07-03-2022, 02:59 PM
(07-03-2022, 08:23 AM)jwilliamson Wrote:(07-02-2022, 09:14 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: Do you mean 20th/21st? I’m just wondering because most of the best parts of the cities with which I am familiar were built in the late 1800s or early 1900s, whereas most of what has been built after World War II is somewhere between mediocre and atrocious.
Without reading the book, I must admit to being a bit skeptical of the “to serve the centralizing state” bit. Are modern suburbs really designed to serve the centralizing state? I think they’re designed on the severely flawed assumptions that everybody should have a car and that everything should be separated from everything else. I don’t think there is a need to invoke something that starts to look more like a conspiracy theory.
It was published in 1938; so definitely 19th/20th.
I think "centralizing state" was a poor choice of wording on my part. Mumford would probably instead say that metropolitan interests (the state, but also large capitalists, financial interests, publishers, industrialists) all have an interest in concentrating activity in one area, and in formalizing it.
Regarding suburbs, they are clearly designed to centralize activity within the city. Why build a suburb? Because downtown businesses need workers and customers, and people can live in the suburb while still orienting their life towards the city. The suburb doesn't need its own businesses, its own newspapers, its own festivals; it can simply consume whatever is produced in the city.
Interesting. Around here the best parts of our cities were built in the early 20th century, and I don’t think downtown Toronto or Kitchener can be reasonably described as “stripping away all human elements”. Streetcar suburbs such as Toronto has don’t really feel like modern suburbs at all now.
Now if you go further forward in time, I agree with the “stripping away” comment with respect to modern suburbs, in particular the “stroads” found all over North America.