The Urban Transformation Teachable Moment for Organized Complexity: Profession and Planet in Crisis

Tigran Haas, Michael Mehaffy

Abstract


The wave of US suburban foreclosures that was “Ground Zero” of the worldwide recession of 2008–2009 was a culmination of almost a century of unsustainable planning practices. Those practices are deeply embedded in conventional technology, institutions, and habits of thought. In particular, they are enshrined in “siloed” professions and disciplines that also continue to employ a “siloed” and segregated model of planning and design. The urban scholar Jane Jacobs analyzed this condition accurately, and prescribed the adoption of the insights and methods that are now common in the biological sciences. Such methods offer much hope for a reformation of policy and best practice – but only if their lessons are heeded, understood and, finally, implemented.

Full Text:

PDF

References


R. Koolhaas. Whatever Happened to Urbanism. in S, M, L, XL, NY: The Monicelli Press; 1995, 959–71p.

Le Corbusier. La Ville Radieuse. Éditions Vincent, Fréal, Paris, 1935 (Published in 1964).

J. Jacobs. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. NY: Random House and Vintage Books; 1961.

K. Frampton. The work of architecture in the age of commodification, Introduction to Commodification and Spectacle in Architecture: A Harvard Design Reader. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press; 2005.

Jacobs, Jane, “An interview with Jane Jacobs.” Urban Design International, Vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 71-81. June 2006.

K. Dover. The pattern language and its enemies, Des Stud. 1990; 11(1): 3–9p.

W. Saunders. A pattern language: book review, Harvard Design Magazine. Number 16, Winter/Spring, 2002.

E. Gamma, et al. Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. NY: Addison-Wesley; 1995.

M. Mehaffy. Horizons of pattern languages. In: Patterns, Pattern Languages and Sustainability: Proceedings of the University of Oregon Conference. October 30–November 1, 2009. University of Oregon Press, 2010 (in press).

J. Jacobs. Dark Age Ahead. NY: Random House; 1994.

C. Alexander. “A city is not a tree,” originally published 1964. Available on RUDI.net, at http://www.rudi.net/pages/8755.

HRH The Prince of Wales, RIBA Trust Annual Lecture, 11 May 2009. Retrieved from http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/speechesandarticles/a_speech_by_hrh_the_prince_of_wales_for_the_r_i_b_a_trust_an_149694334.html




DOI: https://doi.org/10.37628/.v1i1.301

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.