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Living Cities – Part 1.

Introduction Until I was 11 years old, the largest city I had ever experienced in person, had a population of

just 18,000 people. I had spent the majority of my childhood on farms and in small rural towns

in the State of Victoria, in the temperate climates of south-eastern Australia.

While I was certainly aware of large cities, what ‘knowledge’ I had, was gleaned from what I

had seen or heard on television and radio, or the impressions I had formed from the viewing

of an occasional movie. My parents and extended family were also country people, so until

my first visit to a capital city, I only ‘knew’ the city through the lens of others, or the

concoctions of my own imagination. Cities were therefore abstract places, and, based on what

little I did know, places of considerable violence and mayhem.

At the age of 11, in what I can only assume was a clerical error, I was selected in an under 14

‘Victorian Country’ Australian rules football squad to play against a ‘Metropolitan’ squad.

The vision I had formed of the city was not positive, so I approached my first journey to

Melbourne, Victoria’s state capital, with considerable trepidation.

Just north of Melbourne, the Hume Highway, as it was at the time, crossed Pretty Sally, part

of a chain of hills that eventually rises to join the Great Dividing Range. That range, of at

times rugged hills and mountains, runs the length of the east coast of Australia and quite

literally divides the moist and greener coastal environments along the highly populated east

coast, from the warmer, largely pastoral and cropping, semiarid and arid lands of the inland.

Pretty Sally screened Melbourne from any view of the city as you travelled by road from the

north, so the expanse of the city proper was only revealed in full, when I crested that hill.

That scene, revealed to me for the first time that

night, of the city ablaze with lights, was both

spectacular and life changing.

It was 8PM on a winters evening, and before

me, was a dazzling panorama. For someone

who had grown up in a landscape with big

starry skies and relatively little terrestrial light, to

see the city at night, under a starless sky, quite

literally turned my world upside down. The sky, which I had always known as a place of

boundless stars, was desolate, while the earth beneath, was bejewelled and glistening with

lights.

Some readers may think me a dreadful hick, but they may also be surprised to discover that

up until very recently, the vast majority of people on this planet were born, raised and resided

in rural settings, so experiencing a big city for the very first time was the norm, not the

The suburbs of Melbourne at night. Photograph by

the author.


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exception. It was as recently as 2009/10 when the urban populations of the planet passed 3.5

billion, that meant that for the first time in human history, more people lived in the cities of

the world than lived in the combined regional areas of the planet. But that rate of urbanisation

of global populations, is escalating at an astounding rate.

Anthropologists and Archaeologists tell us, that human beings first started to live in what we

would recognise today as towns, in Mesopotamia approximately 7,000 years ago. That

marked the point in human evolution, when our knowledge of cropping and the

domestication of some animals, had evolved sufficiently to enable the establishment of large,

permanent or semi-permanent communities. It took a further 7,000-years for our global cities

to reach populations of 1 billion in 1961/62, and another 48 years for global urban populations

to surpass those of the collective regions of the world. But forecasts are that by 2050, global

urban populations will exceed 6 billion people.

“Globally, more people live in urban areas than in rural areas, with 54 per cent of the world’s

population residing in urban areas in 2014. In 1950, 30 per cent of the world’s population

was urban, and by 2050, 66 per cent of the world’s population is projected to be urban.”1

These figures as reported by the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs /

Population Division, do not look too alarming on first glance. A 36% increase in 100 years would

not appear particularly catastrophic in the eyes of many; it averages out at a growth rate of

just .36 of 1% per year. But the expression of this data in percentage terms can create

confusion, and perhaps disguises rather than illuminates the extent of the challenge. The

magnitude of the urbanisation challenge becomes clearer for the average person, when those

figures are expressed in pure population numbers.

In 1950 the estimated global population

was just 2.55 billion people, 30% of 2.55

billion places the total urban population

at just 765 million people.

The world’s population in 2050 is

projected to be 9.3 billion. The United

Nation’s estimate of 66% translates to

6.14 billion people living in our global

cities in 2050. That is more people living

in our cities in 2050 than lived on the

entire planet in the year 2000.

It is also worth noting that while the

global population is expected to rise by 3.17 billion between 2000 and 2050, for the first time

in recorded history, rural population numbers are projected fall in that same period. This will

have profound impacts on cultures, languages, traditions and environments globally. While

1 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs/Population Division, 2014, World Urbanization Prospects -

The 2014 Revision, p. xxi

Graph by author and based on data contained within the

World Urbanization Prospects - The 2014 Revision cited

below.


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many might characterise this as the natural consequence of modernisation, few have a real

appreciation for the societal, economic and environmental costs of such an erosion of local

communities and cultures.i This essay will however primarily focus on the challenges for

cities of the urbanisation of populations and we will revisit the broader regional challenges in

a future essay.

The overall phenomenal growth rate projected for our cities over the next 3 decades, is fuelled

by social, economic, and environmental forces, that are already considerably outpacing the

strategic preparedness of nations and urban administrators. This essay focuses on those

forces and in particular considers the policy and design approaches of governments, city

administrators, and city planners, and the adequacy or otherwise of conventional approaches

in responding to these challenges.ii

Lessons of history

“Our city is over-crowded, congested and polluted. Traffic gridlock is a worsening

problem and causes significant delays in the transport of goods across the city, and

in our ability to rapidly deploy emergency services when required. Crime is out of

control and our communities live in fear of the criminals and gangs who appear to

act with relative impunity within our city.”

Statements expressing such sentiments are commonly found in our media across the world.

