Ö and why such things happen all the time
by Tim Tielman
Several observers of the urban planning process have
noted the remarkable similarities in plans over time and in various cities. Prominent
among the many are William Whyte and Herbert Gans. Whyte, in his Last Landscape,
describes the process so well it almost becomes parody. Whyte wrote this piece 30
years ago, and being about human behavior, it is still fresh today. In 1990, Michael
Moore came out with the film version of urban development as it really happens, Roger
and Me. In it, officials and tourist industry types come up with all manner of
schemes -- a convention hotel, a ëauto world info-tainment family fun center, new
marketing campaigns -- while normal citizens had other matters on their minds, like
whether their cars would be repaired or whether they'd buy a rabbit for a pet or
to eat. Millions of dollars later, the hotel, a new jail, and the interactive info-tainment
open to rave reviews. Then the hotel and theme attraction go bankrupt. The jail thrives.
Rent the video today.
But why does this myth endure? One reason is the vested interests -- the Development
Priesthood -- keeping the myth alive. Witness the corporate welfare junkies who release
ìstudiesî proving the need for government to give them $40 million handouts for an
ìanchor attraction.î And so it goes, from in-town malls to convention centers to
festival market places to info-tainment centers. Each failure is taken as proof positive
that if only the next thing is done, critical mass will be achieved, the sidewalks
will turn molten, and Main and Court will metamorphisize into the Ginza. But only
if you give us this one last hit. Herbert Gansís
take on the never-changing scene was published in a 1968 collection, People
and Plans. You have only to change the words ìMaster planî to Horizons
Plan and ìplannersî to Horizons planners to see Buffalo's waterfront planning process
come vividly to life:
ìPerhaps the crucial fault of the master plan was its environmental
or physical determinism. Like the nineteenth-century reformers, the master planners
assumed that people's lives are shaped by their physical surroundings and that the
ideal city could be realized by the provision of an ideal physical environment.
ìAs architects and engineers, the planners believed that the city was a system of
buildings and land uses which could be arranged and rearranged through planning,
without taking account of the social, economic, and political structures and processes
that determine people's behavior, including their use of land.
ìThis belief was supported by architectural ideology generally and also by plans
for utopian and ideal cities which were constantly being proposed by architects and
architecturally trained planners. It was reinforced by an oversimplified interpretation
of the findings of the urban ecologists, who seemed to correlate social pathology
with the physical characteristics of residential areas, and by the thinking of real-estate
economists, who saw planning as the achievement of high land values and found these
in the residential districts of the homeowning upper and middle classes. The maximization
of land values was also favored by the city officials who employed the planners,
because it increased tax revenues, and by the property owners who supported the planners,
because it meant higher profits for them.
ìThe ends underlying the plannersí physical approach reflected their Protestant middle-class
view of city life. As a result, the master plan tried to eliminate as ìblighting
influencesî many of the facilities, land uses, and institutions of working-class,
lower-class, and ethnic groups. Most of the plans either made no provision for tenements,
rooming houses, secondhand stores, and marginal industry or located them in catchall
zones of ìnuisance usesî in which all land uses are permitted. Popular facilities
considered culturally or morally undesirable were also excluded. The plans called
for many parks and playgrounds, but left out the movie house, the neighborhood tavern,
and the local clubroom; they proposed museums and churches, but no hot-dog stands
and night clubs; they planned for industrial parks, but not loft industry; for parking
garages, but not automobile repair stations.
ìThe plannersí certainty about how people ought to live and how the city ought to
look resulted in a nearly static plan, a Platonic vision of the city as an orderly
and finished work of artÖ The only land uses programmed for future growth were those
favored by affluent residents, high-status industrial and commercial establishments,
the real-estate interests catering to these, and the tax collector.
ìThe plannersí inability to recognize diverse values also prevented them from seeing
the role of politics in implementing the plan. Believing that their solution was
the best blueprint for the future, they thought that they needed only to publish
their report, obtain support from the civic leaders and businessmen who sat on the
boards of the planning commission, and then impress elected officials that the plan
expressed the public interest. The plannersí opposition to partisan political methods
of decision-making convinced them that the plan was ìabove politicsî and that anyone
who rejected it was acting from selfish and therefore evil motives.
ìAlthough the implementation of the plan would have required huge outlays of public
funds and drastic political and economic as well as physical rearrangements, the
master planners did not seriously consider that the ends they sought were opposed
by many of the voters.
ìThe planners did not realize that most city residentsÖare not interested in rearranging
the land-use pattern at great expense to achieve an order that is most visible on
a map or from an airplane and to produce an efficient city that tends to benefit
the businessman rather than the ordinary resident.Ö As a result, master plans have
rarely generated any widespread enthusiasm among the voters, but have always aroused
considerable political opposition from the groups who would have to pay economically,
socially, and politically for the proposed changes without reaping any benefit from
them.î