URP 110-INTRODUCTION
TO PLANNING AND THE
BUILT ENVIRONMENT
LECTURE 4
INTRODUCTION TO
RULING IDEAS IN
SETTLEMENT MAKING-2
MUMFORD, JANE JACOBS AND
MACKAYE
Supported an interdisciplinary approach to a
hybridized city.
Their writings and suggested methods disrupt the
binary understanding of city/country, urban/rural,
and human/nature.
They stand apart from tendencies that champion
environmentalism as the conservation of designated
wilderness areas, instead seeking to integrate
natural forces and human settlement.
1. LEWIS MUMFORD
• In “What is a City?” Lewis
Mumford describes what he sees
as the chief handicap to modern
city planning, the failure to
understand and embrace the social
function of the city.
• Rather than view the city as a
“purely physical fact” Mumford
suggests a broader view and asks
“what is the city as a social
institution?”
The city in its complete sense,
• Is a geographic plexus,
• An economic organization,
• An institutional process,
• A theater of social action,
• An aesthetic symbol of collective unity.
LM’s focus is not on “the built environment” but
rather the city as
• Locus of social networks
• A theater in which “man’s more purposive
activities are focused and work out,
= Through conflicting and cooperating
personalities, events, groups, into more
significant culminations.”
While the nature of the built environment no doubt influence s
this social drama,
City’s role as primarily that of a well - designed stage set, to
facilitate and intensify the performance of the actors upon it.
Mumford asserts that the quintessential character of the city is
to “create drama,”
Physical structures of cities may exist elsewhere, namely in the
suburbs, it is this “opportunity for social disharmony and
conflict” that only urban densities and proximities provide.
A city may be viewed as “a special framework directed toward
the creation of differentiated opportunities for a common life
and a significant social drama.”
2. MacKAYE
• MacKaye expresses a concern for the quality of life.
• He sees the potential of the machines that modern civilization has produced
but opines that man at present is the servant and victim, rather than the master,
of the machine.
• MacKaye defines regional planning as the visualization of the potential
workings of three processes,
• The conservation of natural resources,
• The control of commodity flow, and
• The development of the environment.
• He views regional planning as arranging the environment in such a fashion that
the goal of living may be effectively and eagerly pursued.
For MacKaye, planning is comprised of two aspects;
• First, an accurate formulation of our own desires-the specific knowledge of what it
is we want,
• Second, an accurate revelation of the limits and the opportunities imposed and
bequeathed by nature.
• He sees the planner as essentially a "revealer," one whose job is to seek and reveal the
opportunities and potentialities in the indigenous environment.
• Regional planning, as MacKaye sees it, should be focused on guiding population flow
into some form of the indigenous mold and away from the metropolitan mold.
• This involves controlling the metropolitan flow, planning the distribution of
population, and developing the indigenous natural environment.
To control the metropolitan flow and develop the potential of the indigenous environment,
MacKaye suggests two tools.
• The first is to establish barriers to the metropolitan flow by utilizing the natural
topography of mountains, ridges, rivers, and swamp lands. These barriers would be
maintained in their primeval state to the extent possible, given the existing development.
• The second tool is to distribute the population in villages and small cities within each
region.
• The grouping of the villages and cities would equal a regional city and provide a
cosmopolitan urban environment, yet with no predominance by any one city.
• MacKaye states that this population distribution is feasible because the development of
electric power transmission and motor transport enables transactions.
• Between and among the cities within each region, belts of travel or "open ways" would be
provided.
3. JANE JACOBS
• The cities were for people, not for cars.
• She advocated and led a community-based
approach to city making,
• Paving the way for contemporary placemaking
practice.
• Jacobs saw cities as integrated systems that had
their own logic and dynamism which would change
over time according to how they were used.
• She promoted higher density in cities, short blocks,
local economies, and mixed uses.
• Jacobs helped derail the car-centered approach to
urban planning in both New York and Toronto,
invigorating neighborhood activism by helping stop
the expansion of expressways and roads.
HER IDEAS…
1. Eyes on the Street: Pedestrian traffic throughout the day, and the watchful eyes
that come with it, enhance the safety of city streets.
2. Social Capital: The everyday activities and interactions that occur in a
neighborhood slowly build up a network of relationships between neighbors.
This "social capital" provides a foundation for mutual trust, shared efforts, and
resilience in times of trouble.
3. The Generators of Diversity: Four factors in city planning and design help
make the city diverse, safe, social, convenient, and economically vibrant:
• Mixed Uses: A mixture of all kinds of residences, workplaces, and shops
brings people out on the street at all times of day.
• Aged Buildings: Humdrum, rundown buildings provide cheap space for new
businesses and other low- or no-profit enterprises.
• Small Blocks: A denser street network means more opportunities for retail
and more chances for people to meet their neighbors.
• Population Density: Simply put, you need lots of people in a small area to
provide enough use for a city's streets, parks, and enterprises.
4. Cities as organized complexities. Jacobs approached cities as living beings
and ecosystems. She suggested that over time, buildings, streets, and
neighborhoods function as dynamic organisms, changing in response to
how people interact with them. She explained how each element of a city
functions together synergistically, in the same manner as the natural
ecosystem.
5. Bottom-Up Community Planning. Jacobs contested the traditional planning
approach that relies on the judgment of outside experts, proposing that
local expertise is better suited to guiding community development. She
based her writing on empirical experience and observation, noting how the
prescribed government policies for planning and development are usually
inconsistent with the real-life functioning of city neighborhoods.
6. Local Economies: Economic growth, relies on the ability of urban
economies to provide amply and diversely for themselves, rather than
relying on imports. Promoting small businesses, and supporting the
creative impulses of urban entrepreneurs, diversifying the economy.
END!
