A Metropolis for the 20^th Century (Canberra)

Grace Sinclair

The history of urban planning in Canberra, such as the debate over where the capital should be located and how it should be designed, reveal a lot of Australia’s place in the world and the major influential planning trends of the twentieth century. Ward (2002) and Freestone (1997) both provide accounts of the progression of planning in Canberra until the involvement of the city’s original designers, the Griffins, was terminated. However, it is also important to look more broadly at the history of the city to gauge to what degree it has been a success.

The ‘battle of the sites’ which took place post-Federation sought to establish a suitable site to build a national capital, revealing the priorities and identities of the then nascent Australian society. The constitution decreed that the capital should be “distant not less than one hundred miles from Sydney” while the parliament would “sit in Melbourne until it meets at the seat of Government” (Freestone, 1997, pp. 4), demonstrating that the major cities of the time were Melbourne and Sydney. It was therefore important that the seat of government sat on the Eastern seaboard, where it could maintain close links to the economic and cultural hubs of the nation. The desire for certain topographical features in the new capital also demonstrates that a unique Australian identity was emerging, as support grew for a ‘Bush Capital’ with strong links to its natural surroundings. This reflected the birth of an Australian identity strongly linked to a connection with the ‘outback’, and the beginning of divergence from British heritage (Brown, 2014). Finally, the many idealistic visions presented for the new capital demonstrated the presence of emerging aspirations in the young country. Ellem (2004) observed that Coulter’s illustration of a utopian ‘New Venice’ perfectly demonstrated the desire of Australians to build a vibrant democracy in the southern hemisphere, while also encapsulating how the fledgling nation still looked towards the northern hemisphere for influence, demonstrated by the European style of buildings in the imagined settlement.

LeIn the plans submitted for the new capital, it is also possible to observe the influence of major twentieth century planning trends on Australia, namely the Garden City and the City Beautiful movements. The Garden City Movement was conceived by Ebenezer Howard with his plan which pictured satellite towns in a circular configuration surrounded by green areas. Early plans for the capital submitted by architect John Sulman in 1909, based on his ‘spiderweb’ principle, featured a radial layout based around a central parliament house, demonstrating the influence of Howard’s original diagram. (Freestone, 1997) Many other early proposals, like Alexander Oliver’s radial plan, also mimicked this design, demonstrating the strength of the Garden City movement (Freestone, 1986).

Figure 1: The Griffins’ design for the Capitol Building. Source: http://www.peo.gov.au/uploads/peo/images/image-library/img-b9a20de25df2884c4834e9d52f3bf6a2.jpg   

Ultimately, the plan which won the 1911 design competition was designed by Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin, who were proponents of the City Beautiful movement. The City Beautiful movement sought to enshrine the city as a civic centre, by featuring wide avenues and grand monuments to inspire civic pride. The trend was particularly popular in America where, in Chicago in 1893, the City Beautiful model had been perfectly epitomised in the ‘White City’, created for the World’s Fair, which Chicagoan Walter Burley Griffin saw and was strongly influenced by (Ellem, 2004).  This can be seen in the Griffins’ plans for Canberra in the inclusion of large, diagonal main avenues, as well as in their original design for the Capitol building, which was a monumental and awe-inspiring design.

Both Ward and Freestone conclude their observations on the history of urban planning in Canberra by foreshadowing the modifications which would be made to the “grand ideas” (Freestone, pp.31) of the Griffins’ original design. These observations are made with a tone that is particularly critical of Australian governance and town planners, who worked in a climate described by Ward (2002) as “time-lagged” (pp75) and who were purportedly undeserving of the Griffins’ “masterpiece” (pp75) which they would go on to corrupt. Certainly, the failure to renew the contracts of the Griffins, severing their involvement in the city’s construction, resulted in many alterations to their original plan. As John Sulman replaced them, the influence of the Garden City movement came to the fore and Canberra was ultimately not constructed in the style of a pure City Beautiful model. The Griffins had no involvement in designing buildings and so emphasis shifted to creating “cottages…mostly single storey” and “simple, pleasing but unpretentious buildings” (Freestone, 1986, pp.14), which were more affordable but also less grand than the awe-inspiring buildings proposed by the City Beautiful movement. Similarly, the Griffins’ residential subdivisions were abandoned, more green areas added, and street corners rounded to greater reflect a Garden City style (Freestone , 1986).

