reading of Peter Calthorpe,we discussed principals of regional planning. Congruent with smart growth, we zoomed into the planning of a region, to a city,to a neighborhood and down to street. key points that came out were conservation and restoration of what exists;of nature, culture and communities.The community is defined as made up of civic places, commercial , residential and natural systems. This very beautifully translated a concept into a picture.
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