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Copyright for this article is retained by the author. Subsequent publication rights are subject to the authorisation of the author. © Peter j. Brennan - 2017
1
Living Cities – Part 1.
Introduction Until I was 11 years old, the largest city I had ever experienced in person, had a population of
just 18,000 people. I had spent the majority of my childhood on farms and in small rural towns
in the State of Victoria, in the temperate climates of south-eastern Australia.
While I was certainly aware of large cities, what ‘knowledge’ I had, was gleaned from what I
had seen or heard on television and radio, or the impressions I had formed from the viewing
of an occasional movie. My parents and extended family were also country people, so until
my first visit to a capital city, I only ‘knew’ the city through the lens of others, or the
concoctions of my own imagination. Cities were therefore abstract places, and, based on what
little I did know, places of considerable violence and mayhem.
At the age of 11, in what I can only assume was a clerical error, I was selected in an under 14
‘Victorian Country’ Australian rules football squad to play against a ‘Metropolitan’ squad.
The vision I had formed of the city was not positive, so I approached my first journey to
Melbourne, Victoria’s state capital, with considerable trepidation.
Just north of Melbourne, the Hume Highway, as it was at the time, crossed Pretty Sally, part
of a chain of hills that eventually rises to join the Great Dividing Range. That range, of at
times rugged hills and mountains, runs the length of the east coast of Australia and quite
literally divides the moist and greener coastal environments along the highly populated east
coast, from the warmer, largely pastoral and cropping, semiarid and arid lands of the inland.
Pretty Sally screened Melbourne from any view of the city as you travelled by road from the
north, so the expanse of the city proper was only revealed in full, when I crested that hill.
That scene, revealed to me for the first time that
night, of the city ablaze with lights, was both
spectacular and life changing.
It was 8PM on a winters evening, and before
me, was a dazzling panorama. For someone
who had grown up in a landscape with big
starry skies and relatively little terrestrial light, to
see the city at night, under a starless sky, quite
literally turned my world upside down. The sky, which I had always known as a place of
boundless stars, was desolate, while the earth beneath, was bejewelled and glistening with
lights.
Some readers may think me a dreadful hick, but they may also be surprised to discover that
up until very recently, the vast majority of people on this planet were born, raised and resided
in rural settings, so experiencing a big city for the very first time was the norm, not the
The suburbs of Melbourne at night. Photograph by
the author.
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2
exception. It was as recently as 2009/10 when the urban populations of the planet passed 3.5
billion, that meant that for the first time in human history, more people lived in the cities of
the world than lived in the combined regional areas of the planet. But that rate of urbanisation
of global populations, is escalating at an astounding rate.
Anthropologists and Archaeologists tell us, that human beings first started to live in what we
would recognise today as towns, in Mesopotamia approximately 7,000 years ago. That
marked the point in human evolution, when our knowledge of cropping and the
domestication of some animals, had evolved sufficiently to enable the establishment of large,
permanent or semi-permanent communities. It took a further 7,000-years for our global cities
to reach populations of 1 billion in 1961/62, and another 48 years for global urban populations
to surpass those of the collective regions of the world. But forecasts are that by 2050, global
urban populations will exceed 6 billion people.
“Globally, more people live in urban areas than in rural areas, with 54 per cent of the world’s
population residing in urban areas in 2014. In 1950, 30 per cent of the world’s population
was urban, and by 2050, 66 per cent of the world’s population is projected to be urban.”1
These figures as reported by the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs /
Population Division, do not look too alarming on first glance. A 36% increase in 100 years would
not appear particularly catastrophic in the eyes of many; it averages out at a growth rate of
just .36 of 1% per year. But the expression of this data in percentage terms can create
confusion, and perhaps disguises rather than illuminates the extent of the challenge. The
magnitude of the urbanisation challenge becomes clearer for the average person, when those
figures are expressed in pure population numbers.
In 1950 the estimated global population
was just 2.55 billion people, 30% of 2.55
billion places the total urban population
at just 765 million people.
The world’s population in 2050 is
projected to be 9.3 billion. The United
Nation’s estimate of 66% translates to
6.14 billion people living in our global
cities in 2050. That is more people living
in our cities in 2050 than lived on the
entire planet in the year 2000.
It is also worth noting that while the
global population is expected to rise by 3.17 billion between 2000 and 2050, for the first time
in recorded history, rural population numbers are projected fall in that same period. This will
have profound impacts on cultures, languages, traditions and environments globally. While
1 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs/Population Division, 2014, World Urbanization Prospects -
The 2014 Revision, p. xxi
Graph by author and based on data contained within the
World Urbanization Prospects - The 2014 Revision cited
below.
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3
many might characterise this as the natural consequence of modernisation, few have a real
appreciation for the societal, economic and environmental costs of such an erosion of local
communities and cultures.i This essay will however primarily focus on the challenges for
cities of the urbanisation of populations and we will revisit the broader regional challenges in
a future essay.
The overall phenomenal growth rate projected for our cities over the next 3 decades, is fuelled
by social, economic, and environmental forces, that are already considerably outpacing the
strategic preparedness of nations and urban administrators. This essay focuses on those
forces and in particular considers the policy and design approaches of governments, city
administrators, and city planners, and the adequacy or otherwise of conventional approaches
in responding to these challenges.ii
Lessons of history
“Our city is over-crowded, congested and polluted. Traffic gridlock is a worsening
problem and causes significant delays in the transport of goods across the city, and
in our ability to rapidly deploy emergency services when required. Crime is out of
control and our communities live in fear of the criminals and gangs who appear to
act with relative impunity within our city.”