Figure 2: View from the summit of Mount Ainslie, Canberra, 1911 (as originally imagined by Marion Mahony). Source: http://www.jeffreeskewes.com/awards/marion.jpg 

Figure 3: View from Mount Ainslie today. Source: http://www.weekendnotes.com/im/005/04/canberra-from-mount-ainslie-lookout-11.jpg

However, it would perhaps not be justified to characterise these compromises as the result of a backwardness or “parsimony” (Freestone, 1997, pp.31) unique to Australian town planning. Ward (2002) himself notes that many attempts at building the City Beautiful model were compromised in other cities, including Chicago, due to uncertainty about the effectiveness of the design and concerns about cost. Ellem (2004) observes that while Canberra contains compromises in its design, it “remains distinct as the most fully realized, large-scale version of City Beautiful design.” (pp.119). Many critical characteristics of the original design were largely preserved, including the essential layout of the city centre, the grand boulevards and the height restriction on buildings. As Brown (2014) observes, the Griffins’ vision for the city is still very much visible in modern Canberra.

While Ward and Freestone’s evaluation of the history of town planning in Canberra stops at the dismissal of the Griffins, the city’s success should also be evaluated in broader terms that take into account a longer period of town planning and the quality of living that was ultimately achieved in the capital. 2014 OECD rankings showed that Canberra rated highly across housing, environment, civic engagement and safety to be the top ranked region in terms of wellbeing (Riordan, 2014). Therefore, despite its compromises in its ambitious design, Canberra can be viewed as a uniquely realised vision of the City Beautiful that today delivers high quality of life to its inhabitants.

References

Brown, N. (2914). A History of Canberra. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.                 

Ellem, C. (2004, August). No little plans: Canberra, Via Chicago, Washington DC, The Philippines, and onwards. Thesis Eleven, 123(1), pp. 106-122.

Freestone, R. (1986, November). Canberra as a Garden city 1901 - 1930. Journal of Australian Studies, 10(19), pp. 3-20.

Freestone, R. (1997). The Federal Capital of Australia: A Virtual Planning History. Canberra: Urban Research Program.

Riordan, P. (2014, October 7). Canberra named best place in the world... again. The Canberra Times.

Ward, S. V. (2002). The Emergence of Modern Planning. In J. Chichester, Planning the Twentieth Century. Wiley.

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.

The Black Metropolis – James Landy

The Black Metropolis can be considered an African-American city that grew inside of Chicago through segregation of its population as well as a number of other factors that grew from this racism. This metropolis became a ‘capital city’ for African-Americans with The Stroll flourishing as the cultural centre of the Black Metropolis. So how did the Black Metropolis and The Stroll become such important locations for African-Americans in the early 20^th century?  

To understand the formation of the Black Metropolis it is imperative to have a sound understanding of the USA of the early 20^th century. The first aspect necessary to focus on is the history of relationships between African-Americans and the broader American public. It was only in 1865 that the last slaves were freed in the USA which meant that for roughly fifty years former slaves had been struggling to form a life in southern USA as free men and women. While all African-Americans were considered free from slavery, racism was still widespread and even violent, particularly in the south. The prevalence of racism coupled with the low pay and poor living conditions of the south, particularly for for African-Americans, made a southern life exceedingly undesirable and encouraged many to move to more northern cities.

The second relevant aspect of early 20^th century American life is economic opportunity. The desire many African-Americans had to move north was made stronger at the beginning of the First World War when large numbers of American men enlisted and subsequently left the country (and their employment) to fight, resulting in an abundance of jobs across the nation, particularly in blue collar work (railroad work, tanneries, steel mills etc.). This worker shortage led to many African-Americans moving north to find better paid work.

