Home › News ›

The Case Against The Centralized City

Posted by: George Haugh

19 August 2010 - 6:00am

Kerwin Datu suggests that transit in cities of the future should no longer be organized around a distinct center. "Rather than think of a city as a centre surrounded by suburbs, think of it as a patchwork of specialised districts woven together."

Datu asks "what is the center?" Often it is a historical, commercial or financial district but he pointedly argues that there is no need for either of these to be "at the centre of a large city, nor in the same place, and it would make for better planning if we abandoned the myth of the city centre altogether."

He argues that the importance of the city center around the world is more often than not the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Most older city centers have been subject to an upward spiral of infrastructure investment which has fortified their hollow pre-eminence within the metropolis.

Datu states that rather than reduce congestion, increased public transport merely increases a city's commuting capacity, most often with an intense centralizing effect.

"Large cities today need to be planned not in concentric circles, but as tapestries. We still need differing degrees of intensity across urban areas, but these should be planned as an orderly modulation of intensity throughout the metropolis."

Full Story: A City Doesn't Need A Center! (But It Does Need Realistic Planning)
Source: The Global Urbanist, July 29, 2010
»

Comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Good for keeping demographics even too, i think.

Submitted by cfixy on Thu, 08/19/2010 - 22:32.

I tend to agree with this concept. I was thinking about just this today actually ..... I have a feeling sprawl is finally reaching the end of its popularity --- and if we rebuilt cities well enough in the coming decades, the best trend we would hope to achieve is one where people move themselves back into the cities (i believe we can achieve that). If there is a single glamorous city center, the cost of living would end up just as high and prohibitive, and push lower income out to the fringes. So, instead of inner city problems, well have outer city problems.... How does this logic sound? I'm not a planner, just an architect, but it seems like this could be a problem. Rebuilding neighborhoods sounds like a fantastic idea, because it would be a lot easier to integrate demographics and make a healthier urban community.

Bookmark and Share
“
"It's so out of control," said Duany, referring to the current state of public participation in planning decisions in the United States. "It's an absolute orgy of public process… basically, we can't get anything done."
”