With the country is full recovery mode, urban planners in Haiti are releasing a strategy document that seeks to redistribute the population of damaged Port-au-Prince and to create a series of smaller urban centers throughout the country.
The set of guidelines seek to pull people out of earthquake prone areas such as the nation's capital. Its far-reaching goals could dramatically reshape the country, according to New York Times Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff.
"Prepared by a group of urban planners from the Haitian government agency responsible for the country's development, the plan is built around a bold central idea: to redistribute large parts of the population of Port-au-Prince to smaller Haitian cities, many of them at a safe distance from areas most vulnerable to natural disaster. In the process the plan would completely transform Haiti from a country dominated by a single metropolis to what the planners call a network of smaller urban 'growth poles.'"
The guidelines are still in a nascent stage, and Haiti's fate will ultimately have a lot to do with economic and political developments beyond the scope of planners."
FULL STORY: A Plan to Spur Growth Away From Haiti’s Capital
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This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