But while I have rephrased some of the original language, this statement is a fairly accurate

translation of written accounts of the conditions in Rome in the 16th-century, London in the

17th-century, and Paris in the 19th-century.

High crime rates, violence, traffic congestion, even graffiti and vandalism to buildings are not

new problems, these were the problems in Rome (and across Italy) 500 years ago, London 400

years ago, and Paris a century and a half ago. While the scale may have changed, the basic

concerns of populations today, are the concerns that have beset urban populations for

centuries; overcrowding, safety, access to services, clean water, clean air, transport,

employment and housing. iii

Historically, it has been the power of the religious leaders, the military, or the monarchy, that

has shaped the modern form of our cities in most cultures. That began to change in the 18th

and 19th –centuries, with the emergence of the industrial and banking giants out of the

industrial revolution, and changed dramatically in the 20th-century when the destructive

power of military weaponry, reached the cataclysmic capacities that we live with to this day.

Historically however, city-wide destruction usually only occurred as a consequence of natural

disaster or, as a decision to demolish all, or part of a city, by an all-powerful authority. In the

late 16th-century in Rome, Pope Sixtus V was just such an ‘all powerful’ authority.


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Rome:

There is no doubt that Sixtus V was a rather ruthless character. An authoritarian who would

use any and all means at his disposal, to achieve his ambition of rebuilding the power of the

Roman Catholic Church as part of the Counter Reformation. But despite what I may think of

the brutality and lack of humanity with which Sixtus administered the populace, he did

reshape Rome and established the underlying architecture, that sustains the beautiful city of

Rome as we know it today.

The population of Rome in 1580 was just 80,0002. The broader city, established during the

age of empire, had been in a sustained state of decline throughout the middle ages and was

further destroyed in the sacking of Rome in 1527. By 1585 the city had reached such a decrepit

state, that the centre of Rome was a slum with a few remnant historic buildings dotted across

the city. This central precinct was however an island, surrounded by the ruins of the once

great city of Rome. Despite it’s relatively modest population by contemporary standards,

Rome was a crowded, squalled, and filthy city, that lacked most basic amenities.

Shanties were clustered along the narrow roads and alleys of the city, leading to transport

congestion and chaos that made the movement of goods, or the military, an impossibility. The

city also lacked basic sanitation infrastructure, so the streets and waterways were polluted

with raw sewerage, grey water, and waste. Predictably then, hundreds of people died in the

inevitable and regular outbreaks of disease which tormented the populace.

That most quintessential of postcard images, the Colosseum, was at that time, described as a

ruin that functioned principally as ‘a lair for bandits and thieves who terrorised the streets of Rome

at night’.

Faced with the realities of Rome’s decline, Pope Sixtus V, having ascended to the Papacy in

1585, developed and implemented a grand, unified vision for Rome.

Sixtus V sought to reinstate Rome as the cultural and religious capital; the symbolic centre of

Catholicism on earth. His vision was to build a Rome that gave physical manifestation to

Catholic values, and reinforce the power of the Church in Rome, throughout Italy, and across

the world. He entered into a period of profound reform that changed the face of Rome in

just a few short years.

The architectural foundation for modern Rome was established through his linking of the

great public piazza’s, the grand churches, and palaces of the city. This included the building

of public areas in front of any churches or palaces, where such public spaces had not

previously been provided. In this way, Sixtus created physical links between the Seven Hills

of Rome.

2 Partner, Peter., 1976., Renaissance Rome: A Portrait of a Society 1500-1590., University of California Press., P.83


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Previous Popes had undertaken some works on

improving Rome. These included Michelangelo’s Piazza

Campidoglio, and the building of sections of broader

roadways, but these had all been incremental

improvements specific to a location and, in many cases,

never actually finished. Sixtus by contrast, brought to

the process, a more strategic and far ranging vision; the

unification of central Rome.

The broad roadways he envisioned, created physical

and visual connections between the important cultural

and symbolic nodes of the city. It provided Rome with

a coherent transport framework, allowing for the freer movement of the populace and the

transport of goods and the military, so necessary for the development of a viable economy

and the re-establishment and maintenance of civil order.

As part of the broader works, Sixtus also

drained the marshes of the putrid waste of

generations, and had new channels constructed

for the transportation of clean water into the

city. Diagrammatic representations of the

period also show the extensive areas of

greenspace, including water features and

parklands he envisioned.

More broadly, Sixtus did not just limit his

efforts to Rome. He rebuilt the great ports of the

coastal areas of Italy and upgraded the vital

transport links to those ports, recognising that for a city to prosper, commerce and trade were

essential. This reflects an understanding that the culture and viability of a society, is

influenced by much more than simple appearance. It is enabled by complex and interrelated

dependencies, including what we call today economic forces, employment opportunities,

education and social programs. Sixtus, for example, built hospices and implemented social

and educational programs for the poor as part of the renewal of Rome.

The extent and pace of Rome’s renewal under Sixtus V’s rule, is no better characterised than

in the quoting of priest Angelo Grillo, by Roderick Conway Morris, in his April 1993 essay in

Spectator. Father Grillo returned to Rome in 1595 after an absence of many years, and upon

his return he wrote:

“I am in Rome, but I no longer find Rome here: there are so many new buildings,

streets, piazzas, fountains, obelisks and other extraordinary marvels... that I can

hardly find a trace of the old Rome I left behind.”

