22 Replies to ““We cannot have these cities with low density, designed for the use of cars.” [Darleen Click]”

1. Ernst Schreiber says:

   January 24, 2015 at 3:09 pm

   Like Dr. Frankenstein’s creature, The New Soviet Man just can’t be killed, can he?

   Via Glenn Reynolds:

   URBAN PLANNING IS ABOUT CONTROL: Looking Back: The Ideal Communist City.

   As is sometimes asserted by urbanists today, the new socialist cities were about more than mere economic growth; they were widely posed as a means to develop a new kind of society, one that could make possible the spread of Homo sovieticus (the Soviet man). As one German historian writes, the socialist city was to be a place “free of historical burdens, where a new human being was to come into existence, the city and the factory were to be a laboratory of a future society, culture, and way of life”.

   Elements of High Stalinist culture was evident in these cities; the cult of heavy industry, shock worker movement, youth group activity, and the aesthetics of socialist realism. This approach had no room for what in Britain was called “a middle landscape” between countryside and city. Throughout Russia, and much of Eastern Europe, tall apartment blocks were chosen over leafy suburbs. Soviets had no interest in suburbs of any kind because the character of a city “is that people live an urban life. And on the edges of the city or outside the city, they live a rural life”. The rural life was exactly what communist leaders hoped their country would get away from, therefore Soviet planners housed residents near industrial sites so they could contribute to their country through state-sponsored work.

   With this assumption, Soviet planners made some logical steps to promote density. They built nurseries and preschools as well as theatre and sports halls within walking distance to worker’s homes. Communal eating areas were arranged. Also, wide boulevards were crucial for marches and to have a clear path to and from the factory for the workers. The goals of the “socialist city” planners were to not just transform urban planning but human behavior, helping such spaces would breed the “urban human”.

   As is common with utopian approaches to cities, problems arose. Rapid development, the speed of construction, the use of night shifts, the long working days, and the inexperience of both workers and management all contributed to frequent technological failures. Contrary to the propaganda, there was a huge gap between the ideal of happy workers thriving in well-managed cities and the reality.

   The planners promise more than they can deliver, time after time. And someone else pays the price, time after time. All planners should first have to read James Scott’s Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes To Improve The Human Condition Have Failed.

2. geoffb says:

   January 24, 2015 at 3:23 pm

   You beat me to it Ernst. So I’ll just add some more.

   In 1957, a group of architecture academics from the University of Moscow published a book called the Novye Elementy Rasseleniia or “New Elements of Settlement”. This team of socialist architects and planners — Alexei Gutnov, A. Baburov, G. Djumenton, S. Kharitonova, I. Lezava, S. Sadovskij— became known as the “NER Group.” In 1968, they were invited to the Milan Triennale by Giancarlo de Carlo to present their plans for an ideal communist city. In cooperation with a group of young urbanists, architects, and sociologists, they created an Italian edition of their book under the title Idee per la Citta Comunista.

   Alexei Gutnov and his team set to create “a concrete spatial agenda for Marxism”. At the center of The Communist City lay the “The New Unit of Settlement” (NUS) described as “a blueprint for a truly socialist city“.

   […]

   Gutnov did acknowledge the appeal of suburbia — “…ideal conditions for rest and privacy are offered by the individual house situated in the midst of nature…”, but rejected the suburban model common in America and other capitalist countries. Suburbs, he argued, are not feasible in a society that prioritizes equality, stating, “The attempt to make the villa available to the average consumer means building a mass of little houses, each on a tiny piece of land. . . . The mass construction of individual houses, however, destroys the basic character of this type of residence.”

   The planner’s main concern was ensuring social equality. This was seen in their preference of public transportation over privately owned vehicles, high-density apartment housing over detached private homes, and maximizing common areas. These criticisms of suburban sprawl have some resonance in the writings by planners advocating “smart growth” today. Both see benefits to high density housing. For one, they argue it is more equitable so everyone, no matter what social class they belong too, can live in the same type of buildings.

3. McGehee says:

   January 24, 2015 at 3:32 pm

   I’ve seen the election results in urban precincts. They’re dense enough already.