The destination for many African-Americans moving north was Chicago where, like much of the north, the quality of life was better than that of the south, however the area wasn’t free of racism and it was this racism that resulted in the segregation of migrating African-Americans to an area known as the “Black Belt” (Fig. A) which was an exclusively black neighbourhood in Chicago. The rapid influx of African-Americans moving to Chicago (a.k.a. The Great Migration) and the Black Belt being the only available living space for African-Americans created a neighbourhood of incredible density. In fact, it was so densely populated that landlords took to separating whole houses into single room accommodation containing only the bare essentials to make most efficient use of the rapidly decreasing available space.

The high density of the neighbourhood led to a life lived in public spaces; there was little room inside for families or groups to gather, so much of the social activity took place on the street or in public buildings. This very social life, the confinement of and racism towards African-Americans and the relative economic prosperity led to the formation of a Chicagoan “city within a city” or The Black Metropolis.

It is important to acknowledge that the Black Metropolis was not something that was inherent to the Black Belt; the formation of each was its own separate occurrence. As previously discussed, the Black Belt was the name of a physical neighbourhood; a collection of houses. However the Black Metropolis is something much more complex. It was a city that formed out of the Black Belt, with its own distinct culture, an economy of sorts, an atmosphere completely different to that of the rest of Chicago. The Black Metropolis was what came out of the Black Belt, it formed organically over a long period of time in response to a number of factors. Stated explicitly for this paper, the Black Metropolis is the city that formed out of the Black Belt in Chicago.

One factor which greatly affected the formation of the Black Metropolis was the segregation of the African-Americans living in the Black Belt. This segregation was not only with respect to housing location with some groups of white Americans making conscious efforts to limit the work prospects of African-Americans by lobbying employers in certain neighbourhoods to not hire any African-American applicants. This was done in an attempt to keep African-Americans out of particular neighbourhoods and keep areas “all white.”

A second factor to be considered is a flow on from the first; the employment opportunities of African-Americans. As previously mentioned, there were very limited employment prospects for African-Americans outside the Black Belt however the culture of Black Belt residents was one of hard work. This meant that African-American men performed either undesirable work in dangerous or unsavoury positions or, given the lack of skills training of many, gained employment in unskilled positions. However there was another option for some; engage in more creative pursuits such as music and authorship. This creative movement was a drastic change from the early days of African-American Chicago where there was a distinct line between what was considered leisure and what was considered work.

This creative movement can be credited with the formation of ‘The Stroll’ as a cultural hub rather than just a street. The fact that African-Americans could find work as creatives combined with the close proximity in which they were living meant that there was an extremely socially active population with a great amount of creative output and this was manifest in the lively town centre that formed. The Stroll became the capital of the Black Metropolis and the business that took place here was the life blood of the quasi-city with money made from the strip often being directed back into the community in the form of cultural additions such as nightclubs and music venues but also less exciting but equally important additions such as banks and real estate offices.

The Stroll served an important purpose for the African-Americans of the Black Belt and across the country. It was a cultural Mecca for many across the USA and provided much needed support to those living in close proximity. The formation of this powerful symbol was important for more than just the African-American community which occupied it. The process by which the Black Metropolis came about demonstrates how cities can be formed by more than just legislators and planners and underlines the importance of culture in cities and their formation.

Haussmann, Sitte and Streetscapes

Clare Field

Whilst they are not complete opposites, Georges-Eugene Haussmann and Camillo Sitte are two key figures in the urban planning world whose contrasting ideas and influences can still be seen in cities around the world today.

Georges-Eugene Haussmann (commonly known as Baron Haussmann), was asked by Louis Napoleon in 1853 to put his vision of the redesign of Paris into practice and, thus, started his tenure as prefect (Van Zanten, 1994). The emperor was convinced that the France’s main problem was Paris and it’s warren-like state with narrow streets and laneways (Nichols, 2015). As a result, Haussmann redesigned Paris with a series of new thoroughfares and boulevards, leading to main monuments in Paris and, later, out to the new annexed arrondissements. These projects, however, were already underway when Haussmann arrived on the scene as prefect. “The great plan of late 1853 was not one drawn on a blank sheet of paper but on the contrary was engendered from a web of ideas…asserting themselves around [Haussmann]” (pg. 199).