Diagrammatic of Sixtus V’s plan of Rome

Sixtus V’s plan for Rome


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A substantial amount of the renewal of Rome was implemented within the short 5 years of

Sixtus V’s papacy from 1585, through to the time of his death in 1590. The Rome we know

today, owes much to his foundational architectural framework.

London:

The next historic example is one of possibility not realised, and although the London we know

today is a vibrant and multicultural city, it did arguably forgo the opportunity to lead the

world in the creation of grand and beautiful city renewal in the 17th and 18th-centuries.

London had been presented with an opportunity to deal with its own problems of

overcrowding, disease, polluted waterways and rampant crime, with the Great Fire of London

in 1666, but the city was both unwilling and unable to seize the opportunity that the great fire

had afforded.

London in the 1600’s was not a very pleasant city. It was experiencing considerable

population growth with displaced rural populations moving to London in search of work in

the factories, slaughterhouses and industries that were at the heart of London’s economic

expansion. The estimated population of London in 1666 was 500,000 people. But it was a city

that was crowded, dirty, and periodically devastated by outbreaks of plague, typhoid and other

diseases. The River Thames was little more than a large open sewer, and in combination with

coal soot and smoke, left central London with an all pervading greyness of atmosphere and

an oppressive and foul smell. A stench which was assumed by many, to be the primary cause

of the bouts of illness and disease that often beset the city and its populace.

While the Great Fire of London was a catastrophe in terms of overall property loss, it actually

claimed few lives, with just 6 confirmed deaths, but it also afforded the city an opportunity to

redefine and reshape its identity.

After the fire, submissions were called for the

redesign and rebuilding of London. Of those

submissions, two in particular are held

forward today as best representing the

opportunity lost. Sir Christopher Wren and Sir

John Evelyn, had independently presented

new plans that proposed layouts for central

London that were comparable in aesthetic, to

those that would be implemented in Paris,

nearly two centuries later.

The Wren plan, proposed piazza’s, public

parks and other civic spaces, all linked by

grand and usually tree lined boulevards.

These were designed to create physical and visual links between the existing and proposed

new, landmarks and public spaces of the city. Those plans, like those of Sixtus V 80 years

earlier, recognised the imperative of linking the public spaces and cultural icons of the city.

Sir Christopher Wren’s plan for London


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They also reinforced the importance of ensuring green spaces were created to support the

health and general wellbeing of the public, through the provision of recreational opportunity,

clean air, sunlight, and access to nature.

This philosophy, also lay very much at the heart

of Sir John Evelyn’s’ plan for London. Sir John

was a passionate advocate for the planting of

fragrant and leafy trees throughout the city.

This was primarily an attempt to mitigate the

harmful consequences of both air pollution and,

the stench from the streets and waterways of

the city. Sir John was an advocate of the role of

green public parks, and open space in

improving the aesthetic of a city, and in

providing for the physical and mental wellbeing

of its citizens.

Unfortunately, both plans went largely unrealised. The land tenure for the majority of the

buildings destroyed in the Great Fire of London, was privately held, and the land owners were

unwilling to relinquish their titles nor forfeit their rights under law. As a consequence,

landowners rebuilt on their original allotments, and the old mediaeval street layout of central

London was reinstated, much to the frustration of contemporary vehicle users and commuters

in central London today. It would take another century and a half for some of the great parks

and gardens to be implemented as part of the major sewerage infrastructure works that so

changed the face (and smell) of London between 1859 and 1875.

Paris:

Paris faced familiar problems in the 19th-century. Many might be surprised to know that the

Paris we know it today, is actually a comparatively recent manifestation of the historic city.

In fact, it is commonly agreed that the major urban renewal commissioned by Napoleon III in

1853, was only really completed in 1927. The Paris of pre-1853 was a far cry from the beautiful

city we know today.

It was a city that had grown to a population of over a million, but it was a squalled, cramped,

and filthy city with roaming bands of thieves and criminals, terrorising much of the citizenry.

It, like London and Rome before it, was a city periodically racked by outbreaks of cholera,

typhoid and tuberculosis, all of which wreaked havoc on the general populace. It was an

unhealthy and squalled city of open sewers and fouled streets that all spewed their waste into

the heavily polluted River Seine. The river was as a consequence, a source of overwhelming

noxious odours and a place that was avoided where possible.

Paris was a city of crowded buildings clustered along meandering mediaeval streets that

made the transport of goods, people, and the rapid deployment of police and military to deal

with outbreaks of violence, almost impossible.

Sir John Evelyn’s plan for London


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In 1853, Napoleon III provided a simple and

explicit brief to his appointed designer,

Georges-Eugène Haussmann; make Paris more

beautiful. Napoleon wanted to bring light and

air into the centre of the city and to unify and

connect the city through the establishment of

grand tree lined boulevards, much as had been

proposed for London by Wren and Evelyn.

The Paris we know today, is founded in the

boulevards and parks, and building height

restrictions implemented by Haussmann to

ensure that the sunlight was able to strike city

streets. In combination with the extensive

water and sewerage infrastructure works, the

city of Paris was transformed from a relic of the

middle ages, into a new modern city able to take

advantage of the benefits of the booming

industrial economy of the day.

This renewal was not without controversy.

Great swathes of housing along with many

medieval streets and laneways, were demolished in order to deliver Haussmann’s plans. Even

today, there remain those who argue that the renewal of Paris was achieved at too great a

social cost and destroyed an important medieval city. Those views are however, very much

in the minority.

Context is however critically important. When Napoleon III set forth on his ambitious plan

to renew central Paris, it was little over half a century since the end of the French Revolution.