Statements expressing such sentiments are commonly found in our media across the world.
But while I have rephrased some of the original language, this statement is a fairly accurate
translation of written accounts of the conditions in Rome in the 16th-century, London in the
17th-century, and Paris in the 19th-century.
High crime rates, violence, traffic congestion, even graffiti and vandalism to buildings are not
new problems, these were the problems in Rome (and across Italy) 500 years ago, London 400
years ago, and Paris a century and a half ago. While the scale may have changed, the basic
concerns of populations today, are the concerns that have beset urban populations for
centuries; overcrowding, safety, access to services, clean water, clean air, transport,
employment and housing. iii
Historically, it has been the power of the religious leaders, the military, or the monarchy, that
has shaped the modern form of our cities in most cultures. That began to change in the 18th
and 19th –centuries, with the emergence of the industrial and banking giants out of the
industrial revolution, and changed dramatically in the 20th-century when the destructive
power of military weaponry, reached the cataclysmic capacities that we live with to this day.
Historically however, city-wide destruction usually only occurred as a consequence of natural
disaster or, as a decision to demolish all, or part of a city, by an all-powerful authority. In the
late 16th-century in Rome, Pope Sixtus V was just such an ‘all powerful’ authority.
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Rome:
There is no doubt that Sixtus V was a rather ruthless character. An authoritarian who would
use any and all means at his disposal, to achieve his ambition of rebuilding the power of the
Roman Catholic Church as part of the Counter Reformation. But despite what I may think of
the brutality and lack of humanity with which Sixtus administered the populace, he did
reshape Rome and established the underlying architecture, that sustains the beautiful city of
Rome as we know it today.
The population of Rome in 1580 was just 80,0002. The broader city, established during the
age of empire, had been in a sustained state of decline throughout the middle ages and was
further destroyed in the sacking of Rome in 1527. By 1585 the city had reached such a decrepit
state, that the centre of Rome was a slum with a few remnant historic buildings dotted across
the city. This central precinct was however an island, surrounded by the ruins of the once
great city of Rome. Despite it’s relatively modest population by contemporary standards,
Rome was a crowded, squalled, and filthy city, that lacked most basic amenities.
Shanties were clustered along the narrow roads and alleys of the city, leading to transport
congestion and chaos that made the movement of goods, or the military, an impossibility. The
city also lacked basic sanitation infrastructure, so the streets and waterways were polluted
with raw sewerage, grey water, and waste. Predictably then, hundreds of people died in the
inevitable and regular outbreaks of disease which tormented the populace.
That most quintessential of postcard images, the Colosseum, was at that time, described as a
ruin that functioned principally as ‘a lair for bandits and thieves who terrorised the streets of Rome
at night’.
Faced with the realities of Rome’s decline, Pope Sixtus V, having ascended to the Papacy in
1585, developed and implemented a grand, unified vision for Rome.
Sixtus V sought to reinstate Rome as the cultural and religious capital; the symbolic centre of
Catholicism on earth. His vision was to build a Rome that gave physical manifestation to
Catholic values, and reinforce the power of the Church in Rome, throughout Italy, and across
the world. He entered into a period of profound reform that changed the face of Rome in
just a few short years.
The architectural foundation for modern Rome was established through his linking of the
great public piazza’s, the grand churches, and palaces of the city. This included the building
of public areas in front of any churches or palaces, where such public spaces had not
previously been provided. In this way, Sixtus created physical links between the Seven Hills
of Rome.
2 Partner, Peter., 1976., Renaissance Rome: A Portrait of a Society 1500-1590., University of California Press., P.83
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5
Previous Popes had undertaken some works on
improving Rome. These included Michelangelo’s Piazza
Campidoglio, and the building of sections of broader
roadways, but these had all been incremental
improvements specific to a location and, in many cases,
never actually finished. Sixtus by contrast, brought to
the process, a more strategic and far ranging vision; the
unification of central Rome.
The broad roadways he envisioned, created physical
and visual connections between the important cultural
and symbolic nodes of the city. It provided Rome with
a coherent transport framework, allowing for the freer movement of the populace and the
transport of goods and the military, so necessary for the development of a viable economy
and the re-establishment and maintenance of civil order.
As part of the broader works, Sixtus also
drained the marshes of the putrid waste of
generations, and had new channels constructed
for the transportation of clean water into the
city. Diagrammatic representations of the
period also show the extensive areas of
greenspace, including water features and
parklands he envisioned.
More broadly, Sixtus did not just limit his
efforts to Rome. He rebuilt the great ports of the
coastal areas of Italy and upgraded the vital
transport links to those ports, recognising that for a city to prosper, commerce and trade were
essential. This reflects an understanding that the culture and viability of a society, is
influenced by much more than simple appearance. It is enabled by complex and interrelated
dependencies, including what we call today economic forces, employment opportunities,
education and social programs. Sixtus, for example, built hospices and implemented social
and educational programs for the poor as part of the renewal of Rome.
The extent and pace of Rome’s renewal under Sixtus V’s rule, is no better characterised than
in the quoting of priest Angelo Grillo, by Roderick Conway Morris, in his April 1993 essay in
Spectator. Father Grillo returned to Rome in 1595 after an absence of many years, and upon
his return he wrote:
“I am in Rome, but I no longer find Rome here: there are so many new buildings,
streets, piazzas, fountains, obelisks and other extraordinary marvels... that I can
hardly find a trace of the old Rome I left behind.”
