Choice as an objective in
Planning
By Vernon De Mars, A. I. A.
Introduction.
It is hard for the European, if he
has
not seen America, to appreciate the impact of the motor car on our
civilization
- perhaps I should say “way of life” to forestall controversy on this
particular
point. The term “mobility” will appear often in these discussions; used
literally by the planners speaking of population movement or
figuratively
by the sociologists in reference to the status of the individual in
society.
The motor car is a prime factor in both cases. From mobility in both
senses
comes a pair of basic values in our society – “freedom” and “choice”.
How
these are used, of course, becomes the measure of a society. With us
perhaps
it is too soon to praise or condemn what we have done with it, but it
seems
to this writer that the pattern of motorized personal transportation is
a trend in all industrial western societies. Perhaps a look at what has
happened in the United States will help such countries as Italy to see
what they must ultimately plan for - or against.
PART I - The new scale in
urbanism and
its problems
The physical scale.
Distance and time, as planning
factors,
have been virtually nullified by the motor car. The workman need no
longer
live by his job. The urban worker need not live in the city. The desire
to flee from congestion can be accomplished although a new congestion
of
a different kind may result. It is becoming virtually impossible to
drive
back into the city for want of a place to leave the car on arrival.
When
one escapes the city to the country there may be no country left
because
everything is accessible - one can live almost anywhere that a car can
go. So the very farms and orchards succumb to the tidal wave of
suburban
building and what space is left is filled with booths and hucksters and
imprecations to buy - all directed at the motorist hurtling by in this
lineal marketplace.
The Visual Scale of this new
urbanism might
be characterized by “endlessness horizontally”. Because it takes no
more
physical effort to drive ten blocks than one there is no compulsion to
group things at a human scale in “highwayland”. There is thus a
disappearance
of “place” and “foci”. Yet groupings do take place. For whenever this
space-man,
the motorist, can be persuaded to abandon his vehicle he is once more a
pedestrian and subject to the laws of his kind. Therefore we must sell
him as many things as possible while we have him afoot. This is the
theory
of the new regional shopping centers. In the open countryside, perhaps
far from any city but central to many, a cluster of buildings floats
like
a raft awash in a sea of asphalt and mobiles. Once inside this cluster,
the narrow shopping street, free of traffic, has again appeared. It is
like a mediaeval town except that no one lives here above the shops.
There
is no town hall or cathedral to thrust upward. Few of the aesthetics of
urbanity are left to the designer because of this strict segregation of
function: shopping only. There is no excuse for a plaza or square. No
country
folk will set up their booths ; here, no pageants or processions will
take
place. A brave attempt has been made at the Northland Center in
Michigan
to introduce planting, benches, sculpture and fountains in the
pedestrian
core but it still misses somehow the life and vitality that goes with
the
mixture of activities in a “real” city shopping center. The sea of cars
mentioned before may number in the thousands. It is a visual nightmare
as soon as one is on foot and attempting to reach the center itself
from
the edges of the lot. Planners must learn to break up such vast
stretches
of parking. In existing cities the need for parking has caused marginal
income-producing buildings to be torn down and replaced with more
profitable
parking lots. Thus the center of one western city looks from the air
very
much like the victim of wartime bombing with a third of the buildings
missing.
This means that the city is filled with open spaces. But they are in
their
nature unplanned open spaces and the spaces are filled with cars. The
spaces
tend to break the continuity of facades and the pleasant urban
experience
of enclosure in streets and squares is lost. In residential areas the
streets
of the recent past have been designed to carry traffic indiscriminately
when and if the need should ever arise. They are therefore often
excessively
wide visually for the popular low, one-story houses which line them.
The
specialized, relatively traffic free, and therefore legitimately
narrower,
residential-access-street is only occasionally used by the developers
of
land. One might say that “Agora-itis” is the handmaiden of the motor
car.
We are talking here about visual considerations. One can cite the fact
that few photos are made of the current residential street. By the time
a photographer has backed up enough to include both sides of the street
the low houses form a narrow ribbon across his picture with the only
vertical
elements being the telephone poles. But telephone poles must never
appear
in pictures of homes. We have learned not to see them in reality; and
we
don’t wish to have our dream world shattered by documentary evidence.
The production scale.
The facts of mass production and
industrialization
are that the more identical units one makes of anything the less it
costs
to produce them. The merchant builders of America have proven that this
applies to houses as well - a fact which some architects have claimed
for
many years. The architects had always thought of the products leaving
the
factory to be taken here and there by the separate purchasers in the
manner
of all our other manufactured products. They had never anticipated that
the factory would be set up in the field and the product left right on
the assembly line where it was put together. It has been shown that as
few as 25 houses built in a group can effect great savings in material
purchases and labor efficiency. With 50 or 100 something more is saved
but the savings fall off rapidly as overhead mounts. Then why do
builders
often produce 500 homes in one continuous operation, or 5,000 or more
(Levittown)?
