The recent article from The Bay Citizen highlights the difficulty in cities handling growth management. On the one hand we hear that our cities our growing and that we must prepare for the millions more that will need to be housed in the global cities of tomorrow. But on the other hand, we have the millions already in the city, resistant to such planning, hesitant for such sudden mega-projects.
Some opt for more "small scale infill" projects - a less obtrusive, abrupt design procedure that operates perhaps more on the scale of our human comprehension, a better sense of security...
What have we learned from the mega planning projects of the Modernist? Where do we now stand in the forethought to prepare for the future while sensitive to the presence of "now"...
The "urban acupuncture" ideas throw into question a lot of the common place zoning, property rights and such that many would be hard pressed to allow (NIMBY - not in my backyard).
Is it the "master plan"? The large scale, cream colored shaded squares, tied together in a network of make-believe roads surrounded by green geometric shapes? Is the way we represent the future leave out the concerns of today and thus leave the viewer, the concerned citizen, out of the picture? (or the environment, the nature preserves...)
In times of emergency, we adapt to large adaptations...Massive planning is comprehended through massive loss or destruction. But when we have just a trickle of people entering the cities, the vision of massive planning is intimidating...its not for the city perhaps, but for the anticipated city...a plan for the others...
piecemeal development, renovation, in-fill allows the resident to feel the scale of self and its city in a comfortable relationship with the addition of the new, the other. What we as architects vision is a reality of the new, but perhaps we fail to create a vision for the old.
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