Diagrammatic of Sixtus V’s plan of Rome
Sixtus V’s plan for Rome
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A substantial amount of the renewal of Rome was implemented within the short 5 years of
Sixtus V’s papacy from 1585, through to the time of his death in 1590. The Rome we know
today, owes much to his foundational architectural framework.
London:
The next historic example is one of possibility not realised, and although the London we know
today is a vibrant and multicultural city, it did arguably forgo the opportunity to lead the
world in the creation of grand and beautiful city renewal in the 17th and 18th-centuries.
London had been presented with an opportunity to deal with its own problems of
overcrowding, disease, polluted waterways and rampant crime, with the Great Fire of London
in 1666, but the city was both unwilling and unable to seize the opportunity that the great fire
had afforded.
London in the 1600’s was not a very pleasant city. It was experiencing considerable
population growth with displaced rural populations moving to London in search of work in
the factories, slaughterhouses and industries that were at the heart of London’s economic
expansion. The estimated population of London in 1666 was 500,000 people. But it was a city
that was crowded, dirty, and periodically devastated by outbreaks of plague, typhoid and other
diseases. The River Thames was little more than a large open sewer, and in combination with
coal soot and smoke, left central London with an all pervading greyness of atmosphere and
an oppressive and foul smell. A stench which was assumed by many, to be the primary cause
of the bouts of illness and disease that often beset the city and its populace.
While the Great Fire of London was a catastrophe in terms of overall property loss, it actually
claimed few lives, with just 6 confirmed deaths, but it also afforded the city an opportunity to
redefine and reshape its identity.
After the fire, submissions were called for the
redesign and rebuilding of London. Of those
submissions, two in particular are held
forward today as best representing the
opportunity lost. Sir Christopher Wren and Sir
John Evelyn, had independently presented
new plans that proposed layouts for central
London that were comparable in aesthetic, to
those that would be implemented in Paris,
nearly two centuries later.
The Wren plan, proposed piazza’s, public
parks and other civic spaces, all linked by
grand and usually tree lined boulevards.
These were designed to create physical and visual links between the existing and proposed
new, landmarks and public spaces of the city. Those plans, like those of Sixtus V 80 years
earlier, recognised the imperative of linking the public spaces and cultural icons of the city.
Sir Christopher Wren’s plan for London
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They also reinforced the importance of ensuring green spaces were created to support the
health and general wellbeing of the public, through the provision of recreational opportunity,
clean air, sunlight, and access to nature.
This philosophy, also lay very much at the heart
of Sir John Evelyn’s’ plan for London. Sir John
was a passionate advocate for the planting of
fragrant and leafy trees throughout the city.
This was primarily an attempt to mitigate the
harmful consequences of both air pollution and,
the stench from the streets and waterways of
the city. Sir John was an advocate of the role of
green public parks, and open space in
improving the aesthetic of a city, and in
providing for the physical and mental wellbeing
of its citizens.
Unfortunately, both plans went largely unrealised. The land tenure for the majority of the
buildings destroyed in the Great Fire of London, was privately held, and the land owners were
unwilling to relinquish their titles nor forfeit their rights under law. As a consequence,
landowners rebuilt on their original allotments, and the old mediaeval street layout of central
London was reinstated, much to the frustration of contemporary vehicle users and commuters
in central London today. It would take another century and a half for some of the great parks
and gardens to be implemented as part of the major sewerage infrastructure works that so
changed the face (and smell) of London between 1859 and 1875.
Paris:
Paris faced familiar problems in the 19th-century. Many might be surprised to know that the
Paris we know it today, is actually a comparatively recent manifestation of the historic city.
In fact, it is commonly agreed that the major urban renewal commissioned by Napoleon III in
1853, was only really completed in 1927. The Paris of pre-1853 was a far cry from the beautiful
city we know today.
It was a city that had grown to a population of over a million, but it was a squalled, cramped,
and filthy city with roaming bands of thieves and criminals, terrorising much of the citizenry.
It, like London and Rome before it, was a city periodically racked by outbreaks of cholera,
typhoid and tuberculosis, all of which wreaked havoc on the general populace. It was an
unhealthy and squalled city of open sewers and fouled streets that all spewed their waste into
the heavily polluted River Seine. The river was as a consequence, a source of overwhelming
noxious odours and a place that was avoided where possible.
Paris was a city of crowded buildings clustered along meandering mediaeval streets that
made the transport of goods, people, and the rapid deployment of police and military to deal
with outbreaks of violence, almost impossible.
Sir John Evelyn’s plan for London
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In 1853, Napoleon III provided a simple and
explicit brief to his appointed designer,
Georges-Eugène Haussmann; make Paris more
beautiful. Napoleon wanted to bring light and
air into the centre of the city and to unify and
connect the city through the establishment of
grand tree lined boulevards, much as had been
proposed for London by Wren and Evelyn.
The Paris we know today, is founded in the
boulevards and parks, and building height
restrictions implemented by Haussmann to
ensure that the sunlight was able to strike city
streets. In combination with the extensive
water and sewerage infrastructure works, the
city of Paris was transformed from a relic of the
middle ages, into a new modern city able to take
advantage of the benefits of the booming
industrial economy of the day.
This renewal was not without controversy.
Great swathes of housing along with many
medieval streets and laneways, were demolished in order to deliver Haussmann’s plans. Even
today, there remain those who argue that the renewal of Paris was achieved at too great a
social cost and destroyed an important medieval city. Those views are however, very much
in the minority.