Therefore, the great avenues and vistas created, like those created in Rome under Sixtus V,

did not link to private symbols of wealth and power. They linked instead to public spaces,

parklands and historic and cultural symbols of the French people.

This approach was very much in the spirit of the

liberalism and democratic ideals so alive in

French citizenry of the day. The design, while

serving the more utilitarian desires of Napoleon

and the city authorities, was very much a

celebration of the history and spirit of the French

people, and not just the reinforcement of

individual or institutional power.

Reflecting this, we note that while the grand

boulevardes and axis points, created the robust

Image of contemporary Paris, The Telegraph

Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s plan for Paris

Unattributed image of Paris, The Traveller.


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but elegant architectural foundation for the city, much of the intricate medieval roads and

laneways of Paris remained intact. It is in these ‘backstreets’, that we find today so much of

the real Parisian culture and attitude. While the Champes-Èlyséés provides the tourism hub and

the more extroverted centre of Paris, it is in the intricate backstreets that we find the places

and spaces where the real spirit of Paris resides. This is the introspective centre of Parisian

life. We hear it in the conversations, we find it in the art, the music and the literature that

emanate from the restaurants, cafes and bookshops. This is the true cultural centre for the

people of the city.

The Paris we know so well today, so often described as the most beautiful city in the world,

is for most, a shining example of how the art of design, creative engineering, heritage, cultural

conservation, and architecture, can be achieved in a modern and contemporary city.

I use these historic reference points for a number of reasons, the most compelling being that

as is evident from the historic accounts, while the population demands at the time of these

renewals were of a lesser scale than today, the challenges faced were not dissimilar. The

drivers of change in these cities, the ‘symptoms’ if you like of urban decline, could be taken

from the pages of any metropolitan daily today; overcrowding, escalating crime, declining

public safety, transport congestion, lack of housing, economic disadvantage, failing of basic

services and declining civic amenity. But, when examined in detail, the approach to the

resolution of these challenges for these great cities, stands in stark contrast to most

contemporary approaches.

If we examine the approaches taken in the 3 historic examples cited, we find clear similarities

in process.

Firstly, there was a powerful and decisive design foundation established for these cities. This

was achieved through the establishment of the great boulevards and avenues that connected

important public spaces. These boulevards established the architectural axial ‘bones’ of the

new city. They created a sense of order; a cognitively and culturally recognisable symbolic

set of pathways, that enabled all to intuitively understand and navigate the city. These broad,

and usually tree lined avenues and boulevards, gave structure to the city, and in so doing,

enabled a stronger and more powerful connection between the people, their communities,

and their city.

Secondly, those grand boulevards and roadways linked the great public places of the city. It was

in the public spaces that the citizens operated, traded and connected on a daily basis, this was

the working heart and soul of the city and its communities; the places of the people. It

mattered little that a palace or church fronting the public space might be less accessible, it was

the piazza, square or market space itself, where the public gathered, and raised their collective

voices in either celebration or anger; these were the places of community.

Thirdly, the renewal of the city was not just an urban make over. The designs for the renewal

of the cities reviewed were multilayered, they had depth and resonance. The renewals

embraced economic reform, social reform and legal reform. They were accompanied by


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upgrades to the essential infrastructure of a city like clean water and sanitation. The renewals

embraced the reform of social programs, health programs, education and cultural programs.

Programs designed to ensure that the physical growth of the city, was accompanied by the

growth of culture, and the creation of a more civil and socially connected society.

It is critical also to note that all of the designs reviewed, introduced extensive areas of trees,

parklands and water features into the urban environment. This essential green infrastructure

softened the city, provided human scale, and perhaps most importantly, were seen as

fundamental to the health and wellbeing of the citizens. It is clear from historic accounts that

these elements were not just aesthetic decoration, they were in fact considered vital for urban

wellbeing.

Great cities are built of great cultures. The built form therefore, is both informed by, and

informs the culture and history of the people. The form, the style, the ‘feel’ and essence of the

city, is informed by the landscapes on which the city is developed and the built character that

evolves and reflects the values, history and cultures of the citizenry. Those elements; the

landscape, the architecture, the culture and the history, are deeply and profoundly connected

with the sense of place of the city itself.

Those cities we most often classify as the ‘great cities of the world’, are those that most eloquently

express and reflect their profound connection of place, people, culture and history. This is a

fundamental principle from which all approaches to new cities, or city renewals, should be

founded. Cities are not ‘created’, like a movie set. They are built layer upon layer, generation

upon generation. Their power is derived from the deeper meaning that resonates within

them, and is somehow discernible to us, through the artistic translation of that meaning into

built form. But the skills and disciplines necessary to enable that ‘translation’, demand a great

deal of those seeking to enable cities of meaning to establish and prosper.

The Contrast

In reviewing the approaches to the challenges posed by the

urbanisation of populations globally, I find evidence of the

extent to which governments and city managers are

struggling to keep pace with the rate of change.

High rise apartments, mass transport systems and urban

infrastructure are appearing across cities and landscapes of

the world, at rates not before experienced in human history.

But there is a growing realisation that both the rate of

development, and the overall approach to this development,

is coming at too great a social, environmental and community

cost.

Our cities are increasingly generic, artless, cluttered, confused,

and dangerous. In the great rush to build accommodation for

The Montparnasse Tower, Paris.

Photo by Steven Strehl. A building

that stands in stark contrast in terms

of scale, materials and form, to the

city that surrounds it.