   In other news, there is no way to turn up the intelligence on your TV; as Gallagher noted, the brightness knob doesn’t work.

4. dicentra says:

   January 24, 2015 at 5:06 pm

   Winning Tweet on the issue: “Pharrell Williams urges climate change awareness. From a private jet. Where he sits, alone.”

   Generically useful, from Facebook:

   “If you lose one sense, your other senses are enhanced. That’s why people with no sense of humor have an increased sense of self-importance.”

5. geoffb says:

   January 24, 2015 at 5:16 pm

   Sevran is one of the many notorious banlieues just outside Paris that are home largely to second- and third-generation immigrants from former French colonies in North and West Africa. The town is studded with cement and brick public housing, mostly built in the 1960s and ’70s.

   Sow and reap.

6. newrouter says:

   January 24, 2015 at 5:23 pm

   >The town is studded with cement and brick public housing, mostly built in the 1960s and ’70s.<

   Le Corbusier

7. Ernst Schreiber says:

   January 24, 2015 at 8:17 pm

   Theodore Dalrymple has written eloquently on the same phenomenon in Britain. And of course, we have our own experience with “the projects” in most major American cities.

8. Shermlaw says:

   January 24, 2015 at 8:41 pm

   The town is studded with cement and brick public housing, mostly built in the 1960s and ’70s.

   Dubbed by P.J. O’Rourke as “Stack a Prole.'”

9. geoffb says:

   January 24, 2015 at 8:55 pm

   They don’t all look that bad, but the building are what humans make of them not what they make of humans.

   48°53’57.05″ N 2°22’07.19″ E

10. palaeomerus says:

    January 25, 2015 at 5:35 am

    A bunk, in a dorm, a loaner bike, a bus/train pass, a curfew, some placebos, a personal demerit record, a ‘utility to society’ score, and a ‘pemission to be about’ slip.

    That is the Utopia they want for you. Kill them first.

11. The Daley Gator | Who is ready for some ireverant blogging? says:

    January 25, 2015 at 7:43 am

    […] Protein Wisdom has the latest Statist scam from Al Gore […]

12. sdferr says:

    January 25, 2015 at 8:14 am

    “. . . just to get from A to B.”

    Anyone . . . everyone knows that there is no A and there is no B — never was an A and never has been a B. Yet, will everyone notice? Or is every symbolism sufficient to rule?

13. Car in says:

    January 25, 2015 at 10:49 am

    The only cities with low densities are those that suck balls. Al Gore should move his fat ass to Detroit.

    BE THE CHANGE, Al.

14. bgbear says:

    January 25, 2015 at 11:16 am

    High density = more tax money.

15. McGehee says:

    January 25, 2015 at 11:33 am

    High density = easier to manage. In my tiresome livestock metaphor, crowded cities are feedlots.

16. bgbear says:

    January 25, 2015 at 11:40 am

    So McGehee, what Al is really saying is: We’ll have those cows voting democrat for the next 200 years

17. newrouter says:

    January 25, 2015 at 12:28 pm

    Days after claiming credit for increased oil production, Obama moves to limit it
    

18. Car in says:

    January 25, 2015 at 1:16 pm

    It’s just funny because Detroit’s water department has trouble moving the sewage because it was built on the assumption that there would be X number of houses per block.

    There aren’t enough people living in certain hoods to (literally) move shit.

19. McGehee says:

    January 25, 2015 at 1:20 pm

    Every vote for a Democrat is a contribution to keeping the sewers moving.

20. Davos: Algore does not like how we peons live. - BitsBlog says:

    January 25, 2015 at 3:18 pm

    […] Hat tip: Darleen, Protein Wisdom. […]

21. newrouter says:

    January 25, 2015 at 8:53 pm

    Inside France’s Sharia No-Go Zones

22. Bob Belvedere says:

    January 26, 2015 at 12:20 pm

    MIRANDA [from Sex And The City]:
    O, wonder!
    How many goodly slaves are there here!
    How grey and dull mankind is! O brave new world,
    That has such public housing in’t!

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