Context is however critically important. When Napoleon III set forth on his ambitious plan
to renew central Paris, it was little over half a century since the end of the French Revolution.
Therefore, the great avenues and vistas created, like those created in Rome under Sixtus V,
did not link to private symbols of wealth and power. They linked instead to public spaces,
parklands and historic and cultural symbols of the French people.
This approach was very much in the spirit of the
liberalism and democratic ideals so alive in
French citizenry of the day. The design, while
serving the more utilitarian desires of Napoleon
and the city authorities, was very much a
celebration of the history and spirit of the French
people, and not just the reinforcement of
individual or institutional power.
Reflecting this, we note that while the grand
boulevardes and axis points, created the robust
Image of contemporary Paris, The Telegraph
Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s plan for Paris
Unattributed image of Paris, The Traveller.
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but elegant architectural foundation for the city, much of the intricate medieval roads and
laneways of Paris remained intact. It is in these ‘backstreets’, that we find today so much of
the real Parisian culture and attitude. While the Champes-Èlyséés provides the tourism hub and
the more extroverted centre of Paris, it is in the intricate backstreets that we find the places
and spaces where the real spirit of Paris resides. This is the introspective centre of Parisian
life. We hear it in the conversations, we find it in the art, the music and the literature that
emanate from the restaurants, cafes and bookshops. This is the true cultural centre for the
people of the city.
The Paris we know so well today, so often described as the most beautiful city in the world,
is for most, a shining example of how the art of design, creative engineering, heritage, cultural
conservation, and architecture, can be achieved in a modern and contemporary city.
I use these historic reference points for a number of reasons, the most compelling being that
as is evident from the historic accounts, while the population demands at the time of these
renewals were of a lesser scale than today, the challenges faced were not dissimilar. The
drivers of change in these cities, the ‘symptoms’ if you like of urban decline, could be taken
from the pages of any metropolitan daily today; overcrowding, escalating crime, declining
public safety, transport congestion, lack of housing, economic disadvantage, failing of basic
services and declining civic amenity. But, when examined in detail, the approach to the
resolution of these challenges for these great cities, stands in stark contrast to most
contemporary approaches.
If we examine the approaches taken in the 3 historic examples cited, we find clear similarities
in process.
Firstly, there was a powerful and decisive design foundation established for these cities. This
was achieved through the establishment of the great boulevards and avenues that connected
important public spaces. These boulevards established the architectural axial ‘bones’ of the
new city. They created a sense of order; a cognitively and culturally recognisable symbolic
set of pathways, that enabled all to intuitively understand and navigate the city. These broad,
and usually tree lined avenues and boulevards, gave structure to the city, and in so doing,
enabled a stronger and more powerful connection between the people, their communities,
and their city.
Secondly, those grand boulevards and roadways linked the great public places of the city. It was
in the public spaces that the citizens operated, traded and connected on a daily basis, this was
the working heart and soul of the city and its communities; the places of the people. It
mattered little that a palace or church fronting the public space might be less accessible, it was
the piazza, square or market space itself, where the public gathered, and raised their collective
voices in either celebration or anger; these were the places of community.
Thirdly, the renewal of the city was not just an urban make over. The designs for the renewal
of the cities reviewed were multilayered, they had depth and resonance. The renewals
embraced economic reform, social reform and legal reform. They were accompanied by
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upgrades to the essential infrastructure of a city like clean water and sanitation. The renewals
embraced the reform of social programs, health programs, education and cultural programs.
Programs designed to ensure that the physical growth of the city, was accompanied by the
growth of culture, and the creation of a more civil and socially connected society.
It is critical also to note that all of the designs reviewed, introduced extensive areas of trees,
parklands and water features into the urban environment. This essential green infrastructure
softened the city, provided human scale, and perhaps most importantly, were seen as
fundamental to the health and wellbeing of the citizens. It is clear from historic accounts that
these elements were not just aesthetic decoration, they were in fact considered vital for urban
wellbeing.
Great cities are built of great cultures. The built form therefore, is both informed by, and
informs the culture and history of the people. The form, the style, the ‘feel’ and essence of the
city, is informed by the landscapes on which the city is developed and the built character that
evolves and reflects the values, history and cultures of the citizenry. Those elements; the
landscape, the architecture, the culture and the history, are deeply and profoundly connected
with the sense of place of the city itself.
Those cities we most often classify as the ‘great cities of the world’, are those that most eloquently
express and reflect their profound connection of place, people, culture and history. This is a
fundamental principle from which all approaches to new cities, or city renewals, should be
founded. Cities are not ‘created’, like a movie set. They are built layer upon layer, generation
upon generation. Their power is derived from the deeper meaning that resonates within
them, and is somehow discernible to us, through the artistic translation of that meaning into
built form. But the skills and disciplines necessary to enable that ‘translation’, demand a great
deal of those seeking to enable cities of meaning to establish and prosper.
The Contrast
In reviewing the approaches to the challenges posed by the
urbanisation of populations globally, I find evidence of the
extent to which governments and city managers are
struggling to keep pace with the rate of change.
High rise apartments, mass transport systems and urban
infrastructure are appearing across cities and landscapes of
the world, at rates not before experienced in human history.
But there is a growing realisation that both the rate of
development, and the overall approach to this development,
is coming at too great a social, environmental and community
cost.
Our cities are increasingly generic, artless, cluttered, confused,
and dangerous. In the great rush to build accommodation for
The Montparnasse Tower, Paris.
