| | That was a very interesting article, Peter.
The only times I have ever really given any thought to centralized urban planning has been during month-long stays in Brasília when I was a staff member at music festivals.
As you must know, Brasília was designed by Brazil's most famous Architects and Urban Planners, Lucio Costa and Oscar Niermeyer (with Roberto Burle Marxe doing the landscaping). It has amazingly huge expanses of space between large buildings and building complexes.
This is a planned city where a car actually is essential. There is no way to walk around. If you don't have a car, you are up a creek without a paddle. The distances are very far from one complex to another. The sun is hot. You roast. And if it rains...
The public bus system is OK, but the buses get really crowded. Heat and rain make them a treat for masochists (no air conditioning on most buses).
Need a hotel? You have to go to the hotel sector. Need to go shopping? You have to go to shopping sectors. Need to go to a Ministry? You have to go to the Ministerial Esplanade. And if you need to go to more than one Ministry, you will still need your car because of the distance between the buildings. There is even a sector for night clubs. A foreign embassy sector. Residential sectors. Sectors, sectors, sectors. All defined by activity. Talk about eliminating choice.
The poverty issue is also interesting. The city has no poverty to speak of. It was planned out. Brasília is the capital of Brazil and it would not do to have the top politicians rubbing elbows with the underprivileged in the middle of nowhere. Here is how they got around it.
Brasília was built literally in the middle of the open plains as an attempt to stimulate the country's development. Rio de Janeiro had been the Brazilian capital before that and the idea was that politicians would take opportunities with them. Rio would survive because of the tourist trade.
Well, the politicians did not physically build Brasília. Poor people did the manual labor. They were not allowed to live in the city, so a bunch of impoverished satellite cities sprung up around Brasília. Once the politicians moved in, they still needed drivers, gardeners, maids and so forth, so the satellite cities have flourished (but without getting hardly any wealthier).
The Brazilian solution to eliminating poverty in the nation's capital! Move it outside the city!
(btw - That particular situation has turned into a political nightmare.)
From the air, Brasília is really beautiful. Unfortunately people don't live in the city from the air. They live in it from the ground. It doesn't work well for human beings and I never did like it there.
Esthetically, the architects and planners have managed to turn stunningly beautiful constructions into a major inconvenience for the population.
Now that the buildings are all a half of a century older, the whole city has been falling apart at the same time. Renovation has become a gargantuan headache.
Brasília is one more argument against centralized urban planning - especially on that scale.
Michael
(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 11/21, 12:45am)
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