Natalie Haydon-Hawkins

And Neoliberalism’s role in making it possible

When you look at images of today’s cities, the urban fabric begins to blend them all together. Cities from across the globe begin to mesh into one a single form. It is disorienting while at the same time intriguing. Why is it that many cities resemble each other and how have they lost what makes them unique? Cities today are still full of problems just as they have been throughout history, even before they began looking similarly. The difference now is that many cities are experiencing comparable problems. This begins to signify another concern which is that there is a problem with how issues in cities are being addressed. The problems in cities around the world are being generalized and the same urban theories are being applied to multiple cities; which may have been successful in the first city, however, it creates another set of issues in the other cities. This raises the question of how to prevent this from happening; how to make changes in the urban fabric and address issues without copying a tactic from another city and encouraging this homogeneous look of today’s cities.

This idea of applying urban theories such as modernization to different urban fabrics illustrates the divide between theory and practice which has long been an issue in urban planning. There is no use in studying theory if it can not then be applied in such a way that helps the site rather than copying the theory and placing it on a new site with no regard for its context. There needs to be an added level of understanding of exactly what theory’s place in contemporary urbanism is. It has a place, an important one at that, but treating theory as if it is the only way to go about solving urban problems is rather irresponsible for the urban fabric that it is being applied to.

“While the four aforementioned elements of critical theory surely remain urgently relevant in the early 21st century, their specific meanings and modalities need to be carefully reconceptualized. The challenge for those committed to the project of critical theory is to do so in a manner that is adequate to the continued forward motion of capital, its associated crisis-tendencies and contradictions, and the struggles and oppositional impulses it is generating across the variegated landscapes of the world economy.”

– Neil Brenner, “What is critical urban theory”

At some point in the 20th century, it seems as if new urban theories got put on hold and instead older theories reemerged (one could argue that this occurred as city centers began to empty, however before they became reinvigorated). As older theories were applied to new and emerging urban issues, the divide between theory and practice emerged. These theories get applied to new issues which were in need of new solutions, not a blanket solution. Architecture is in many ways dated by the problems it solves which is common sense, however, this idea did not transfer to urban development quite as well.

Paris in the mid-1800s was in many ways a mess. It was overcrowded, dark, and filthy and a change needed to be made. Haussmann was entrusted to create a solution to solve these problems and what emerged was a series of wide boulevards that extended from the city center creating an interwoven network making it easier to negotiate the city. The drastic renovation of Paris drew criticism, however it was successful in cleaning up the city as well as moving people through the city over its previously medieval state. This tactic of having diagonal streets that interlaced throughout the city and collided in the center was successful in Paris and thus a similar tactic was applied to Chicago in Burnham’s Plan of Chicago in 1909. Chicago, unlike Paris, was set up on a rather rigid grid which had a similar issue of how to best move people through the city, applying a series of diagonal boulevards created a different problem. Chicago has different circulation patterns and thus needs a different solution than Haussmann provided in Paris. The diagonal boulevards and roads in Chicago cause confusion at intersections because there are not as many of them as in Paris and people are not accustomed to them. Chicago is also a rather sprawling city and thus most streets are fairly wide, to begin with; adding boulevards to give the illusion of more space while interesting, it not providing added benefits in most instances. While both plans were undoubtedly successful and had a tremendous effect on the way both these cities have developed as well as many others, it is interesting to draw similarities between the two and question whether all of these similarities were necessary to impose on the other city.

While neoliberalism has many faults and has in many ways contributed to the homogeneous state of today’s cities, it does also identify some key ideas about the importance of the site and natural growth even if these ideas were not carried out as they should have been. Neil Brenner discussed neoliberalism:

“neoliberalism does not engender identical (economic, political or spatial) outcomes in each context in which it is imposed; rather, as place, territory and scale specific neoliberal projects collide with inherited regulatory landscapes, contextually specific pathways of institutional reorganization crystallize that reflect the legacies of earlier modes of regulation and forms of contestation.”