Photo by Steven Strehl. A building
that stands in stark contrast in terms
of scale, materials and form, to the
city that surrounds it.
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11
booming populations, design and build quality, cultural relevance and overall considerations
for the aesthetic, safety and heritage of cities and cultures, are being ignored. The pace of
construction is leaving administrators and the community in a state of perpetual catch-up,
and that leads to greater levels of standardisation in buildings and to a homogeneity of
solutions and building styles. Structures emerge that are therefore, neither appropriate, nor
necessarily safe, in some environments and circumstances.
Such developments are putting at risk, not only people, but some of the great cities of the
world. Their unique aesthetic and cultural character are being incrementally destroyed, by
planning and development approaches, that place a premium on the speed of construction
and financial return, over all else.
Across the world apartments and higher density
living are being developed at astounding rates.
Developments that seek in a policy sense, to reduce
the urban footprint and restrain the horizontal spread
of cities, through the promotion of greater density and
high rise development. But it is very rare indeed, that
we can point to such developments and legitimately
claim that they are adding to the liveability or
character of a city.
In the spreading suburbia of these cities we find
instead, developments that are simply production
lines of characterless, contextually irrelevant, and
artistically moribund edifices. Buildings that ignore
and undermine local character and disrupt, or
destroy, the cohesion of cities, communities, and their
natural and cultural settings.
Cookie-cutter developments that erode and render
mute the voices of individuality and identity.
Developments that foist upon the landscape a bland-
scape of buildings and open space treatments of
social and cultural irrelevance. The accompanying
promotional and public relations materials,
inevitably hail such developments as ‘cutting edge’
and seek to position them as in some way
‘contemporary’ and ‘fashionable’. But ‘fashion’
throughout history, has inevitably sat at the polar
opposite to the fundamentals of ‘style’.
We find transplanted cityscapes from other cultures
dotted across the planet. Out-of-place and out-of-time
Public Housing development, Hong Kong.
Photo by Steven Strehl.
Housing development, Ixtapaluca, Mexico.
Photo by Steven Strehl.
Venice? No – the deserts of Qatar. Alamy
Stock Photograph.
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developments strewn across the landscapes of the world. In the deserts of Qatar, we find
pseudo Venetian developments with canals and water bodies.
In China we find the most astounding ‘ghost cities’3. Entire cities with high rise buildings,
freeways, railway stations, parks and public amenities servicing the needs of populations that
do not yet exist.
Cities created without cultural context and devoid
of relevance, like Tianducheng shown in the
attached image. Not a city that was informed and
responsive to the natural landscapes and the
cultural history of people and place, but rather a
Disneyfied irrelevance.
While the design intention of these cities may have
been sincere in endeavouring to acknowledge the
beauty and character of one of the great cities of
the world, unfortunately they exist only as a form of mockery. A twee and sanitised
irrelevance, devoid of both meaning and soul. Beautifully finished, fabulously detailed, but
ultimately, more a film set or photographic backdrop than a real place.
Variations of this phenomenon are found globally. Not necessarily in the replication of other
nations icons, but in the most superficial and banal expressions of even their own history,
landscape and cultural icons. An aversion is would seem, to genuine depth of meaning and
understanding.
I do however provide one point of concession. While I am critical in a design sense, of the
approach symbolised by places like Tianducheng, I must also acknowledge that the initiative
by the Chinese government, represents one of the very few genuine attempts to prepare for
the urban population tsunami facing the worlds developed and developing economies today.
As is evident in our selective and very brief review of the history of city renewal, the challenge
in responding to the urbanisation of global populations cannot be resolved by simply building
more apartments, freeways, railways or sewerage networks, etc. The great cities of the world
are not created by the placing together of a selection of prefabricated parts. Great cities have
an identity, a spirit and a resonance. They grow and evolve, reinvent and replace components
that don’t work, and grow and evolve again. It is the way in which these qualities are
translated into form and space, that enables and gives expression to place, people and culture.
The approaches I have discussed, those applied in Rome and Paris, and proposed, but not
implemented in London, when done with artistic proficiency and an understanding of the
3 See - Kiyo Dörrer, November 2016, What has become of China’s ghost cities? DW Akadamie, http://www.dw.com/en/what-
has-become-of-chinas-ghost-cities/a-36525007
A Parisian scene? No – The Chinese ghost city
of Tianducheng.
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cultural, scientific and cognitive fundamentals of human habitation, can produce beautiful
and unique results. But they can easily cross into the realm of nationalistic fervour, that we
so often observe in tyrannical regimes globally. I have found many examples globally, where
large avenues link ‘public’ places. But more often than not, contemporary versions of these
spaces, cross the artistic boundary into the sought of ceremonial and maniacal urban spaces,
created during some of the darkest days of recent history. We see these spaces regularly on
our screens and they are most often filled with military weaponry and parading soldiers,
rather than the public participating in community life. Not public spaces at all; but symbols
of subjugation and tyranny.
There is an art and science to building truly great cities. A complexity of mutually dependant
and subtle interfaces of sciences, social sciences and the arts, that are vital in enabling and
sustaining the complexity and diversity of the natural patterns of urban cohabitation. The
acceptance of such a complexity compels us to consider broader fields of knowledge. To
embrace and seek out design and scientific input, that is literate in urban sciences, cognizant
of, and proficient in the application of social and human geographic theory, and artistically
skilled.
Once built, the cities we create over the next 3 decades will define our world for generations.
The design and renewal works being spewed across our landscapes today, almost wholly
reflect the values and tastes of government, bureaucrats, planners and developers. And that
I am afraid, presents its own set of challenges.