“On his own estimation, the new boulevards and open spaces displaced 350,00 people;… by 1870, one-fifth of the streets in central Paris were his creation; he had spent … 2.5 billion francs on the city; … one in five Parisian workers was employed in the building trade” (Clark, 1984, pp. 37). The creation of these new boulevards, however, resulted in gentrification, with the amount of destroyed housing along the Avenue de l’Opera illustrated in Figure 1. Nichols (2015) makes note of the creation of the boulevard de Sebastopol resulting in 40 streets lost, 2000 dwellings lost and 20,000 people displaced.

Figure 1: Plan for Avenue de l’Opera (Brack)

In the early 1860s, around the time when the original projects of 1853 were completed or almost finished, “scale changed, focus was lost, coordination lapsed” (Van Zanten, 1994, pp.199) - “inflections, elaborations, and extensions” of the initial project “got out of control” and sparked the 1867-1869 financial crisis, consequently resulting in Haussmann’s dismissal. It was the incredible success of the first decade of work that made these new projects seem feasible, but in the end, Haussmann had great difficulty with the state’s budget.

As Nichols (2015) argues, Haussmann’s influence can be seen in cities today other than Paris. Swanson Street in Melbourne with the streetscape depicting the shrine of Remembrance, as well as Royal Parade (Nicholas, 2015) are just two examples that stem from the idea of Haussmann’s wide boulevards in Paris. He also makes note of the Benjamin Franklin parkway, built in Philadelphia in 1917 and the Ville Radieuse designed by Le Corbusier in 1924, which appears more radical than the designs of Haussmann (Nichols, 2015).

Camillo Sitte was prominent roughly 40 years after Haussmann and his ideas were vastly different. As Collins and Collins (1965) argue, Camillo Sitte was raised amongst an “atmosphere of crafts, beauty and somewhat non-conformist creativity” (pp. 8). He was greatly influenced by the artistic and architectural background of his father, Franz, who likewise was “exposed to artistic influence” (pp. 5) from a young age.

He finished high school in 1863 and “entered the atelier of the architect Heinrich von Ferstel in the Technische Hochschule” (Collins & Collins, 1965, pp. 9). He studied not only art-historical and archaeological studies, but also the physiology of sight and space perception. His teacher Rudolph Eitelberger encouraged Sitte’s artistic endeavours such as rendering works of art and is said to be the influence from whom his interest in town planning derived (Collins & Collins, 1965).

In 1873, Sitte’s independent architectural career was launched when the design of the church of Mechitarists (not far off the Ringstrasse in Neubau) was passed over to him from his father. Just two years later, he was invited to become the director of the State School of Applied Arts in Salzburg; a position which Eitelberger had recommended, but to which his father adamantly objected (Collins & Collins, 1965). Before their departure to Salzburg, Sitte snd his wife Leopoldine were married in the Mechitaristen church, the design of which Collins & Collins (1965, pp. 10) describe as “novel; …the first church building to resume an ordered Renaissance appearance after the fad for the medieval”, reflecting Camillo’s “non-conformist” character.

Nichols (2015) suggests that Sitte is not necessarily the diametric opposite to Haussmann, but provides an excellent contrast to his views on city planning. According to Van Zanten (1994), Haussmann was “a practical man” whose Nouveau Paris has been described as “the solution to problems rather than the imposition of an ideal” (pp. 199). Sitte, however, was very much concerned with the town planning as “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, pp. 14). Site also spoke of French culture, remarking that he “could not understand it, did not want to understand it, and that anyway it counted for nothing” (pp. 15).

In line with Sitte’s artistic driven views was his desire to re-establish a system of organic town planning (Nichols, 2015), incorporating the organic, romantic nature of winding streets that twisted and turned to reveal hidden streetscapes. Whilst this is a complete contrast to Haussmann’s wide boulevards of Paris, with key visual points at the ends of the streets, both design ideas can be seen in cities around the world, reflecting the individual nature of those particular places.  