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booming populations, design and build quality, cultural relevance and overall considerations

for the aesthetic, safety and heritage of cities and cultures, are being ignored. The pace of

construction is leaving administrators and the community in a state of perpetual catch-up,

and that leads to greater levels of standardisation in buildings and to a homogeneity of

solutions and building styles. Structures emerge that are therefore, neither appropriate, nor

necessarily safe, in some environments and circumstances.

Such developments are putting at risk, not only people, but some of the great cities of the

world. Their unique aesthetic and cultural character are being incrementally destroyed, by

planning and development approaches, that place a premium on the speed of construction

and financial return, over all else.

Across the world apartments and higher density

living are being developed at astounding rates.

Developments that seek in a policy sense, to reduce

the urban footprint and restrain the horizontal spread

of cities, through the promotion of greater density and

high rise development. But it is very rare indeed, that

we can point to such developments and legitimately

claim that they are adding to the liveability or

character of a city.

In the spreading suburbia of these cities we find

instead, developments that are simply production

lines of characterless, contextually irrelevant, and

artistically moribund edifices. Buildings that ignore

and undermine local character and disrupt, or

destroy, the cohesion of cities, communities, and their

natural and cultural settings.

Cookie-cutter developments that erode and render

mute the voices of individuality and identity.

Developments that foist upon the landscape a bland-

scape of buildings and open space treatments of

social and cultural irrelevance. The accompanying

promotional and public relations materials,

inevitably hail such developments as ‘cutting edge’

and seek to position them as in some way

‘contemporary’ and ‘fashionable’. But ‘fashion’

throughout history, has inevitably sat at the polar

opposite to the fundamentals of ‘style’.

We find transplanted cityscapes from other cultures

dotted across the planet. Out-of-place and out-of-time

Public Housing development, Hong Kong.

Photo by Steven Strehl.

Housing development, Ixtapaluca, Mexico.

Photo by Steven Strehl.

Venice? No – the deserts of Qatar. Alamy

Stock Photograph.


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developments strewn across the landscapes of the world. In the deserts of Qatar, we find

pseudo Venetian developments with canals and water bodies.

In China we find the most astounding ‘ghost cities’3. Entire cities with high rise buildings,

freeways, railway stations, parks and public amenities servicing the needs of populations that

do not yet exist.

Cities created without cultural context and devoid

of relevance, like Tianducheng shown in the

attached image. Not a city that was informed and

responsive to the natural landscapes and the

cultural history of people and place, but rather a

Disneyfied irrelevance.

While the design intention of these cities may have

been sincere in endeavouring to acknowledge the

beauty and character of one of the great cities of

the world, unfortunately they exist only as a form of mockery. A twee and sanitised

irrelevance, devoid of both meaning and soul. Beautifully finished, fabulously detailed, but

ultimately, more a film set or photographic backdrop than a real place.

Variations of this phenomenon are found globally. Not necessarily in the replication of other

nations icons, but in the most superficial and banal expressions of even their own history,

landscape and cultural icons. An aversion is would seem, to genuine depth of meaning and

understanding.

I do however provide one point of concession. While I am critical in a design sense, of the

approach symbolised by places like Tianducheng, I must also acknowledge that the initiative

by the Chinese government, represents one of the very few genuine attempts to prepare for

the urban population tsunami facing the worlds developed and developing economies today.

As is evident in our selective and very brief review of the history of city renewal, the challenge

in responding to the urbanisation of global populations cannot be resolved by simply building

more apartments, freeways, railways or sewerage networks, etc. The great cities of the world

are not created by the placing together of a selection of prefabricated parts. Great cities have

an identity, a spirit and a resonance. They grow and evolve, reinvent and replace components

that don’t work, and grow and evolve again. It is the way in which these qualities are

translated into form and space, that enables and gives expression to place, people and culture.

The approaches I have discussed, those applied in Rome and Paris, and proposed, but not

implemented in London, when done with artistic proficiency and an understanding of the

3 See - Kiyo Dörrer, November 2016, What has become of China’s ghost cities? DW Akadamie, http://www.dw.com/en/what-

has-become-of-chinas-ghost-cities/a-36525007

A Parisian scene? No – The Chinese ghost city

of Tianducheng.

http://www.dw.com/en/what-has-become-of-chinas-ghost-cities/a-36525007

http://www.dw.com/en/what-has-become-of-chinas-ghost-cities/a-36525007


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cultural, scientific and cognitive fundamentals of human habitation, can produce beautiful

and unique results. But they can easily cross into the realm of nationalistic fervour, that we

so often observe in tyrannical regimes globally. I have found many examples globally, where

large avenues link ‘public’ places. But more often than not, contemporary versions of these

spaces, cross the artistic boundary into the sought of ceremonial and maniacal urban spaces,

created during some of the darkest days of recent history. We see these spaces regularly on

our screens and they are most often filled with military weaponry and parading soldiers,

rather than the public participating in community life. Not public spaces at all; but symbols

of subjugation and tyranny.

There is an art and science to building truly great cities. A complexity of mutually dependant

and subtle interfaces of sciences, social sciences and the arts, that are vital in enabling and

sustaining the complexity and diversity of the natural patterns of urban cohabitation. The

acceptance of such a complexity compels us to consider broader fields of knowledge. To

embrace and seek out design and scientific input, that is literate in urban sciences, cognizant

of, and proficient in the application of social and human geographic theory, and artistically

skilled.

Once built, the cities we create over the next 3 decades will define our world for generations.

The design and renewal works being spewed across our landscapes today, almost wholly

reflect the values and tastes of government, bureaucrats, planners and developers. And that

I am afraid, presents its own set of challenges.

The new challenge

“What experience and history teach is this - that nations and governments have

never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have

drawn from it.”4

As we have seen, in 1585, a Pope put pen to paper and established the architecture, for what

remains one of the great cities of the world. London was presented with designs for a new

central city just 81 years later. Designs developed by Sir Christopher Wren, an astronomer,

geometrician and architect and, Sir John Evelyn, who according to the Encyclopaedia

Britiannica, was a ‘Country Gentleman’ and author of some 30 books on the fine arts, forestry,

and religion. Haussmann studied Law, and yet in 1853 was able to interpret and translate

into urban form, the aspirations of Napoleon III, and in so doing, establish the architectural

foundations for the Paris we know today.

In my research into the global approaches to urbanisation, I was struck by the incapacity of

contemporary cities, to achieve what Sixtus V, Christopher Wren, John Evelyn and Georges-

Eugène Haussmann were able to achieve in centuries past. A group who, with the exception

of Wren, might be legitimately characterised as an assemblage of architectural and city design

amateurs.

4 G.W.F. Hegel., 1830., Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction., Translated by H.B. Nisbet, 1975


14

How, I asked myself, was it possible for the theory and practice of city form, to go from the

grand plan for Paris, to the inhumanity of so much of 20th-century building and renewal? The

completion of Paris and the commencement of the rebuilding of much of Europe and England

after World War 2, were after all, just 20 years apart. The answer is would appear, is in the

dramatic philosophical and structural reforms that emerged in the modern age.

The later part of the 19th-century had been a period of great discovery and innovation. But it

was in the early part of the 20th-century, that those advances in so many fields, including those

of electronics, mechanical engineering, automotive engineering, and aeronautical

engineering, changed the future of humanity. Innovation, industrialisation and science, were

irrevocably changing the way humanity saw and engaged with the world; it was a new and

modern age.

The modern age heralded in a new relationship and new attitude between humanity, nature

and the built environment. In art and architecture, we saw the rise of the Modernism

Movement. A philosophical and artistic movement that in urban and architectural theory,

proposed that we view the ‘city as a machine’. Where the forms that surrounded humanity and

housed humanity, were the product of the

functional needs of humanity in the modern era.

Thus the great mantra of modernism was coined;

form follows function.

Modernism rebelled against the neo-classical

opulence of the Beaux Arts style, and the nature

inspired rich ornamentation of Art Nouveau.

Styles that had become the vogue in the later 19th

and very early 20th-centuries, and the very styles

that so characterised the renewal of Paris. The Art

Deco period bridged from the highly ornate Art

Nouveau and Beaux Arts styles, to the less

embellished forms of the two major modernism

schools that would follow. Art Deco itself, saw cleaner lines and the removal of the flowing

lines of nature, to be replaced by a more ‘machine age’ style through machine inspired lines

and new, modern materials.

Modernism came to dominate new architecture and moved even further away from any form

of grand embellishment and sense of the ornate. It instead, embraced the new technologies

that were improving the range, performance and flexibility of materials like steel, glass and

concrete. These were new, modern materials, and modernism sought to give these materials

expression in forms that reflected both the attributes of the materials, and the mood of the

times.

The image of the cities of the future, was in the hands of architects and builders who were

designing and building, with both a new attitude and embracing new materials and

Crown Hall, Harvard, by Architect Mies van

der Rohe, 1945. One of the most beautiful

examples of the Modernist style.


15

technologies. Materials that enabled for taller and more substantial buildings, that could be

mechanically heated and cooled, and could be a more efficiently constructed. The buildings

of the modernist architectural style, came to dominate city skylines and architectural practice

for much of the 20th-century. Towering skyscrapers appeared in larger cities that were taller

than those of history, and yet they had a sense of lightness, and openness, that was impossible

to achieve with the heavy masonry materials of the past and without the mechanised

environmental controls of air conditioning and heating.

A second interpretation of modernism also

appeared at this time, this was a style known as

Brutalism. This style sat in stark contrast to the

steel and glass dominated modernist buildings.

Brutalism instead explored the unembellished

and monolithic forms possible through the use of

brick and concrete. Materials that were

celebrated in design through very heavy, and

usually austere and substantial buildings.

But it was not only the visual appearance and style

of the architecture of our cities that was influenced

by the rise of modernism and advances in mechanisation, electronics and materials

technologies. Cars were a rarity in the 19th-century, Carl Benz’s first motorised vehicle only

appeared on roadways in 1886. By the 1920’s, motor vehicles were well progressed in their

transition from the indulgences and playthings of the wealthy, to the future of transport in

the major cities of the world. This impacted greatly on the design and functional requirements

of the roadways of cities and nations.

The roadways of the world, until the mass production of the car, had all been designed for

relatively light and slow moving loads of horse drawn drays, buggies, and bicycles. The rising

number of cars and trucks using city roads in the early part of the 20th-century, generated a

demand for surfaces with the necessary durability to accommodate the stresses placed on the

road by the braking, accelerating and cornering of heavier vehicles moving at increased speed.

It was not until 1907 that petroleum based refined asphalt, became the more common road

surface choice. Replacing the various bituminous stone, cobbled, timber block and natural

earth roads of the previous decades.

Not only did road surfaces and dimensions need to change,

but so also did the need for how vehicles travelled in and

around cities. In the 19th-century, roads linked between

places, but in the 20th-century, roads instead started to link

with each other, roads were planned so that road ‘X’ linked

through to road ‘Y’ to facilitate traffic flow, and so the roads

of cities and nations changed forever and began to resemble

the road design approaches we see today. Those roads, boulevards and avenues that formed

the structural ‘architecture’, or bones, of the city renewals we considered earlier, ceased being

Boston City Hall, a building in the Brutalist style.


16

funded and built. Road investment was now prioritised on purely utilitarian criteria for the

rapid transportation of people and goods.

Equally, cars needed to be parked and stored, so the amenities of cities had to be reinvented,

as also did the laws pertaining to vehicle transport. While it may sound simple in hindsight,

these advancements in technology necessitated wholesale physical changes to cities, the

landscapes, and the laws of the land. Even in the 21st-century, some of the laws relating to

vehicles still remain unchanged from the 19th-century. In a small rural city in country Victoria,

according to a local bylaw, a man is to this day, permitted to urinate against the wheel of his

dray in the streets of the city (sorry girls but you will just have to hold on). But motor vehicles

were just one of the great changes that drove new approaches to city design, in the early 20th-

century.

Trains until that time, had largely been a transport medium that transferred the public and

goods between cities. Roads in regional areas across the majority of the world were usually

impassable during winter and wet seasons, and far too slow even in good weather. One took

a train from London to Brighton for example (a service that opened in 1841), but as cities grew

quickly in the early 20th-century, they needed trains as a mass transport medium for the public

within cities, this was also enabled by the continued advancement in electricity generation

and supply.

Some cities, like Paris in 1898, developed underground services, but the vast majority carved

swathes through cities to create the necessary terrestrial rail infrastructure to service their

needs. Trains and their passengers of course required stations, and so also yards for storage,

and facilities for their management and maintenance. Buses and lorries had become common

users of city streets, as they transported the public, goods, and materials, throughout cities.

Motorised vehicles also needed to access fuel, oil and water, so new businesses arrived in

cities to provide those necessities.

Aeroplanes were only successfully flown for the first time in 1903, and the first passenger

service commenced in the United States in 1914, but by 1930, 6000 people a year were being

flown across the planet, and just 8 years later, passenger figures passed 1.2 million. The 19th-

century cities had never been designed for, nor could have imagined such transport services

in the future. So with relative immediacy, any city that was of significance, or wanted to be

of significance, required a functioning airport as near to the city as possible.

With such a climate of rapid and sustained advancement, the very structures of government,

business and city management also underwent change. If form follows function, and the

functions were being revolutionised by the rate of scientific and technological advancement,

then the form of those institutions responsible for those functions, also needed to modernise.

So functionalism was applied to the administrative, management, production and service

structures of government, business, industry and public administration.

Within government for example, the responsibility for the construction and maintenance of

roads infrastructure, sat within a specific department or authority. City planning within its


17

own specific and clearly delineated authority. Rail and airports elsewhere again, as to ports.

Education, health, environment, police and emergency services; all in their own specific siloes

and each, pursuing their specific agendas, and all in competition with each other for the same

resources and funding, where the service was publicly funded.

We begin perhaps, to gain some insight into the magnitude and pace of change being

experienced by society in the 20th and early 21st-centuries. But it is sobering indeed to

understand that the rate of change that started to accelerate so rapidly in the early part of last

century, has continued to accelerate across the world we live in today.

Given the focus of this essay, one is naturally drawn to the following questions:

• Where does the integrated strategic vision for our city, reside today?

• Who is able to articulate how the various critical elements of a city of the future, align, connect

and integrate?

Based upon my research, it is clear that in the vast majority of cases, there is no single vision.

Each proposal for a new building or a new subdivision is considered within its context, and

as part of an agreed process. Governments, through their public servants, have developed a

city framework or precinct plan, which zones the city according to the assigned activities that

can occur within those zones; a residential zone, light industrial zone, commercial zone, high

rise development zone, etc., etc. We create cities where we live in one zone of the city, work

in a separate zone, shop in yet another and recreate elsewhere again. We build cities that

make communities impossible, and compel people to travel, hence the need for more roads

and transport infrastructure.

In reality, the consolidation of the necessary capitals with the authority and accountability for

genuine city wide integration, only exists today in non-democratic and centralised

governments, and those tend to avoid creating more empowered communities and more

equitable and connected cities.

In short, the issue has become more confused as the functional division of authorities has

become more complex over the past century. While the modernism philosophies have

enabled some societies to maximise their business and industrial prosperity, through the

embracing of scientific and technological advancement, those benefits have not been shared

evenly or equitably across the globe. While modernism has advantaged some, and has

stimulated many artistic and architectural communities globally, there is at least prima facie

evidence that the application of these philosophies, and the consequential management

structures of government and city administrations, has proven far less successful.

As we will examine in a later essay, the application of such philosophies in the 20th-century,

created cities and precincts with entrenched inequities and social problems that destroyed

lives, neighbourhoods and societies.


18

But that does not mean that the designing and planning of beautiful and engaging cities is

impossible. The renewals of Paris and Rome were 3 centuries apart, and the world did not

stand still during that period. This was the time of the Renaissance, a period of great

investigation, discovery and reform. It also covered the Colonialism period, where nations

endlessly bickered over their sovereignty of the natural capitals of the other nations, and

included the French Revolution and the peak of the Industrial Revolution. Periods that changed

the very fabric of societies, and the financial futures of nations. So the intervening time

between the renewal of Rome and the renewal of Paris was a period of profound advancement

and social upheaval, and yet, the beauty of Paris was still achievable.