The new challenge
“What experience and history teach is this - that nations and governments have
never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have
drawn from it.”4
As we have seen, in 1585, a Pope put pen to paper and established the architecture, for what
remains one of the great cities of the world. London was presented with designs for a new
central city just 81 years later. Designs developed by Sir Christopher Wren, an astronomer,
geometrician and architect and, Sir John Evelyn, who according to the Encyclopaedia
Britiannica, was a ‘Country Gentleman’ and author of some 30 books on the fine arts, forestry,
and religion. Haussmann studied Law, and yet in 1853 was able to interpret and translate
into urban form, the aspirations of Napoleon III, and in so doing, establish the architectural
foundations for the Paris we know today.
In my research into the global approaches to urbanisation, I was struck by the incapacity of
contemporary cities, to achieve what Sixtus V, Christopher Wren, John Evelyn and Georges-
Eugène Haussmann were able to achieve in centuries past. A group who, with the exception
of Wren, might be legitimately characterised as an assemblage of architectural and city design
amateurs.
4 G.W.F. Hegel., 1830., Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction., Translated by H.B. Nisbet, 1975
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How, I asked myself, was it possible for the theory and practice of city form, to go from the
grand plan for Paris, to the inhumanity of so much of 20th-century building and renewal? The
completion of Paris and the commencement of the rebuilding of much of Europe and England
after World War 2, were after all, just 20 years apart. The answer is would appear, is in the
dramatic philosophical and structural reforms that emerged in the modern age.
The later part of the 19th-century had been a period of great discovery and innovation. But it
was in the early part of the 20th-century, that those advances in so many fields, including those
of electronics, mechanical engineering, automotive engineering, and aeronautical
engineering, changed the future of humanity. Innovation, industrialisation and science, were
irrevocably changing the way humanity saw and engaged with the world; it was a new and
modern age.
The modern age heralded in a new relationship and new attitude between humanity, nature
and the built environment. In art and architecture, we saw the rise of the Modernism
Movement. A philosophical and artistic movement that in urban and architectural theory,
proposed that we view the ‘city as a machine’. Where the forms that surrounded humanity and
housed humanity, were the product of the
functional needs of humanity in the modern era.
Thus the great mantra of modernism was coined;
form follows function.
Modernism rebelled against the neo-classical
opulence of the Beaux Arts style, and the nature
inspired rich ornamentation of Art Nouveau.
Styles that had become the vogue in the later 19th
and very early 20th-centuries, and the very styles
that so characterised the renewal of Paris. The Art
Deco period bridged from the highly ornate Art
Nouveau and Beaux Arts styles, to the less
embellished forms of the two major modernism
schools that would follow. Art Deco itself, saw cleaner lines and the removal of the flowing
lines of nature, to be replaced by a more ‘machine age’ style through machine inspired lines
and new, modern materials.
Modernism came to dominate new architecture and moved even further away from any form
of grand embellishment and sense of the ornate. It instead, embraced the new technologies
that were improving the range, performance and flexibility of materials like steel, glass and
concrete. These were new, modern materials, and modernism sought to give these materials
expression in forms that reflected both the attributes of the materials, and the mood of the
times.
The image of the cities of the future, was in the hands of architects and builders who were
designing and building, with both a new attitude and embracing new materials and
Crown Hall, Harvard, by Architect Mies van
der Rohe, 1945. One of the most beautiful
examples of the Modernist style.
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technologies. Materials that enabled for taller and more substantial buildings, that could be
mechanically heated and cooled, and could be a more efficiently constructed. The buildings
of the modernist architectural style, came to dominate city skylines and architectural practice
for much of the 20th-century. Towering skyscrapers appeared in larger cities that were taller
than those of history, and yet they had a sense of lightness, and openness, that was impossible
to achieve with the heavy masonry materials of the past and without the mechanised
environmental controls of air conditioning and heating.
A second interpretation of modernism also
appeared at this time, this was a style known as
Brutalism. This style sat in stark contrast to the
steel and glass dominated modernist buildings.
Brutalism instead explored the unembellished
and monolithic forms possible through the use of
brick and concrete. Materials that were
celebrated in design through very heavy, and
usually austere and substantial buildings.
But it was not only the visual appearance and style
of the architecture of our cities that was influenced
by the rise of modernism and advances in mechanisation, electronics and materials
technologies. Cars were a rarity in the 19th-century, Carl Benz’s first motorised vehicle only
appeared on roadways in 1886. By the 1920’s, motor vehicles were well progressed in their
transition from the indulgences and playthings of the wealthy, to the future of transport in
the major cities of the world. This impacted greatly on the design and functional requirements
of the roadways of cities and nations.
The roadways of the world, until the mass production of the car, had all been designed for
relatively light and slow moving loads of horse drawn drays, buggies, and bicycles. The rising
number of cars and trucks using city roads in the early part of the 20th-century, generated a
demand for surfaces with the necessary durability to accommodate the stresses placed on the
road by the braking, accelerating and cornering of heavier vehicles moving at increased speed.
It was not until 1907 that petroleum based refined asphalt, became the more common road
surface choice. Replacing the various bituminous stone, cobbled, timber block and natural
earth roads of the previous decades.