Once the machinery of mass housebuilding operation has been set going
in
a given location it is hard to stop, like the broom which fetched water
for the sorcerer’s apprentice. It will not regulate itself and the
planners
have not yet found the magic word to get just the right amount of
houses
in the right place. The problem here is how to do this without losing
the
efficiency of the mass operation.
The time scale.
Time has virtually been eliminated
as
a factor in new community development. Neither social interaction or
economic
factors have time to shape large development schemes. Virtually
everything
must be predetermined from land uses to the overall look of everything.
There is a new burden here for the planner and designer and a great new
opportunity for error. The new communities which result from the
efforts
of “practical” men may contain no more aesthetic variety than a change
of dressing to the fronts of identical houses marching across the
landscape.
Community facilities such as parks
and
schools would only be included if demanded by vigilant planning
authorities.
The strong willed, “artist-planner” can be just as wrong as the
“practical”
man if he sees the community on which he is working as a vast canvas
for
his personal self expression. Both of these are inclined to ignore the
individuals’ real needs and desires. They will try to prevent accident
or diversity from interfering with their own particular preconception
of
what a community should be and the result is a sterility which puzzles
its own creators as much as it dulls the sensibilities of those who
live
there whether they quite realize it or not. The new problem for the
thoughtful
townscape designer is to find the equivalent of accident and
individually
determined diversity to give life, interest and variety to the visual
scene.
One answer which is deceptively simple it to have life, interest and
variety
in all the land uses that can be seen from a given spot.
To summarize - the ability to
create vast
new communities virtually overnight is a new phenomenon of our times.
There
is a new scale that goes with this new landscape which is partly the
offspring
of the automobile. We are only beginning to understand the new scale
and
have scarcely begun to know how to deal with it.
PART II - Standardization
and freedom
and what they mean in terms of the United States housing and planning
problem
What is happening and the
causes.
1. Housing as merchandise:
a) the role of the developer;
b) the role of the planner;
c) the role of financing;
d) the result.
a) The merchant builder
or “developer”
is manufacturing an article for sale. It happens to he a house.
Competition
is keen and each builder is sensitive to what another is doing.
Innovation
in design is avoided for fear that it will not sell. But if a daring
builder
and his architect provide something new that people want, then all the
other builders are forced to follow.
The typical builder’s pre-war and
immediate
post war house had two bedrooms, one bath and a single car garage. Real
needs of the population, public demand, and builders and designers
ingenuity
now have added another bath, another bedroom, sometimes a “family room”
for informal living, dining, child’s play, hobbies, television. The
garage
is a two-car size for greater flexibility, storage, etc. There is
neither
basement or attic and the living areas open into a patio or “outdoor
room”.
These are all things that the architect has foreseen for many years and
often provided in a home; but the merchant builder can produce it and
deliver
it at half the price of the architect’s individually built house.
b) In this country, the
planner
concerns himself for the most part with considerations which are “long
range, general and comprehensive”. Specific proposals must come from
the
entrepreneur, private or public, and the planner guides the undertaking
by demanding through his police powers compliance with his standards.
However, he has an additionally
effective
tool - his power of persuasion. With some insight into human nature,
some
facts to support his theses, and creative imagination to strive for the
possible, planners in many cities have inspired proposals that go far
beyond
their legal right to require obedience to the laws. Still, the concept
of the planner’s role in this country is that he will guide what is
about
to happen anyway - try to have things better than they would have been
without him. He is seldom required or given the opportunity to conceive
of, initiate and carry out proposals.
c) The concept of
financing which
allows the use of an article while it is being paid for has had as much
effect on the suburban landscape as the motor car and an equal effect
on
the detailed design of the dwelling. To own your own home was once the
almost unattainable dream of most families. It was beyond the reach of
the working man. Now almost anyone with a steady job of the most modest
sort can own his home if he has managed to save up a few hundred
dollars.
If he is a war veteran he can purchase a house with no down payment at
all and pay less per month than he would otherwise pay for rent. The
cost
of the house and all its parts and equipment are amortized over a
period
as long as 25 years. This applies, understandably, to fixed equipment.
Stoves, refrigerators, etc., that could easily be removed and sold by a
dishonest “owner” who planned to abandon his undertaking and write his
payments off as rent - such equipment has not hitherto been included.
