Urbanization and The Planning Process

When I signed up for the CRP-165 class I didn't have any clue as to what it would be composed of or the things we would be learning. Without any prior knowledge of Community Regional Planning (CRP), I thought it was not the best fit for me. That first day of class immediately changed my thoughts and second thoughts about taking this class. These first two weeks have been mind-tapping for me as far as some of the theories go.

What struck me the most in class so far is the thought process of regional planning and its processes. Being Native American Indian, I strongly believe the process of planning and building were already practiced and discussed among our ancestors but since we don’t have a written system, it's not in books or not published anywhere where we could share the knowledge. Many tribes without a written language may have lost access to old planning knowledge and know-how. Misconceptions about Native American Tribes with things such as planning, has labeled us uncivilized. The early U. S. Planners could have used this knowledge but chose not to. It would have made sense since tribes indigenous to America would also know best about planning for this region and its environment, seeing as they have been here much longer than anyone else. If you think about it, I am almost certain that some type of thought had to go into consideration on where to build, how to build, who gets to live where and the best protection practices both using built construction and the natural landscapes. Tribes had the talents of planners, architects, builders, doctors, etc. but we didn't have names for them, it was all a community-based setting where everyone had to contribute to survive.

Another topic that struck me most was the urbanization of the 19^th century in the United States due to the population changes between the start and end of the century. The U.S. population at start was 5,000,000 and rose to 75,000,000. Urbanized population from 300,000 to 30,000,000. People living in urban areas was about 6% but it jumped to 40%. New York City Population grew to 3,000,000 from 1,000,000. The agricultural workforce being cut down to 50% at the end of the century from the start of the century percentages of 85-90%.

These numbers were interesting to me because of the large jumps or declines but more so the thoughts about the driving forces. The main driving force for the urbanization in the 19^th century was Industrialization. People weren’t needed as much on the farms due to machinery which led people to look for other jobs. Farms didn’t need as many people on the farms, so people flocked to where new jobs were, in the cities.

Factories popped up in or around the cities which needed large labor forces to operate. With the influx of people, housing was in demand. Giving rise to the Department stores, which led to another piece of the puzzle, transportation. I thought with this new concept of transportation that in the 19^th century it would have been more expensive, but it was affordable.

All these things above were interesting because I can’t remember if there has been another period where so many people moved to the cities. Looking at some of the photos of that time, it appears every inch of the city space was being used for either living or production. People were living in close quarters like sardines. Without running water, sewer, and a standard healthcare system it was not the best living conditions of the time. People did die due to some of these conditions, but because of the high densities and in-migration, the populations in the some of the cities were still rising. I still find it fascinating about the number of people. It would be like all of Texas moving onto the reservation of Santo Domingo Pueblo, New Mexico.