Not only did road surfaces and dimensions need to change,
but so also did the need for how vehicles travelled in and
around cities. In the 19th-century, roads linked between
places, but in the 20th-century, roads instead started to link
with each other, roads were planned so that road ‘X’ linked
through to road ‘Y’ to facilitate traffic flow, and so the roads
of cities and nations changed forever and began to resemble
the road design approaches we see today. Those roads, boulevards and avenues that formed
the structural ‘architecture’, or bones, of the city renewals we considered earlier, ceased being
Boston City Hall, a building in the Brutalist style.
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funded and built. Road investment was now prioritised on purely utilitarian criteria for the
rapid transportation of people and goods.
Equally, cars needed to be parked and stored, so the amenities of cities had to be reinvented,
as also did the laws pertaining to vehicle transport. While it may sound simple in hindsight,
these advancements in technology necessitated wholesale physical changes to cities, the
landscapes, and the laws of the land. Even in the 21st-century, some of the laws relating to
vehicles still remain unchanged from the 19th-century. In a small rural city in country Victoria,
according to a local bylaw, a man is to this day, permitted to urinate against the wheel of his
dray in the streets of the city (sorry girls but you will just have to hold on). But motor vehicles
were just one of the great changes that drove new approaches to city design, in the early 20th-
century.
Trains until that time, had largely been a transport medium that transferred the public and
goods between cities. Roads in regional areas across the majority of the world were usually
impassable during winter and wet seasons, and far too slow even in good weather. One took
a train from London to Brighton for example (a service that opened in 1841), but as cities grew
quickly in the early 20th-century, they needed trains as a mass transport medium for the public
within cities, this was also enabled by the continued advancement in electricity generation
and supply.
Some cities, like Paris in 1898, developed underground services, but the vast majority carved
swathes through cities to create the necessary terrestrial rail infrastructure to service their
needs. Trains and their passengers of course required stations, and so also yards for storage,
and facilities for their management and maintenance. Buses and lorries had become common
users of city streets, as they transported the public, goods, and materials, throughout cities.
Motorised vehicles also needed to access fuel, oil and water, so new businesses arrived in
cities to provide those necessities.
Aeroplanes were only successfully flown for the first time in 1903, and the first passenger
service commenced in the United States in 1914, but by 1930, 6000 people a year were being
flown across the planet, and just 8 years later, passenger figures passed 1.2 million. The 19th-
century cities had never been designed for, nor could have imagined such transport services
in the future. So with relative immediacy, any city that was of significance, or wanted to be
of significance, required a functioning airport as near to the city as possible.
With such a climate of rapid and sustained advancement, the very structures of government,
business and city management also underwent change. If form follows function, and the
functions were being revolutionised by the rate of scientific and technological advancement,
then the form of those institutions responsible for those functions, also needed to modernise.
So functionalism was applied to the administrative, management, production and service
structures of government, business, industry and public administration.
Within government for example, the responsibility for the construction and maintenance of
roads infrastructure, sat within a specific department or authority. City planning within its
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own specific and clearly delineated authority. Rail and airports elsewhere again, as to ports.
Education, health, environment, police and emergency services; all in their own specific siloes
and each, pursuing their specific agendas, and all in competition with each other for the same
resources and funding, where the service was publicly funded.
We begin perhaps, to gain some insight into the magnitude and pace of change being
experienced by society in the 20th and early 21st-centuries. But it is sobering indeed to
understand that the rate of change that started to accelerate so rapidly in the early part of last
century, has continued to accelerate across the world we live in today.
Given the focus of this essay, one is naturally drawn to the following questions:
• Where does the integrated strategic vision for our city, reside today?
• Who is able to articulate how the various critical elements of a city of the future, align, connect
and integrate?
Based upon my research, it is clear that in the vast majority of cases, there is no single vision.
Each proposal for a new building or a new subdivision is considered within its context, and
as part of an agreed process. Governments, through their public servants, have developed a
city framework or precinct plan, which zones the city according to the assigned activities that
can occur within those zones; a residential zone, light industrial zone, commercial zone, high
rise development zone, etc., etc. We create cities where we live in one zone of the city, work
in a separate zone, shop in yet another and recreate elsewhere again. We build cities that
make communities impossible, and compel people to travel, hence the need for more roads
and transport infrastructure.
In reality, the consolidation of the necessary capitals with the authority and accountability for
genuine city wide integration, only exists today in non-democratic and centralised
governments, and those tend to avoid creating more empowered communities and more
equitable and connected cities.
In short, the issue has become more confused as the functional division of authorities has
become more complex over the past century. While the modernism philosophies have
enabled some societies to maximise their business and industrial prosperity, through the
embracing of scientific and technological advancement, those benefits have not been shared
evenly or equitably across the globe. While modernism has advantaged some, and has
stimulated many artistic and architectural communities globally, there is at least prima facie
evidence that the application of these philosophies, and the consequential management
structures of government and city administrations, has proven far less successful.
As we will examine in a later essay, the application of such philosophies in the 20th-century,
created cities and precincts with entrenched inequities and social problems that destroyed
lives, neighbourhoods and societies.
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But that does not mean that the designing and planning of beautiful and engaging cities is
impossible. The renewals of Paris and Rome were 3 centuries apart, and the world did not
stand still during that period. This was the time of the Renaissance, a period of great
investigation, discovery and reform. It also covered the Colonialism period, where nations
endlessly bickered over their sovereignty of the natural capitals of the other nations, and
included the French Revolution and the peak of the Industrial Revolution. Periods that changed
the very fabric of societies, and the financial futures of nations. So the intervening time
between the renewal of Rome and the renewal of Paris was a period of profound advancement
and social upheaval, and yet, the beauty of Paris was still achievable.