References

Brack, M. Plan for Avenue de l’Opera. Architecture and Society III, 19th and Early 20th-Century Urbanism. Retrieved from http://archsoc.westphal.drexel.edu/New/ArcSocIIISA9.html on 3/4/15

Clark, T. J. (1984). The Painting of Modern Life. Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

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

Nichols, D. (2015) Haussmann, Sitte and Streetscapes. Lecture delivered for Urban History, Melbourne, 1/4/15.

Van Zanten, D. (1994). Haussmann, Baltard and Municipal Architecture. In Building Paris: Architectural Institutions and the Transformation of the French Capital, 1830-1870 (pp. 198-213). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

CITIES AND RIVERS

URBAN WATER COURSES

Humans have been managing rivers and utilising their water from as early as 6000BC in Mesopotamia (Douglas, 2013). Due to the benefits that easy access to water can provide, many cities were – and still are – built on rivers, lakes and near the sea. The relationship between urban life and the natural topography of the land is often in a state of tension, as humans try to manage natural water courses for their own needs. Which begs the question: is there a cultural imperative in cities to defy nature and topography?

Aqueducts (Figure 1) were utilised from as early as 1000BC in the ancient city of Nineveh (Douglas, 2013) to control the flow of water. Aqueducts gave cities access to fresh water, which could then be utilised for the irrigation of crops. Canals were also utilised for the access of water in ancient cities such as Chang’an. Despite this, canals were not embraced in the Western world until the 18^th century (Nichols, 2015). Canals allowed for easy transportation of goods – especially beneficial when transporting pottery, as roads were often unstable and therefore unreliable for safely transporting fragile objects. In addition, canals helped to avoid problems with flooding, as they were able to divert water flow away from the city (Douglas, 2013).

History tells us that cities could be made or broken based upon their access – or lack thereof – to water. Water sources allowed for easy irrigation of land and the subsequent production of crops, as well as providing cities with access to trade by boat. In addition to this, water could provide cities with a barrier from attackers, thus aiding defence (Douglas, 2013).

Despite human attempts to control the natural paths of watercourses through urban areas, it can often prove difficult. Even the use of concrete channels can prove ineffective at controlling watercourses. Rivers flow naturally, meandering along a dynamic and ever-changing path (Figure 2). Building a city near a water source often came with a variety of problems, including an increased risk of flooding and lack of sanitation. The unpredictable nature of watercourses lead to a desire for control, and in the early 15^th century the ‘ideal city’ was depicted by Fra Carnevale as one where water was confined solely to aesthetic purposes (Figure 3) in the urban setting.

 

  

The difficulties associated with building a city near a river were grossly evident in 19^th century London. The industrialisation of the city meant that waste material from mills and factories was often released into water channels (Douglas, 2013). In addition to this, it was common practice to dispose of household wastes into the streets, leading to widespread issues with public health and sanitation. In order to deal with the growing issues with widespread, waterborne disease, rivers would often be buried below streets. They could then be utilised as combined sewers, transporting the city’s waste and surface runoff away without coming into contact with its residents. The River Fleet ­– which used to run through central London, before heading northwest towards the Hampstead Heath – is a prime example of a buried river. The river was contaminated with waste materials from tanneries and factories in the city (Douglas, 2013), making it impassable for boats. The river was unsanitary, a danger to public health and no longer provided the benefits of access due to its reduced condition. As a result, the river began to be covered in part. Eventually, the entire river was covered up towards the Hampstead Heath, and the subterranean river now serves as a sewer (Talling, 2011).

