Origins of Planning, From the Beginning to Now

Over the first half of our course the topic that has interested me more than any other, is the significance of planning history, and the reasons “planning" became. At this point in my education I have taken several Architectural history classes has definitely prepared me a bit for the discussions and lectures related to this topic. The origins of planning began with architects, public health professionals and social works. The shared goal was to remove the manure and other unappealing and unsafe messes from the streets and to create an appealing and well working city. As an architecture major with a minor in community and regional planning my focus is always more on the building design aspect and I tend to be able to share more knowledge about the architectural aspects of planning.

Early western city planning was typically done by architects, who as architects focused on the built environment and how it affected the world around it. City plans like L’Enfant’s D.C. plan based on the Paris city plan by Georges-Eugène Haussmann were looked at as possible ideals of the aesthetically pleasing city plan and were based on the idea of neighborhood centers or hubs. These centers inspire my ideas of what the perfect place looks and feels like. Aside from creating a beautiful environment these attempts also hoped to address the sanitation and water issues at hand.

Planning, we as know it today, was introduced around this same time period due to the gross mismanagement of Public Health and Welfare. Water supplies were often contaminated due to the excessive amount’s feces and garbage laying in the streets. The implementation of Health and Safety guidelines were a combined effort between the social workers and public health officials. There was an obvious correlation between the gross street conditions and the health and well being of the citizens within the cities. These problems demanded a call to action.

In recent years the idea of the Utopian city has often been attempted, and the concept of Brasilia the political capital of Brazil was designed by Oscar Niemeyer with the idea of getting rid of the old. Niemeyer wanted to design a city without mass health issues and without the old architecture that took over the earlier city of Rio de Janeiro. The new city was to create a safe haven of modern living. The clean lines and open space would help to keep the city clean. Since its creation it has often been used as an example of a Utopia gone wrong. However, this is one instance, and there are many successfully planned cities that have accomplished a type of Utopia.

In a more successful attempt I think there could be an example in the city of Curitiba in southern Brazil, initiated in 1968, the cities master plan aimed to create jobs, improve public transportation accessibility, housing development and improve waste management. And while Brasilia attempted many of these things, Curitiba has been known to be successful for this. A radial branching system as allowed for less traffic congestion along with the assistance of a green transportation system. The social and environmental benefits associated with this plan are the goals of planning, to ease the burden on society and the earth one step at a time.

City planning is fascinating to me, when I decided to minor in CRP (Community and Regional Planning) it was based on this idea that at one-point architects were not only designing the built environment but also the features that defined the built environment. Planning can affect architecture and vice versa. The city plans done by L’ Enfant were incredibly important in the beginning of design and were further inspired by the design of the garden city of Ebenezer Howard was a very important stepping stone in the concept of sustainable and green city planning. Architects and planners alike focused on the idea of the garden city, Le Corbusier, a French architect designed a concept relating heavily to Howards proposed idea of the garden city, but rather than spread it out, Corbusier wished to implement the plan vertically, creating a garden city within a city. Ideas like this encourage me to dig deeper into the intermixing of planning and architecture. When combined, the two disciplines have a lot of overlap, concepts involving design and the betterment of the built environment which all relate to the future and the impact of current development.