Make no small plans?

Burnham’s claims where completely justified.  The problem with cities when the plan was created and even today is that they are built to fulfill the needs of a population that changes rapidly and often. The cities like Chicago were first built so people could walk everywhere, streets were very narrow and often in very poor condition. The people that planed out these walkways and roads never could imagine the amount of cars that would fill the street and crowed the city. Sure horse drawn carriages, and street cars, and some cars existed at the time the plan was created but did the people could not have know that the street car would give way to the subway and the elevated rail and become extinct. Buildings were also built close together and there was no regulations or height requirements that exist in today’s city planning. This resulted in a city was crowded, dark and polluted. Factories were built right by residential and business centers creating a city that was forced to live under the smog of the factories pollution. The plan hoped to change this by moving the factories further from the center of the city and winding streets to reduce congestion as well as let light and air into the areas between the buildings. They even had to tear down buildings to achieve things in the city like winding Michigan Avenue. Burnham’s plan even predicted the fact that the public would like to utilize the lakeshore, so they filled in the bay area and created parks and shorelines that the public could go and enjoy.  The plan was focused at managing problems that still are problem today because of increasing population and the continuing of traffic. At the time the plan worked to solve the issues in the city but there is no way that the plan could have predicted how to transform the city in a way that would sustain the needs of the city for 100 years. The plan focused more on transportation need like moving the rail stations out of the center of the city and creating more areas of light and public use. I think that at the time this was a good plan for the city of Chicago but today’s plan would need to focus more on additional things. As well as providing solutions to the traffic and parking problems in the city we must also look at the condition of the city itself. The school systems and other public works need to be examined and included into the plan so that children are all able to attend good well-funded school. Also areas need to be encompassed together so that there are not elite neighborhoods and slums. To change this a solution that would solve the issue of decent affordable housing for low-income family’s needs to properly be integrated into already established and well off neighborhoods. Chicago has become less of a business center and more of a tourist spot. The ability to adjust to the growing number of people in and out of the city is going to be a major problem. Right now huge office building is left unused and taking up space. For example the offices located by daily plaza that are around the CBS offices. Proper planning could have prevented the building of such unneeded office space and could have produced something else. Since there are very few production plants in the city and many of the businesses have managed to more out of the suburbs the city needs to continue at looking at ways to make the city more attractive for weekenders and tourist. Also I think we need to look at pollution in the city as well, programs like trying to clean up the Chicago river are a good start to the kind of direction the city should head in. Looking far enough today I think is almost impossible to do without constant planning. There are too many technically changes that could not have been predicted. Who would have thought we would be able to read books, type, and run computer programs on an ipad anywhere in the city. At the same time you have to be careful about how far you look ahead because if u plan for a population that is 100 years away and that is not the direction the city heads you’ll have unhappy residents for those 100 year. Most of the world thought we would be flying around in cars and living on different planets by now.

Urbanism as a way of Life

Louis Wirth had 3 distinct characteristics that were necessary in a city. A city had to be dense or contain a dense population, be heterogeneous and include large permeate structures. The problem with Louis Wirth article is that it may not adapt as well to the new technology and movement of the city.  Today’s skyscrapers are large structures but many lack the craftsmanship detail to become permeate structures in the urban environment. Instead they are built to produce profit and torn down and rebuilt to produce even more.  Companies don’t need large office building or manufacturing plants to conduct their businesses with the internet, email and video conferences people can do business from countries away at the touch of a button making living in the city less of a necessity for companies and their employees.  Though the general population of the city still remains dense I believe the population of people that live there have expanded or changed the reasons why they choose to remain in the city. Also with the use of better public transportation there are many people who have moved out to the suburbs with their families but continue the commute into the city for school, work, or pleasure keep the city at a relatively constant day-to-day state.

Though a city can be a very heterogeneous place it also becomes a place where different social, class or racial groups congregate into smaller areas, for example china town, boys’ town, little Italy. These areas of the city become know for their cultural or social activities and continue to attract others with similar interest.  Wirth does not mention the social groups that are formed as a result of the city and how different the city can be from one end to the other. Conceptualizing the city into one distinct way of life I believe is almost impossible there is too much that changes from one city block to another to be able to say, “yes that is what urban life is” and “no that doesn’t happen in urban life”.

Wirth also fails to address the problems of social class in the city, many associate the city with a vast difference between rich and poor and leads to how you can define an urban way of life without talking first about the differences of how urban people live their lives. Today we also have to deal with media coverage that is involved in skewing our opinion of urban life. If you are never in the city and all you see in the media is about how dangerous the city is, you may miss out on the many cultural and social events that make the city such an interesting place to live.