While rivers were once covered in the interest of public health, the uncovering – or daylighting – of rivers is being implemented in attempts to better city life. The 21^st century has seen a shift towards focussing on mental health and wellbeing instead of physical health (Hebbert, 1999), and many people now desire a connection to nature in the urban setting. The Cheonggyecheon stream used to run through Seoul, Korea until the early 20^th century when it was covered for safety and public health purposes  (Chung, Hwang, & Bae, 2012). During the 1970s an expressway was built over the covered stream, as urbanisation of the land continued. The expressway proved to be an eyesore that impacted on the cultural life of the city (Lee & Anderson, 2014), and after investigation of public opinion, the expressway was removed in 2003. The restoration of the stream proved beneficial to Seoul, as improved air quality and cooler temperatures were reported (Chung et al., 2012), along with the benefit of more attractive public, urban space (Figure 4).

 

The human desire to utilise watercourses for their own needs is still prevalent in 21^st century society. Despite this, there has been a marked shift in interest towards mental health, and how urban form can impact upon wellbeing. The integration of green space and natural watercourses in the city has been implemented in cases such as Seoul, to great effect. Whether cases such as these are prediction of the new ‘ideal city’ remains to be seen.

REFERENCES:

Chung, J.H., Hwang, K.Y. & Bae, Y.K. (2012). The loss of road capacity and self-compliance: Lessons from the Cheonggyecheon stream restoration. Transport Policy, 21(1), 165-178.

Douglas, I. (2013). Cities: An Environmental History. London, England: I.B.

Tauris & Co. Ltd.

Hebbert, M. (1999). A city in good shape: Town planning and public health. Town Planning Review, 70(4), 433-453.

Lee, J. & Anderson, C. (2014). The Restored Cheonggyecheon and the Quality of Life in Seoul. Journal of Urban Technology 20(4), 3-22.

Nichols, D. (2015). Transport and its impact on cities. Lecture delivered for

Urban History, Melbourne, 17/3/2015. Available at

https://app.lms.unimelb.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-4749657-dt-content-rid16647370_2/courses/ABPL20034_2015_SM1/urban%20history%202015%20transport.pdf

Roman Aqueducts - Marvels of Engineering. (2015). Retrieved from

http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201411/aqueducts-roman-engineering/

The Ideal City. (2015). Retrieved from

http://art.thewalters.org/detail/37626/the-ideal-city/

Talling, P. (2011). London’s Lost Rivers. London, England: Random House Books.

Wilkinson, J. (2010). Rio Negro Floodplain, Patagonia, Argentina: Image of the Day. Retrieved from http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=42640

Week 4A- Life, Death and Disease in the City

Bianca Censori 638663

Living within a city holds opportunities, vitality and prospects, that being said, vast sizes of population compared to rural living obviously hold risk of poverty and disease.

How do cities prevent disease and filth? What needs to be considered in any case study of epidemic illness or plague within a city is why and how the issue is coming alight. Hebbert has claimed that ‘public health and town planning are blood brothers’ (Hebbert, 1999 pg. 433) in some cases this is extremely true, and to plan a city is to keep away its citizens from partial dangers or unsanitary areas. Fresh air was brought to light as a main concern on the health of citizens in a city, obviously a revelation on keeping residential areas next to rotting organic matter and closed space areas such as blind alleys created a ‘concentration of sickness and death’ (Hebbert, 1999 pg. 434), these gases were said to be ‘actual poison’ (Health of Towns Association, 1846) to the human health, has changed the ventilation health within cities, thus town planning must come in as a solution to the accumulation of filth and plays an extremely important role in health of civilians within the cities. ‘A free blow through’ (Hebbert, 1999 pg. 434) forced town planners to engage in ‘open streets’ (Hebbert 1999 pg. 434), the Grid approach in town planning is a very good example of this, the movement to encourage ventilation and natural light through the vast area of a city, opening streets at all ends of the city allows the free flow of air and pollution out of the city (Kostof, 1991).

