Name: Fred Harrison           

Student Number: 699052

Tutorial Day/Time: Monday, 10am

Tutor: Claire Miller

Reading: ‘The Emergence of Modern Planning’- Stephen Ward

Topic Week: 6A Cities of Tomorrow- the origins of urban planning

Modern planning

Planning is a relatively new found profession when compared to many other disciplines such as architecture, surveying and engineering (Ward, 2002). It was only really in the late 19^th and early 20^th century that a few distinctive people decided to take innovative approaches to the design and urban layout of cities in regards to how it will benefit the functioning and appearance of place (Ward, 2002). A need for recreational greenspaces became apparent and was addressed in later years of the 19^th century, with areas such as Central Park in New York being developed by architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux (SimCity Central, 2005). This new thinking was ultimately one of the largest innovations to happen in urban planning history, and was officially described and analysed by Ebenezer Howard in 1898 in his world-renowned novel “Garden Cities of To-Morrow” (SimCity Central, 2005). There is some confusion as to which planners from what countries were the founders of certain ideas as they all draw ideas from one another for their respective cities.

The year 1910, was one of the first years in which urban planning was officially acknowledged, with the French word ‘urbanisme’ included in the countries vocabulary list (Ward, 2002, p. 62). However to portray the developing field of planning of the urban environment, the Dutch term of ‘stedebouw’ was believed to have been founded around the turn of the 20^th century also (Ward, 2002, p. 65). Howard was a man at the forefront of pushing for garden cities in the modern planning era. He originally focused on social reform to drive his ideology of a garden city, however later “concentrated attention on the garden city as a physical entity” (Ward, 2002, p. 47). Howard wanted to see pre-planned towns that were surrounded by green spaces to provide for agricultural land, incorporating both town and country lifestyles into one (Reps, 2002)(See Figure 1 below).

Figure 1: The town-country vision was Howard’s paradigm for the ideal lifestyle for populations with an abundance of social, economic and environmental benefits (The Three Magnets, 2002).

 

What came to be known as the ‘German Letchworth’ was a town in Germany that came closest to the Howard ideal (Ward, 2002, p. 53). It had local employment, low-density housing and community facilities for its 15,000 residents (Ward, 2002). Contrary to Howard’s view of the utopian city was the population was half what he thought would be ideal, however the town still had the embedded mission of educating the residents into a newly found society which echoed Howard’s aim of social reformism (Ward,2002).

Raymond Unwin’s interest in planning cities similar to Howard’s Garden City, was believed to have originated from reading Camillo Sitte’s book in 1902, just prior to Sitte’s death in 1903 (Ward, 2002; Collins & Collins, 1965). Sitte believed that the construction of cities was “simply one aspect of a greater totality of the arts (Gesamtkunstwerk) of which city building was only a part, albeit a totality of several arts in itself” (Collins & Collins, 1965, p. 14). Situations like this, show the domino-like affect planners are able to have on one another. Sitte was a man who learnt a lot of the practical side of planning by researching Haussmann’s ideas; a man who was given the task of revolutionising Paris just prior to modern planning (Van Zanten, 1994). Haussmann, a respected man in his time, was ultimately dismissed between 1865-1870 due to his inability to stay under budget with his wide street ideas, mainly focused near the city centre and not on outer suburbs (Van Zanten, 1994).

Patrick Geddes was a Scottish biologist and sociologist who took a cultural and social outlook upon planning (Ward, 2002). He had a belief in analysing the entire geographical surroundings of a city and surveying its developmental and evolutional characteristics before beginning to plan (Ward, 2002). Geddes also introduced the term ‘conurbation’ to the urban vocabulary list (Ward, 2002, p. 51), however his ability to view the city and its surroundings on a much larger scale had diminutive immediate impacts, thus his ideologies are viewed as failures, along with Haussmann’s, by some critics (Ward, 2002).

Men such as Haussmann looked almost entirely at the practical side of planning, with little value or time for beautifying urban areas (Van Zanten, 1994; Ward, 2002). Contrary to Haussmann’s viewpoint and priorities in planning, were many cities in the United States that came in the form of “The Beautiful City” (Ward, 2002, p. 70). Philadelphia in 1908 for example, saw the creation of a parkway street that ran through the city’s highly dense grid layout on a diagonal angle, creating a greenbelt stretch of land which did however endorse a design fairly similar to Haussmann’s works in Paris (Ward, 2002). Another example is the Pennsylvanian city of Harrisburg (Lacasse, 1997). Although, antithetically to other cities mentioned, at the forefront of Harrisburg was a female planner; Mira Dock (Lacasse, 1997). Dock believed that the provision of green parks, swimming pools and playgrounds for the locals were essential alongside “recreational opportunities” and “clean streets” to stimulate the economy of her city (Lacasse, 1997). Dock’s endeavours had a primary focus on the welfare of society which coincides with the thinking of Howard also (Reps, 2002).

Australia is one of the newborn countries of the world. Before any knowledge about Howard and Unwin’s Garden City ideas were revealed to planners in Australia, the country was already experiencing sprawled development low-density suburban living with large green spaces, simply because of the abundance of land on offer (Ward, 2002).

The Royal Institute of British Architects ran an international conference on town planning in 1910, where they largely shared their ideas of the British Garden City to those attending the conference as well as gaining some further knowledge themselves of planning ideas used by other European countries (Ward, 2002). This conference was a huge turning point in global planning as each country’s main planners were able to exchange contact details with one another and share innovative ideas (Ward, 2002).

It’s impossible to cover the entire history behind the origin of modern planning techniques, but Howard was undoubtedly at the forefront in advertising the ideology behind the Garden City and how he thought the vision could be created (Ward, 2002). Ultimately all those involved in the planning of the modern era have defined planning for different countries and cities in a slightly different way; all with the same mission of a utopian outcome (Ward, 2002).

References

Collins, G., & Collins, C. (1965). Camillo Sitte’s Background, Life and Interests. In Camillo Sitte and the Birth of Modern City Planning (p. 5-15). New York, NY: Random House.

Lacasse, N. (1997). Mira Lloyd Dock. Retrieved from http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/mira_lloyd_dock/13867

Reps, J. (2002). Garden Cities of To-Morrow. Retrieved from http://urbanplanning.library.cornell.edu/DOCS/howard.htm

SimCity Central. (2005). A Brief History of Urban Planning. Retrieved from http://www.simcitycentral.net/knowledge/articles/a-brief-history-of-urban-planning/

The Three Magnets. [Image] (2002). Retrieved from http://urbanplanning.library.cornell.edu/DOCS/howard.htm

Van Zanten, D. (1994). Building Paris: Architectural Institutions and the Transformation of the French Capital. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Ward, S.V. (2002). The Emergence of Modern Planning. In S. Ward (Ed.), Planning the Twentieth Century (pp. 45-80). Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons.