#robert whyte

[kuslalumonka]

[mikasavela]

The Illustrated Walktrough

In 1968, urbanist Robert Whyte published a book The Last Landscape. I've quoted his remark: "the cities aren't crowded enough" here earlier, as an example of a kind of counter thinking to the modernist open-plan town planning, and also, the 1960's interest in the core values of city life. But as always, things are more complex. Traditional cities, no matter how congested... or notably vital and beautiful in their beating existence, were not models for new planning. For the future, new standards applied. In a New York Magazine article, September 1968, Mr. Whyte offered a walktrough of the planning process, exemplifying the merits of cluster development, on the basis of his book. It goes like this:

1. This is the imaginary site.

2. The hypothetical 1960's developer plan follows. Although, it's very city-block like, the plots are actually for 168 single family houses. He puts the creek in concrete culvert and levels the hills. The marsh is too expensive to build, hence it remains as a park.

3. A 1960's county planner comes to rescue. He shows the developer how he can preserve the natural beauty with the help of cluster development!

4. The developer hires a 1960's architect, and together they work out a plan to put all the 168 houses into groups of rowhouses in each cluster.

5. However, the local people are very civilized and voice their concerns of the strict formality of the plan. The planner has an another go and comes up with a modified cluster layout, grouping free-standing houses on separate plots. And really, that was it. A superior cluster plan was made.

The result, is a very common and decisively non-urban planning approach. I think, for quite a few generations, planning professional have been too thrilled at being able to study issues of density and land-use, leaving green pastures between the clusters. That was the new way of solving the problems of housing and sprawl.

But just like Robert Whyte, the planners themselves lived and preferred old city cores, enjoyed their density and liveliness (and mostly still do). There is a gap between this appreciation, and the mechanism that has produced both the traditional rows of warehouses, townhouses, railyards and skyscrapers. Behind a dirty city proper, is the greed of the developers, everyone trying to get a piece of the cake. For it is just these areas of pre-planning era property speculation that, after a decline in population density, after everyone moved to suburbs, usually later become the most valued, iconic, and expensive.

The problem of clusters, is really their inability to become more dense, to change, without losing their "clusterity". They have been planned for such and such numbers of residents and workplaces. As cities have grown, project by project, the clusters have taken over, leaving the suburban areas scattered and expensive to maintain. It's a different kind of sprawl, but a sprawl anyway. Trying to weave the clusteres together, remains problematic. We are torn between not wanting to connect them, destroying the nature in between, and, not able to produce new structures that would function in the old "down town" manner, something that most of us are willing to pay for. That is, if we like cities in the first place.