Showing papers in "Planning Perspectives in 1990"

Town planning and garden cities in the British colonial empire 1910–1940

Abstract: Although most countries in the Commonwealth derive their town planning systems from British practice and legislation, the process of transfer has received relatively little attention. Based mainly upon material in the early town planning journals, this article proposes an explanatory model, comprising colonial status, type of activity, implementation mechanism and geographical location. It also examines the colonial work of two garden city planners: Charles Reade (1883–1933) in South Australia, Malaya and Northern Rhodesia, and Albert Thompson (1878–1940) in South Africa and Nigeria. Conflicts between town planning and the political realities of colonial rule are considered, particularly the opposition of local colonial administrators to outside advice and the segregationist principles underpinning colonial rule. Finally, some directions for future research are suggested.

Designing China's urban future: The Greater Shanghai Plan, 1927–1937

Abstract: Among the world's greatest cities — New York, London, Paris and Tokyo — Shanghai ranks as a singular phenomenon. Its survival in the face of a startling expansion and rise to prominence, within a scant 140 years, was based on the melding of Chinese and foreign efforts to lay down its urban infrastructures and in ‘planning’ its future. Yet, since 1949, these efforts, particularly the Greater Shanghai Plan of 1927, have been ignored in the literature or dismissed as aberrant. However, the origins and objectives of the Plan were anything but an aberration. Founded solidly on decades of intense efforts to create a Chinese municipality that would parallel the achievements of the foreign settlements, the Plan's objectives went beyond mere imitation. For the Plan called for the redevelopment of the port as well as the creation of a new city centre that would be an irrefutable statement of Shanghai's, and therefore China's, determination to challenge and exceed the urban standards and prosperity of the foreign se...

Town and regional planning in the Netherlands 1920–1945

Abstract: The discovery between 1900 and 1920 of the region as a planning unit is interpreted as the result of rapid changes in three essential planning sectors: housing, traffic planning, and provincial and municipal administration. To co‐ordinate the activities of the specialist sectors a new science was introduced: modern town planning or planology, the science of co‐ordinating all regional spatial intentions. The impact of modern town planning during the twenties and thirties, with regional planning as a nodal point, is shown by the example of the International Town Planning Congress at Amsterdam in 1924. Four visionary models for regional planning are examined and the main combinations of regional survey and plans are summarised. Finally the extension of regional planning by a State Service for National Planning (1941) is described. The introduction of the State Service, installed under the pressure of the German occupiers, completed the institutionalisation of Dutch regional planning.

Town planning in the Dutch Indies

Abstract: Three hundred years of colonialism have left Indonesia with a distinctly Dutch heritage. In the major Indonesian towns and cities old Dutch neighbourhoods can still be recognized. On their arrival, the Dutch imposed a settlement pattern copied from their own towns; for example, Batavia — nowadays Jakarta — was modeled after Amsterdam. Eventually, modern techniques like building lines and zoning were introduced. In many Indonesian towns colonial building ordinances still apply, whilst the colonial Town Planning Act has never been repealed. This article gives an overview of Dutch influence on Indonesian towns from the arrival of the Dutch in Indonesia until the declaration of Indonesian independence in August 1945 and the difficult years following until 1949. It shows that town planning in Indonesia went through several stages. In the seventeenth century the Dutch applied renaissance town planning concepts copied from their own towns. Later on, Dutch and Indonesian culture intermingled: the ‘Indische’ cultu...

The garden city tradition re‐examined

Abstract: The garden city idea emerged in the late nineteenth century, but was quickly changed to become a diversified tradition. Ebenezer Howard's original reformist project was soon subordinated to largely environmental concerns, which in turn became important aspects of an emergent practice of town planning. The original co‐operative mode of development was also eclipsed by private speculative and governmental modes. The second part of the article briefly reviews the papers presented at the 1989 Bournville Conference, ‘The Garden City Tradition Re‐examined’, detecting nine areas of interest in the historical study of the garden city tradition. These are: the origins of the garden city idea; its development and realisation; industrial villages; garden suburbs; modern variants of the tradition; other variants; garden cities in colonial/resettlement programmes; specific national experiences, and the garden city and other traditions of planning. The prevailing impression is one of diversity of interest and approach ...

From town—country to town planning: Changing priorities in the British garden city movement, 1899–1914

Abstract: The Garden City movement has often been accused of departing from the clarity and single‐mindedness of Howard's theory to engage in general planning issues. To plan existing cities, albeit at lower densities, merely perpetuates an urban phenomenon which Howard had rejected, it is argued. The article strives to identify and account for the British Garden City Association's early steps along this path, before 1914. It suggests that the key decisions were taken in 1903/4, and that they were a product of the success rather than the failure of the Garden City idea. Neither the Association nor Howard himself sensed a contradiction or a betrayal, and the Association played a significant part in creating a climate favourable to the passing of the Town Planning Act of 1909.

The garden city education of Belgian planners around the First World War

Abstract: Despite the efforts of the International Garden Cities and Town Planning Association before the First World War, the garden city concept was barely known in Belgium. In 1914, the Association considered the presence of Belgian refugees in Great Britain as the opportunity to take an educational initiative. The International Garden Cities and Town Planning Association decided to organize a Town Planning Conference on the Reconstruction of Belgium, while the Town Planning Institute suggested the education of Belgian experts through a programme of exhibitions and study groups. The Belgium Town Planning Committee, created in London in 1915, was meant to allow architects, engineers, surveyors, lawyers, municipal counsellors and other experts to study the problems of reconstruction and translate them into schemes and preparatory guidelines. The mission of Verwilghen to Great Britain was to prepare the new Belgian statutory order on town planning which was finally influenced by English and French town planning con...

