The Urban Environment

When looking at planning the most important factor is the type of affordances that the environment of the land to be developed can adequately accommodate. Affordances are somewhat similar to environmental niches as both are the limiting factors for an organism to live and even thrive in its natural environment, but unlike niches affordances at least in my own planning definition is the environmental niches that has been created as a result of modern development. An example of my own definition would be the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority (AMAFCA) drains because the environment in the metro area has become one of concrete and asphalt, therefore the ground can no longer absorb and control the runoff and especially in area that pinched on lands traditionally inhabited by wide stretching arroyos. The arroyos were redeveloped to afford the metro a drainage system in this urban environment.

Urbanization, or the moving of people from the country to the cities, has always interested me and the problems associated with urbanization. Perhaps the most disgusting wicked problem of the 19th century was transportation. People at the time were reliant on horses and as we all know horses must excrete waste as every living thing does. Just imagining the smell of all the horse waste along the streets (and possibly some dead horses) I can easily see how all three early types of planners were unified in their quest to solve the problem. When it comes to which of the three (architects, public health workers, and social workers) I would have personally approached the problem from more of the social workers point of view. As I feel that urbanization should afford people with the opportunity to improve not only the quality of their lives but also their access to health systems and education that improves the overall quality of the community. However, it is important tot factor in some of the ideas of the public health officials because as previously mentioned the entire community is reliant on to improve their quality of life. To me both of these groups were right in factoring in green spaces in the cities; and overall the clean up of the cities in terms of better waste disposal systems that kept people away from this disease causing/spreading matter. Planners even still in modern times, at least in my opinion, have the responsibility to focus and implement the principles of the social workers and the public health workers as adequate planning provides the best overall health and livelihood outcomes for people of that community. Although architects have a major role in shaping the physical landscape of the city I think the design is less so important rather than the actual usability of the system and therefore architects have the least influence when it comes to solving wicked problems.

Many wicked problems stem from stem from the ethics surrounding planning. In my own class we covered material in lecture and reading of our textbook to learn about the priorities of planners throughout different eras. After this we were then instructed to design a block/area of a city where this type of planning was put into place. As we noticed from our models in the 19th century that there was no concern for people's health and well being when concerning planning. In this era most of the development consisted of industrial plots, which were surrounded by small commercial plots and finally intermingled with that was the housing plots. Being so close to the factories and other industrial enterprises was convenient in terms that the population never traveled more than about 3 miles from there homes for every aspect of living. Fast forward to the 20th century especially after the World Wars planning changed and people wanting more of their own space and green areas for the sake of their own health. This change in thinking lead to the rise of suburbia. Although suburbia is more desirable to live in, it is impractical. Take for example of the development of The Greenways in Amarillo, Tx- it is a beautiful development but because the entire city of Amarillo is surrounded by Playa Lakes the development was built in a place prone to natural flooding and had previously be afforded as a drainage location for the city. Today in the 21st century we have begun to return to the cities but also fill in large gaps left behind in the development of suburbia. I think that with better understanding of our needs and our environment we can better plan for the future.