Modern Architecture :: Futurist Architecture

Greenbelt, Maryland Areal View (1937)

    Planning is something that takes place throughout our world. All kinds of land, from rural farmland to dense inner cities, have some sort of loose plan behind them. This kind of planning is a necessary feature of our developed environment and without it our modern world would fragment and fall into chaos.

    Small villas found scattered in middle to upper class suburbia are a perfect example of the virtues of good planning. Many of these villas are constructed in one long string of construction, and have the infrastructure built right in. Typically a large quantity of homes will be constructed in close proximity to existing grocery stores, schools, and other services or new services are brought in specifically for the new community. These kinds of structured communities put everything in one place, reducing the need for transportation and overall making a better use of the space.

    The one of the larger bubbles of pre-planned construction projects in America occurred during the Depression in the form of the New Deal program. Communities such as Greenbelt Maryland, settled in 1937, were planned and constructed from the ground up as a self-sufficient unit. Another example of planned development, some will question how good, is Columbia Maryland, which started planning and development in about 1960 and opened in 1967.

Tung Chung New Town - View towards the city center from Yat Tung Estate; Fu Tung Estate in the foreground

    Unlike suburban villas it is generally rare to find an entire city that was planned in one unit. Often individual sections of a city will be planned and constructed as they are needed, resulting in a fragmented and sometimes ineffective overall city design. Concerns of budget and optimal occupancy prevent anything as large as a city to be constructed in one go. Clearly then a coherent city plan must be developed upon conception of the city and it should be followed for any future construction. However the moving target that is a city makes such a plan very difficult to maintain.

    Due to budget and the constant flux of supply and demand anything much beyond current planning generally can be considered a utopian view. It would be wonderful if we could tear down any current city and re-build it from the ground up. However doing something like that would require a great deal of time and money, both of which are constantly in short supply.

    I believe that, even though difficult to do, cities would benefit from more coherent planning. Having an overarching master plan and managing new construction so that it takes place in the best way possible are essential for relieving problems in city such as traffic. Important infrastructure such as transportation and power, which typically follows in the wake of development, should always precede the development.

Resources

"Urban Planning". Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2004. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 8 Dec 2004. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning

"Planning Greenbelt, Maryland". Virtual Greenbelt. 2001. Department of American Studies. 8 Dec 2004. http://www.otal.umd.edu/~vg/domestic/planning.html

"Columbia Maryland.com" 2004. 8 Dec 2004. http://www.columbiamaryland.com/