What is intuitively accessible and has cognitive resonance to an individual in a town of 1,000

people, is scalable to larger cities. But more importantly, the majority of the great cities of the

world are not defined and recognisable by their uniformity. They are rarely homogeneous,

places of sameness. They are rather places of interconnected, but distinct characters. Consider

for example the 3 images shown below:

I have not included any of the usual ‘icon’ images so synonymous with this city, each is also

very different in terms of subject and scale, and all taken at different times of the day and in

different seasons, and yet I am confident that the majority of readers will be able to name the

city.iv

I come to ‘know’ a city by moving through it, by experiencing its various characters, moods,

seasons and idiosyncrasies. Great cities may be promoted and recognisable to most by one or

more iconic images, but they are in reality delightfully complex mosaics, and it is the

accessibility and coherency of this mosaic that resonates with its communities and its visitors.

They are alive with meaning and memory, history and culture. They are able to convey

through built form, the unique qualities of their time and place. It is indeed true to say, that

cities possess their own built language, and it is this ‘language’ that has become both confused

and often incoherent, in so much of the urban works occurring in the world today.

Summary

In the historic case studies cited, the renewal of those cities was achievable because of the

clarity of authority and vision that guided their renewal, and the manageable scale of the city

itself. The cities of the world of today, those being created or modified to accommodate the

urbanisation of global populations, are vast and spreading monoliths. Cities that are

increasingly ‘amalgams’ of other places rather than single and coherent places in their own

right. Places where the controller of title, largely does what they believe will generate the


19

greatest financial return. That there should be some sensitivity shown to environment, place,

history, culture or urban aesthetic, is simply not a consideration. How then can the lessons of

the past possibly be relevant to cities of such significantly greater scale? It is a different time

after all.

As I examined case studies from across the 20th-century, it became increasingly clear to me

just why I found replicas of Paris in China, Venice in Qatar, and countless other examples of

replication rather than innovation across global cities. These were safe choices by authorities.

Forms that the authorities new worked and were loved elsewhere, and so could be replicated

with at least some level of assurance, that the public would appreciate and find comfort within

them.

This stood in stark contrast to so many of the 20th-century models, which had resulted in social

and civil decline, and entrenched areas of poverty and disadvantage within the fabric of cities.

A fundamental truth had emerged from this 20th-century experimentation. That by treating

urban growth as primarily an accommodation and transport problem, by focusing on the city

as machine, by delegating the authority for the component parts of the urban experience so

widely, city forms had not only failed to solve those problems, but had created far more

serious problems for communities and cultures. Too late, it was realised that inappropriate

urban forms and social isolation, actually spawned social disadvantage, created toxic

communities, and in many cases drove people to seek refuge either in drugs to escape, or in

gangs to achieve some sense of belonging.

When the authorities responsible for new cities or the renewal of old cities, compared 20th-

century urban consequences against their aspirations for healthy, connected and sustainable

communities, their choices to replicate places of proven aesthetic and cultural pedigree, begin

to make logical, if not artistic, sense.

So we stand today in the midst of the largest urbanisation of global populations in history,

and across the world, I find the failed 20th-century models still being pursued by authorities

who cannot, or will not, consider the alternatives. As I meet with these authorities to explore

the appropriateness and effectiveness of contemporary approaches, I also encounter fierce

resistance and defence of ‘the process’. And herein lays just one of the problems with the

contemporary approach, the process is more important than the product.

When we combine this ostensibly political paradigm (process focused), with the changes in

global controls of the necessary capitalsv that enable communities and cities to exist and grow,

we start to appreciate the complexity of our current circumstance. To change the

philosophical, political and professional approaches to the building and renewal of

communities, towns and cities, would require a paradigm shift by decision makers and key

influencers in society. But the level of entrenchment of those peculiarly 20th-century

philosophies and ideologies in the educational, business, public administration and political

structures, would appear to necessitate revolutionary, rather than evolutionary, reform.


20

As we move inexorably to a global urban population of 6.14 billion by 2050, there is an urgent

need for a global conversation about our cities of the future. The model for treating the various

identifiable and measurable components of a city, as separate and distinct entities has not

served city design and renewal well. It is the recipe for a disjointed and dissociative city, as

evidenced by so many examples over the past century.

So unless anybody knows of any ex-religious leaders, with advanced training in astronomy,

geometrics, architecture, fine arts, forestry, religion, and law, who are free to design, fund and

build thousands of cities globally over the next 20 years; it might be about time we considered

other options.

Perhaps, just perhaps, a clearer strategic vision and an acceptance of the inherent complexity

of city elements, might necessitate a more creative, pluralist, and scientifically and socially

literate approach.

i This is a topic I will return to in a later essay.

ii While the current growth is rapid and sustained, this should not be confused with any notion of this growth

being unexpected. If we go back a decade in 2003 the UN Population Division update had forecast this level of

growth; for the most part however global governments chose not to act. In scholarly circles, the focus has been

rather preoccupied with the ecological impacts of such growth, which is most unfortunate as such matters were

of limited concern to most political leaders.

iii This is not intended as a definitive history of urban expansion and urban history. The examples cited are

simply intended to serve as illustrations of where the process for developing and implementing significant urban

change has enabled cities to achieve such changes over relatively short timeframes to accommodate the needs of

swelling populations and changed circumstance.

iv It is Paris by the way. v By ‘Capitals’ I refer to the control of the 5 economic capitals:

• Natural / Environmental capital

• Human capital

• Social capital

• Built / Manufactured capital

• Financial capital

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