My Take on Urban Planning

Post Reply New Topic

I enjoy studying urban planning and I believe that many of the problems in contemporary urban areas are due to poor, or no, planning and control or urban resources. I am also into urban planning due to my interest in history and due to my constructed world's having an ecumenopolis, a world-covering city, on Earth as its capitol: Here it is, known as Bamphoolna (pronounced /bɐ˥mʘo˩lnɐ˥/).

What do you think would be a well-planned city for the contemporary age, or any age, and why? More to the point, how would you go about planning cities if you were given the ability to do so? What would your cities be like?

Urban planning will not make virtuous people out of slobs and swine.

ruveynb

True, but it does increase efficiency, impose a feel on people and make a city a very nice place if done properly. Look at Chang'an, Qusqu or Harappa for example. Of course it cannot solve everything but overall, I see, throughout history, the most cultured and orderly civilizations using urban planning, and thus my position.

Now, for the contemporary era's new cities, I think a good underground, or overground, system, a grid plan, or maybe a radial plan, and widespread high-quality public housing blocks, easy access to places of work and abundant public buildings are a must. Of course, these things must also be maintained by policy, such as regular cleaning of public areas and streets, strict control of private automobiles and rapid responses to crimes are essential.

hmm i wonder, abgal64, if you might find this of interest...

Formulary for a New Urbanism - Ivan Chtcheglov

i find it fairly interesting. chtcheglov himself is something of an enigmatic character. he wrote this, i believe, when he was 19, and was a huge influence on the french situationist group. he was not involved with them directly as he had earlier been incarcerated in a mental hospital for 5 years, for attempting to blow up the eiffel tower with a stolen dynamite due to its blinking lights keeping him awake at night.

Interesting indeed: I read his essay and about him on Wikipedia after that. I disagree with his statement that many of the foundations of the modern world, such as sanitation and elevators, are somehow opposed to humanity, though I find his "personal cathedral" idea intriguing and wish he would have gone into more detail about it.

When I design cities' housing systems, as you can see in the link in my first post, I always have housing block high-rises for extended families to dwell in. The housing blocks I have designed have no fixed walls on the inside of the building but have movable walls, as well as plumbing, composting toilets and wiring, to divide the spaces occupied by extended families. The blocks are made of pretensioned stained concrete and are hexagonal prisms with 48 floors. Each family gets 14 square metres per inhabitant in their housing unit, the interior of which includes a kitchen, a restroom, closets, movable bedrooms and a movable central gathering room for dining, recreation and relaxation. Each housing block has a central courtyard as well as atria on a fractal plan and a flat, living roof for recreation. Housing blocks are rather ornate with sunken reliefs, calligraphic inscriptions and abstract murals.

you might also find constant nieuwenhuys interesting. especially his concept of new babylon. there is an excellent illustrated book on the subject, which is unfortunately so so easy to get hold of... http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/C ... P_IXPXt98C



constant - new babylon


http://www.notbored.org/constant.html
http://www.notbored.org/homo-ludens.html
http://www.notbored.org/new-urbanism.html




i might also suggest debord's introduction to a critiwue of urban geography , and the early ideas of the situationist movement in general, for an interesting take on urbanism and the geography of the city.


here is an academic paper i found on google which looks, after a cursory glance, to cover their ideas in a general way:

http://pdx.academia.edu/BrianElliott/Pa ... t_Urbanism

I like cities, but I also like having space.

I shall read these; I have just started reading this article about Situationist Architecture: http://newleftreview.org/A2315 . I will be sure to look into Situationism more.

Many of my ideas on urban planning come from premodern societies; this is due to the fact that, perhaps until very recently with the rising power of China, the modern world was very much intertwined with the Western world and thus are relatively similar when compared with, say, the difference between medieval Baġdad and Gangaikonda Cholapuram. Premodern societies' urban planning styles thus give a wider perspective, so to speak, than modern urban planning movements; indeed, many concepts in modern architecture, as in other modern art, are based on premodern, and nonwestern, models. Of course, premodern urban planning can only tell us so much but it does give me quite a lot of ideas on layout and style.

this article looks pretty interesting, after a cursory glance. especially given that he is bringing in the likes of the postman cheval, kurt schwitters, andre breton's nadja, etc. all things i have a great interest in.

the passages quoted in the section on dérive are from debord's theory of the dérive, which again is a very interesting text and can be found here