Ventilation is not the only cause for disease within a city; a good example of this is the great plague of London in 1665, saw a vast uproar in rats carrying disease-ridden fleas, feeding off filth and human waste in the city (Lloyd Moote, 2004). Life within this time in a city encouraged dense living conditions and the first areas affected by the plague were the poorer districts, a large demand in living space encouraged landlords to create ‘dense development’ (Hebbert 1999 pg. 434). Rats were attracted to the filth of pollution and human waste within the cramped slums of London; this again results back to poor town planning. Living within population dense, poorly curated areas of pollution breeds the chance of poverty and disease, each and every individual living in these areas are more likely to come into contact with others who have the disease or a disease carrying vesicle. Encouraging an environment to thrive that induces disease to spread and flourish was a clear issue in early town development.  The great fire of 1666 saw a fairly successful solution to the pandemic of disease within London and it was chance for a ‘healthier’ town planning to arise (Hebbert 1999 pg. 435). The importance of city scape and urban development was projected to cut the death rate by a third, therefore encouraging Vitruvius’ (Hebbert 1999, pg 435) significance to alignment within the city and implementing sanitary norms directly contributed to the decrease in disease.  

 

Health concerns within a city does not always have to be physical. With a shift in ventilated, open street cities and sanitary norms individuals bring a light a different kind of illness within cities in the early 1900s. Mental stability and wellness can be associated with nature, water and greenery. The ‘garden City’ approach aimed to instantaneously link physical wellbeing and mental health within the city by encouraging interactive spaces, for example parks and green spaces within the city can allow for individuals to be exposed to the benefits of green spaces, as mentioned above, as well as utilize them for healthy interactions or exercise within a city that can sometimes feel isolating. This encourages a weighted importance for urban planners to refer to a ‘Garden City’ as a healthier approach to the mental wellbeing of citizens. Encouraging cities full of playgrounds, gardens and parks was seen to allow individuals to have ‘informal grouping around green space’ (Hebbert, 1999 pg. 239) increasing the sociability within a city with careful town planning and spaces that invite individuals to congregate can heavily encourage the amiability and mental wellbeing of the city dwellers.

 

A large portion of city health had been focused on physical layout of the city, Sir Francis Galton shifted the focus from the environmental city itself to the actually citizens within the city. In 1908 he founded the Eugenics Society, which in short aimed to encourage the genetic quality by urging individuals with desired characteristics to procreate. (Hebbert, 1999, pg 443) This ideology pushes that the environment is not to blame for wellbeing in the city but much rather population is able to create individuals that are born ‘healthy’. Although this may sound like it would benefit population as a whole, in the early implementation of eugenics a tendency for forced sterilization was extremely mentally detrimental for citizens (Murdock 1974), although the population as a whole would be rid of these ‘undesirable characters’ the effect on health to individuals was huge and a promotion of these unethical procedures begins to build as a culture in cities creating social segregation and self induced superiority.

It is clear that urban planning plays a large role in the mental and physical wellbeing within the public of cities. To produce an ‘ideal city’ free of illness of all kinds to citizens, many factors including appropriate disposal of waste, suitable density of living, ventilation and spaces that encourage movement and sociability need to be considered in the placement of the city. Obviously as our society develops and changes new problems within urbanized cities, which have not been seen as important prior, arise and therefore it is left to planners to find a solution to issues whilst aiming to produce city spaces with ‘various functioning part’ (Mumford, 1938).

References:

A.     Lloyd Moote, ‘The Great Plague: The story of London’s most deadly Year’ 2004

Charles W. Murdock, ‘Steilizaion of the Retarded: A Problem or a Solution?’ California Law Review: Vol. 62. 1974

Health of Towns Association (Pamphlet), ‘Why are towns Unhealthy?’ Health of Towns Association Manchaster and Salford, 1846

Michael Hebbert, ‘A City in Good Shape: Town Planning and public Health’ Town Planning Review 70 (4) 1999, pp. 443-453

Lewis Mumford, ‘The Culture of Cities’, London, Martin Secker & Warburg, 1938

Spiro Kostof, ‘The Grid’ in Kostof, The City shaped London: Thames and Hudson, 1991 pp. 95-123

Fig 1. The Vitruvian Man. 2015. The Vitruvian Man. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.vivamalta.net/VMforum/index.php?topic=4428.0. [Accessed 26 March 2015]

 Fig 2. Ebenezer Howard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2015. Ebenezer Howard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebenezer_Howard. [Accessed 26 March 2015].