What is intuitively accessible and has cognitive resonance to an individual in a town of 1,000
people, is scalable to larger cities. But more importantly, the majority of the great cities of the
world are not defined and recognisable by their uniformity. They are rarely homogeneous,
places of sameness. They are rather places of interconnected, but distinct characters. Consider
for example the 3 images shown below:
I have not included any of the usual ‘icon’ images so synonymous with this city, each is also
very different in terms of subject and scale, and all taken at different times of the day and in
different seasons, and yet I am confident that the majority of readers will be able to name the
city.iv
I come to ‘know’ a city by moving through it, by experiencing its various characters, moods,
seasons and idiosyncrasies. Great cities may be promoted and recognisable to most by one or
more iconic images, but they are in reality delightfully complex mosaics, and it is the
accessibility and coherency of this mosaic that resonates with its communities and its visitors.
They are alive with meaning and memory, history and culture. They are able to convey
through built form, the unique qualities of their time and place. It is indeed true to say, that
cities possess their own built language, and it is this ‘language’ that has become both confused
and often incoherent, in so much of the urban works occurring in the world today.
Summary
In the historic case studies cited, the renewal of those cities was achievable because of the
clarity of authority and vision that guided their renewal, and the manageable scale of the city
itself. The cities of the world of today, those being created or modified to accommodate the
urbanisation of global populations, are vast and spreading monoliths. Cities that are
increasingly ‘amalgams’ of other places rather than single and coherent places in their own
right. Places where the controller of title, largely does what they believe will generate the
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greatest financial return. That there should be some sensitivity shown to environment, place,
history, culture or urban aesthetic, is simply not a consideration. How then can the lessons of
the past possibly be relevant to cities of such significantly greater scale? It is a different time
after all.
As I examined case studies from across the 20th-century, it became increasingly clear to me
just why I found replicas of Paris in China, Venice in Qatar, and countless other examples of
replication rather than innovation across global cities. These were safe choices by authorities.
Forms that the authorities new worked and were loved elsewhere, and so could be replicated
with at least some level of assurance, that the public would appreciate and find comfort within
them.
This stood in stark contrast to so many of the 20th-century models, which had resulted in social
and civil decline, and entrenched areas of poverty and disadvantage within the fabric of cities.
A fundamental truth had emerged from this 20th-century experimentation. That by treating
urban growth as primarily an accommodation and transport problem, by focusing on the city
as machine, by delegating the authority for the component parts of the urban experience so
widely, city forms had not only failed to solve those problems, but had created far more
serious problems for communities and cultures. Too late, it was realised that inappropriate
urban forms and social isolation, actually spawned social disadvantage, created toxic
communities, and in many cases drove people to seek refuge either in drugs to escape, or in
gangs to achieve some sense of belonging.
When the authorities responsible for new cities or the renewal of old cities, compared 20th-
century urban consequences against their aspirations for healthy, connected and sustainable
communities, their choices to replicate places of proven aesthetic and cultural pedigree, begin
to make logical, if not artistic, sense.
So we stand today in the midst of the largest urbanisation of global populations in history,
and across the world, I find the failed 20th-century models still being pursued by authorities
who cannot, or will not, consider the alternatives. As I meet with these authorities to explore
the appropriateness and effectiveness of contemporary approaches, I also encounter fierce
resistance and defence of ‘the process’. And herein lays just one of the problems with the
contemporary approach, the process is more important than the product.
When we combine this ostensibly political paradigm (process focused), with the changes in
global controls of the necessary capitalsv that enable communities and cities to exist and grow,
we start to appreciate the complexity of our current circumstance. To change the
philosophical, political and professional approaches to the building and renewal of
communities, towns and cities, would require a paradigm shift by decision makers and key
influencers in society. But the level of entrenchment of those peculiarly 20th-century
philosophies and ideologies in the educational, business, public administration and political
structures, would appear to necessitate revolutionary, rather than evolutionary, reform.
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As we move inexorably to a global urban population of 6.14 billion by 2050, there is an urgent
need for a global conversation about our cities of the future. The model for treating the various
identifiable and measurable components of a city, as separate and distinct entities has not
served city design and renewal well. It is the recipe for a disjointed and dissociative city, as
evidenced by so many examples over the past century.
So unless anybody knows of any ex-religious leaders, with advanced training in astronomy,
geometrics, architecture, fine arts, forestry, religion, and law, who are free to design, fund and
build thousands of cities globally over the next 20 years; it might be about time we considered
other options.
Perhaps, just perhaps, a clearer strategic vision and an acceptance of the inherent complexity
of city elements, might necessitate a more creative, pluralist, and scientifically and socially
literate approach.
i This is a topic I will return to in a later essay.
ii While the current growth is rapid and sustained, this should not be confused with any notion of this growth
being unexpected. If we go back a decade in 2003 the UN Population Division update had forecast this level of
growth; for the most part however global governments chose not to act. In scholarly circles, the focus has been
rather preoccupied with the ecological impacts of such growth, which is most unfortunate as such matters were
of limited concern to most political leaders.
iii This is not intended as a definitive history of urban expansion and urban history. The examples cited are
simply intended to serve as illustrations of where the process for developing and implementing significant urban
change has enabled cities to achieve such changes over relatively short timeframes to accommodate the needs of
swelling populations and changed circumstance.
iv It is Paris by the way. v By ‘Capitals’ I refer to the control of the 5 economic capitals:
• Natural / Environmental capital
• Human capital
• Social capital
• Built / Manufactured capital
• Financial capital