The
ingenuity of the equipment industry was equal to this challenge.
Electric
stoves, ovens, refrigerators, dishwashers, are made to be “built-in” to
the structure and therefore not removable. When the costs of such
equipment
at the wholesale rate to the builder is spread over 25 years it seems
like
folly not to have it all. There are additional savings to the builder
that
may make a house cost less with this equipment than without it. A
kitchen
might need to be half again as large to accommodate an undetermined
size
stove and refrigerator. The cost of the floor area in the house might
well
pay for the equipment. In addition, a flue or chimney is usually
required
in case the undetermined stove burns fuel other than electricity.
Clothes
washing machines have not yet been included or financed as built-in
equipment
but many builders have included one as a gift to the house buyer and
set
it in kitchen or hall. They are thus able to eliminate entirely the
space
for a laundry. It can be observed that in the provision of housing as
merchandise,
choice, if it exists, is an incidental by-product. The economics of
production
force a builder’s own products to be pretty much the same. Competition
and financing force it to be like all the others.
d) The three-bedroom,
two bath house
for sale is the norm. Two bedroom houses are seldom built. Little new
rental
housing is being provided right now because it is difficult to charge
as
little for rent as is charged for ownership payments, even for less
space
(under rental). Many types of accommodation are being provided hardly
at
all: special small units for elderly people, good apartments for
bachelors
and young families without children.
Except in rare instance, choice
has seldom
been set up as a positive objective in our new community building. We
have
been busy with other things and no one has quite thought about it. Yet
this is the special problem of democracy. When the majority has
prevailed
and been provided for it must then concede the rights and needs of the
minority. The concept of choice as an objective is gaining ground and
it
will not be opposed as such for it is part of our heritage.
2. Housing as an institution
of government.
How it is produced in distinction to the above.
Direct production of housing by
government
(local or otherwise), has never had complete success or widespread
popularity
in this country. Its most important examples are from the low rent
housing
program of the Federal government, produced specifically with
comparatively
modest subsidies for families of low income. The housing was almost
exclusively
of distinctly urban type, usually row houses or apartments whose space
standards sometimes exceeded facilities provided in the private market.
Yet there was often an air of sanctimonius social uplift about it which
tended to nullify some of the tenants’ pleasure in their clean new
dwellings
and to set them apart from the rest of the community. There might be an
expensive community hall but no doors on the closets in the houses. The
kitchen sink was of a utility type that no builder of the cheapest
house
would install because of sales resistance. Architectural detail was
stripped
to the bone and architectural amenity like porches, terraces and
balconies
were frowned upon simply as not necessary to a “simple, sanitary,
healthful”
living. Yet sculpture was sometimes used extensively on buildings or
free
standing, presumably to elevate culturally the less fortunate segment
of
the population. Someone else had decided what was good for them. The
choice
was not theirs.
3. Production:
Prefabrication and the
economics of building. Parts vs. assemblies. Housing compared with
autos,
furniture and clothing.
Prefabrication - i.e., the factory
production
of large parts or whole assemblies, has been given a good chance to
prove
itself in this country. It was used extensively during the war for
speed
rather than economy. Since the war, except in a few instances, it has
not
been able to hold its own against industrialized production in the
field.
The fact is that much of house construction materials are produced in a
highly industrialized manner already and most of the labor saving and
material
saving techniques are as applicable in the field as they are in the
factory.
About the only price advantage left to factory production is protection
of the work and workmen from the weather. This, perhaps, cost-wise, is
offset by the factory rental and overhead, costs of storage for large
assemblies,
and the cost of transporting them to the site compared with the
compactness
of raw materials. Still there is a definite trend toward the further
assembly
of house parts: doors mounted in their frames are now available. Metal
sash, sliding doors, closet doors, kitchen cabinets are standard items.
Wall, floor and roof panels may be the next. They have never been sold
except as parts of complete houses but it would appear to be an
inevitable
next step. Then combined in various ways there might be a natural and
organic
variety restored to the housing scene. It has always been a temptation
to plead for industrialized housing production by comparing houses with
automobiles. A further argument was that automobiles from an assembly
line
were identical and people didn’t seem to mind. These theorists
overlooked
the fact that the products of many companies were scrambled together in
the natural environment of the auto whether parked or in motion. The
finding
of two identical cars, make, year, and color together is so unusual as
to cause comment when it occurs. If it did occur frequently, measures
from
ingenuous to drastic would be taken to modify the situation. The auto
is
in truth one of the most successfully industrialized products. I
believe
the variety seen on the average street is sufficient to our demands of
interest, identification and personal expression. The factors at work
are
completely natural and organic -different types, makes, designs,
colors,
ages, finishes. The “plans” are the same for the most part - 4 wheels,
seats front and back.