The early nineteenth century planning of Newcastle upon Tyne

Abstract: This article seeks to re‐examine the social, political and economic factors involved in the redevelopment of central Newcastle between 1834–1840, and to suggest possible parallels with aspects of planning practice today. It emphasizes the contribution of the entrepreneur Richard Grainger and — utilizing the author's recent study — the architect John Dobson's possible advisory role. Using a number of previously unpublished maps and plans, earlier replanning schemes by Dobson and others are analysed in the context of the history and development of the town. In particular, attention is paid to ways in which these differed from, but may have influenced, the central area redevelopment scheme. This itself is assessed in terms of both the planning principles involved and its essentially commercial rationale, highlighted by details of the actual occupation of sites. Examination is also made of Grainger's relationship with the municipal authorities of the day and his financial methodology.

Cities and environmental decline: Elites and the sewage problem in Paris from the mid‐eighteenth to the mid‐nineteenth century

Abstract: This paper addresses itself to a problem that faces all cities but which was — and was seen to be — an ever more grave one for the burgeoning cities of nineteenth century Europe: environmental pollution. This problem — and in particular sewage which is the focus of the article — has as yet been little studied by historians. The paper shows, first, that in Paris in the period 1750–1850 the city was confronted by rapidly increasing quantities of sewage and that for complex cultural, class and scientific reasons Parisian elites came to perceive sewage removal as a problem that required solution and to adopt a series of strategies to do so. It shows, secondly, that the city's administration brought about changes which were of greater import than those effected under Haussmann in the 1850s and 1860s. The limits to what it could do were imposed not by short‐sightedness or parsimony, but by long‐term structural constraints of different orders, attitudinal, technological, power relationships in the capitalist city.

Urban renewal under National Socialism: Practical policy and political objectives in Hitler's Germany

Abstract: Shortly after the National Socialists came to power in 1933, a number of German towns and cities had already embarked on urban renewal programmes. Most made use of existing plans. These had not previously been carried out because the municipalities had given priority in the 1920s to building new housing in their outer districts, and because after 1930 they did not have the resources to apply slum clearance and renewal techniques to arrest the growing decay of unmodernised city centres at a time of national financial crisis. This article uses a sample of cities (Braunschweig, Breslau and Frankfurt) to show in detail how, and how far, the post‐1933 renewal programme harmonised in economic and ideological terms with National Socialist policy.

Garden city versus green town: The case of Amsterdam 1910–1935

Abstract: Has the garden city movement been a failure or a success? As in many other places, the attempt to create a ‘proper’ garden city near Amsterdam failed. The main reasons were the issue of land ownership and also the vested interests of Amsterdam as a municipality. A town extension outside its borders was rejected. The growth was organized within the borders of the municipality, thus creating a Compact City. Yet, this Compact City was created ‘on garden city lines’ and resulted in what was later named a Green Town.

Developing and financing the ‘garden metropolis’: Urban planning and housing policy in twentieth‐century America

Abstract: This article examines the evolution of garden city ideas in the United States during the twentieth century. It distinguishes between four sets of goals: environmental reform; social reform; town planning, and regional planning. Much of the literature on American garden city movements focuses on the general political failure of its advocates to achieve key social reforms and regional planning objectives. By contrast, the accomplishments in environmental reform and town planning have been far more successful. Though Ebenezer Howard's proposals did not lead to widespread adoption in their purest form, urban decentralization and sub‐urbanization have produced significant improvements in the building of higher‐quality and lower‐density housing and in providing more open space and greenery for a large segment of the population. This pattern of planning and development may be viewed as ‘the garden metropolis.’ Its relationship to garden city ideas is best symbolized by the central role of Thomas Adams, the Briti...

Japanese industrial villages and a reformist factory owner

Abstract: Magosaburo Ohara (1880–1943), owner of the Kurashiki Boseki Co. Ltd. was the only reformist among Japanese factory owners in pre‐war days and planned to construct ‘Shokko Mura’ (industrial village) in Kurashiki City. He could not, however, complete this ‘Shokko Mura’ plan in the face of severe competition from other Japanese spinning companies. The achievement of his ‘industrial village’ idea thus fell far short of that of his foreign counterparts. However, three ‘socialistic’ institutes which he founded for basic research on his social reform activities have made an important contribution to the improvement of labour problems in Japan.

Benton MacKaye: The TVA years

Abstract: It seemed like a match made in planners’ heaven. In April 1934, Benton MacKaye, a pre‐eminent American planner and conservationist, came to work for the newly‐created Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the nation's foremost experiment in resource and regional planning. The match, however, proved much less harmonious and fruitful than initially envisioned. Within 26 months, the ties were broken and MacKaye was asked to leave the agency. By the fall of 1936, he was back in his ancestral home in Shirley Center, Massachusetts. This paper describes MacKaye's unique planning concepts and analyzes how his ideas differed from mainstream agency thinking. It examines how his influence within TVA quickly waned, except for his role as a friend and mentor for a small group of young agency staff members who shared his environmental ideals. Finally, the article will explore why MacKaye, despite his intriguing ideas (or maybe because of them) failed to have a lasting impact on agency policies.