Neoliberalism encourages a more natural urban fabric to develop by letting the urban scape develop in some ways on its own through a free form of economic growth. While the idea of having an organic urban growth is an improvement over straight theory urbanism, it comes with its own set of problems; notably the idea that the free economy begins to shape the urban fabric. This issue brings about the original concern, that of which many cities are beginning to appear homogeneous because globalization has encouraged a free market which in turn, neoliberalism has shaped cities into similar urban fabrics. In recent times, globalization has allowed western culture to overpowered the natural urban fabric of many cities (notably cities in China and the Middle East) creating homogeneous urban centers across the world. The neoliberal growth has created inharmonious urban fabrics within these cities which has produced a new set of urban challenges; distinctly the contrast between the historic cultural fabric and the new westernized additions. They become competing structures rather than a singular entity forming a cohesive urban fabric.

Having solutions that specifically address the issues with the site is terribly important. Zhu addresses this issue in her essay Speaks: “This is a confirmation of Euro-centrism, rather than carried out in the historic-geographic context.” The idea that theory is blindly applied to a site without knowledge or understanding of the existing urban fabric and thus the urbanscape is altered in a harmful way. The city’s current state, economically and physically as well as it history and culture of the urban scape needs to be fully understood before an alteration can be applied. There is not a single standard for an urban issue that can be applied to every city with that issue without alteration. We use precedent studies in architecture when beginning projects to gain an understanding of how issues have been solved in similar situations, then we create a solution that may be similar but also solves issues directly related to the new project. In theory the same idea should transfer to urban planning, however, it is less evident that this is the case.

Having growth that “reject[s] linear models of urban transition, emphasizing instead its uneven, contentious, volatile and uncertain character” puts emphasis on the transition process of the urban scape rather than the solution (Brenner). This allows for a more organic path to a solution which becomes more site-specific and overall may provide a more effective solution that is unique to the original urban fabric. As Rem Koolhaas stated “architecture… has a kind of depth of memory, and in its very awkwardness and chaotic multifaceted nature – dealing with economics, politics, aesthetics, civilization – it maintains at least a sympathetic and sometimes impressive ambition to connect the dots”.

Urbanism should follow a similar understanding; such that it must synthesize many elements to construct an urbanscape that adapts to the city’s needs. There is also the idea that “rather than working on what we know, we systematically have to project ourselves into the unknown” (Koolhaas). That urban plans do not need to be exact, that instead, they remain open-ended in a way which allows the urbanscape to develop in an organic fashion and adapt to issues that arise as time goes on. In this sense, the urban scape continues to build on itself as it has throughout history. The difference now being that instead of renovating a whole city such as Haussmann did one a singular drastic plan and attempting to make adaptations later, there is an expectation of slow growth and small developments that through time and layers that build off of each other create a cohesive urban fabric.

Urbanscapes have fallen into the idea that an urban theory that has worked in other urban locations can be transplanted to any city and it will work. There is little thought about adapting these theories to the site and thus problems ensue. There are beginning to be urban plans that are site specific and are creating new ideas and theories based solely on the site and its culture rather than appropriating from other urban scapes and assuming it will work like in the past.

“There is no logic that can be superimposed on the city; people make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans”

Jane jacobs, the life and death of the great american city

Sources

Brenner, Neil. "What Is Critical Urban Theory?" City 13.2-3 (2009): 198-207. Web.

Brenner, Neil, and Nik Theodore. "Cities and the Geographies of “Actually Existing

Neoliberalism”." Spaces of Neoliberalism Urban Restructuring in North America and

Western Europe (2012): 1-32. Web.

Koolhaas, Rem. "In Search of Authenticity." The Journal of Architecture (2008): 812-15. Web.

Zhu, Jianfei. "Criticality in between China and the West." The Journal of Architecture 10.5 (2005): 479-98. Web.