City…

According to Lewis Mumford a city should be planned individually and socially. The social functions should be the essence of the city.  “City: Theater” is an interesting analogy. The city is like a theater of social actions and everything in it is about the social drama. Like a theater city has a fixed site, durable shelter, permanent facilities for assemblies, inter change and storage. The city is an aesthetic symbol of collective unity. Drama on the other hand is everything that is happening in the city. People are the actors, actions are the socials dramas and the organization is like a set design. City is like a theater of social activities and the needs of the city are defined by opportunities that run through specific nuclei of civic institutions and associations. Like a theater the city has to have a limit (size, density and area). According to Mumford the limits are better than expansion. High density filled areas with people will clog the arteries of the traffic. A city where foot traffic is separated by the wheeled traffic, the insulation of the residential areas from the roads, the discontinuous road network, polarization of social life in civic nuclei, neighborhoods with schools, playgrounds etc is a good type of planning by Le Corbusier as it is most functional keep the social functions in mind.

Ernest W. Burgess describes the growth of the city in relation to the social growth of the city. Due to the machine age the social life is listed as the obviousness as in the city. The social problems effect the urban growth. The social structure is altered by the large proportion of women to men ratio in cities than in open country, greater percentage of youth and middle age, heterogeneity of occupation increase with the growth of the city.

The physical growth of the city is very important. The surveys made by various utility companies in order to cater the city in future tell us the rate and direction of expansion. Planning the location of parks, widening of the boulevards, traffic streets, provisions for the civic amenities and centre is all for the future development. The expansions of towns out towards the other towns form a conurbation. All these within them have central nuclei where all the important things and actions take place. The tendency to expand is recognized by the metropolitan area of the city. In big cities like New York and Chicago the metropolitan district is in the 50 miles of radius. Expansion deals with the physical growth of the city. The process of expansion, the rate of expansion maybe studied by not only the physical growth and business development but also changes taking place in the social organizations and personality types. The process of expansion is in four zones. The first zone is the downtown zone where all the main activities happen. Then is the transition zone where slums appear like the Chinatown etc. Here people are poor and try to stay connected to the downtown. Then the next is the zones where those people live who want to live in the work zone. Here the rents are high. Finally the last zone is the residential zone where people who might work in downtown, be social in second and third zone but prefer to live away in forth zone.

The social organization and disorganization is the process of the metabolism of the city. There is a zone of dirty run-down housing, poverty, and social disorganization called slums or bad land. It has poverty, degradation, crime etc. The natural culture and economic grouping gives form and character to the city and this creates the segregation which limits the growth of the city in certain direction. The movement in the city from the residence to other residence, change of occupation, labor tumor, and movement to and from work, all changes the life of city. Mobility acts as the pulse of the city. The center of the city has maximum mobility. It is measured by the increase in the contacts and also by the increase in the changes in the movement.

In the past few decades efforts made to revitalize the inner cities have failed. The efforts are made to improve the social needs (income assistance, housing subsides, food stamps etc) rather than the economic development. They have supported the small, sub scale businesses to serve the local community and less export outside. New strategies to strengthen the economic activities are needed. It should compete on a regional, national and international scale. The location plays a very important role in the development of economy. The local conditions emphasize the ability of companies based there to compete. Companies in cluster are better off than being isolated. Location gives rise to the cluster and cluster gives rise to the economic development. The real estate cost and labor in inner city is high. There are a lot of advantages of the inner city the locations, local market demand, integration with the regional cluster and human resources.

There is a very interesting connection between the thoughts of Lewis Mumford, Ernest W. Burgess and Michael Porter. The separation between the city and open country distinguish the social activities. I like the idea of the cluster development as it connects one nuclei with the other yet it’s separate. This notion of clustering has social as well as economic advantages. Generic city on the other hand is a very fictional kind of city which grows when it’s too small or if it gets old it just renews.

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