The Nature of Cities: Origin, Growth, and Decline, Pattern and Form, Planning Problems"The Nature of Cities embodies three parallel studies. Each deals with one aspect of the city; together they form a unity. The first study deals with the city's origin, growth, and decline. It is a history of city types rather than of particular cities. The second study, on pattern and form, has to do with the two orders of planning: the geometric and the organic, which govern city types, city architecture, and city landscape. The third region are confronted in our industrial age. The first two studies show that cities change with the changing concepts of their times. Cities are an expression of particular spiritual and material, production and the means of communication. The Greek city and the Roman city were both based on the work of slaves; but they differed from those of Rome. Greek cities were small city-states; Roman cities, part of a vast empire. Medieval and Baroque cities differed from each other as well as from Greek and Roman cities. Medieval cities were based on free work and were free communities; Baroque cities were parts of growing territorial states, where manufacturing, the economic stage of production between handicraft and industry, was being developed. The cities of our industrial age have very little in common with the cities of past ages. They depend on large national states; they are based on a national economy tending to become world economy. In their extraordinary material achievement, they far surpass any cities the world has ever known. The cities of our industrial age, however, have not yet found the pattern adequate to their potentialities, according to their function and technological development. They are a mere conglomeration of unrelated parts, each disturbing the other. They are paralyzed by insurmountable traffic and parking problems. They achieve no harmony in their component parts, no unity in their diversity. The discrepancy between what might be and what is grows ever wider. The very forces which made those cities grow seem to be now working toward their destruction. Yet the problems of our cities and our regions could be solved. The planning methods and the planning elements we propose in these studies could work a transformation. New cities, small or large, could be built upon them. Old cities could be replanned and remade into well-functioning organisms, in which each part is related to other parts and to a harmonious whole. Today, as in the past, cities and regions are influenced by ideas and concepts. The Medieval city was dominated by the cathedral and ruled by the church. Renaissance and Baroque cities were dominated by the palace and ruled by princes. The cities of our age are dominated by industry and commerce and ruled by interest. Some day, perhaps, cities and regions will be planned and developed according to the needs of man and ruled by reason." -- |
Contents
Defeat and Decline | 8 |
Berninis S Peters Square Chicago | 16 |
Contents Greek Colonization Reasons | 38 |
Copyright | |
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achieve Acropolis Aegean Aegean civilization Aegean Sea Agora agricultural Alba Longa Athenian Athens Babylon barbarians became built capital Chicago city architecture city wall city's civilization colonaded colonies comitium commercial area concept connected conquered Constantinople contrast craftsmen Ctesiphon decentralization density dominated east economic emperor empire eventually feudalism forces fortified Forum Forum of Trajan Forum Romanum founded function geometric Greek Greek cities harbor highway hill Hippodamus houses important increased industrial influence island kings land Latium living located Luebeck medieval city merchants Miletus Motya natural needed organic order orientation palace Paris park pattern Peloponnesian War peninsula Piazza political population population density possible princes problems production Propylaea protection region replaced residential areas river Roman Rome Rome's Seleucia settled settlements slums space Sparta spirit square Synoecism temples Thucydides tion towers trade traffic street units villages whole