This gives unity, harmony. Can we
do as
well with houses? Of course furniture and clothes are also mass
produced.
One seldom meets a man with the same suit (yet all are the same). When
a woman meets another with the identical hat - well, it is one of the
oldest
jokes. Here we have mapped out the limits of expectancy in the average
person concerning individuality and variety within a limited framework.
As planners and architects we ignore this at our peril.
II. A survey of the problems
that have
been raised.
l. Physical. The new
standardized
family type community has been built in as short a time as one or two
years.
The houses are nearly all the same size and cost about the same amount.
The families may be nearly all war veterans (because of the easy
financing)
so they are about of the same age. Their children are also about the
same
age. There is a great demand for schools at the lower grades. There are
not many old people here because the houses are too big and there are
not
many teen-agers because the families are still too young. Therefore
there
are not many “baby-sitters”. In a few years there will be a great need
for high schools and the elementary schools will stand half empty for
the
families are all growing older together. A time will come when most of
the children will have grown up, gone away to school or gotten married.
With the children gone the house is bigger than the parents may need
but
also more expensive than the newly married families can afford. They
would
like to stay in the neighborhood near enough so their parents can watch
the children sometimes but there is no place else to live in the
community
so they must go away - some place where they can rent. Then the older
folks
in the empty houses are saddened because all the young folks have gone
away. The houses, the streets, the schools, are only a generation old,
yet the community has lived its life.
Now, no community is altogether
like this
sad story. Yet there are many that are something like it. A community
must
be planned to contain the seeds of its own renewal or functional
obsolescence
will occur before physical. Here again, choice must be an objective in
planning. A range of dwelling types, for somewhat different income
groups
and somewhat varied social interests, will provide the physical
framework
for constant community vitality and self renewal.
2. Social. The
one-building type
community is inclined naturally to attract people of a similar income
level
and social group as well. There is nothing wrong, of course, for people
of like income and interests to live together if they choose to. It is
against the traditions of our county, however, for them to have no
other
choice. Perhaps our richest inheritance is that no man need follow the
trade of his father. We are not without our prejudices, social and
otherwise.
Yet within limits we accept a man at face value. A boy or girl can move
either way in the social scale with far greater case than has been
customary
in the old world. The planners should not undermine this tradition by
endorsement
of the one class community which seems more stable in the short range
to
the hanker and investor. In the long range the specialized one class
community
is, in fact, less stable because it cannot adapt to changing economics
or living habits. For all the reasons just mentioned, the public
housing
“project” runs particularly counter to American traditions of social
mobility.
Here, a portion of the population proven to be of low income are set
aside
in special housing areas. This must be a trying personal burden to the
boy or girl who need not, and does not wish to accept the social status
of “low income family”. The public housing movement has shown admirable
concern for the housing plight of the disadvantaged and low income
people
but it must now seek other formulas to achieve its ends more in
conformity
with our concepts of privacy and social mobility for the individual. Of
course many families wish to conform strictly with what their friends
and
neighbors do and expect. This gives them a feeling of security and
belonging
to the group. Others find it necessary to be very different from their
neighbors in what they have and do. Such non-conformists are usually
conforming
to what their friends, if not their neighbors expect of them. They
usually
follow their rules of non-conformity just as closely. There should be
room
in our community for both of them.
3. Esthetic. The
esthetics of the
new urban scene are often puzzling. What is put forth as “dynamic” may
well be chaotic or at best, tiresome, if seen too often. The “rythmic”
may be merely monotony. Strict control may result in dullness. When one
observes that man, no matter how “modern”, is deeply moved by the great
urban compositions of the past, is it not safe to conclude that most of
the esthetic principles were discovered long ago and still are valid
although
we build in materials and for needs not dreamt of by our ancestors?
Still,
a special problem of today is the esthetics of repetition under mass
production.
There is a vast difference between handmade objects that might be
called
identical and the products of machines that are identical. The first,
whether
wine flasks, baskets, ceramics or stone houses with tile roofs, all
have
subtle differences and irregularities which allow identification. The
machine
product is terrifying in its uniformity. It must therefore tread only
where
this is a virtue. One cannot use the harmonious beauty of the identical
tile roofed houses of an Italian hill town to defend the stultifying
repetition
of identically fabricated houses of a merchant builder.
III. A statement of solution
approaches
or an attempt to isolate problem areas and methods of attack by planner
and architect.
l) The planner must draw
on all
students of human nature and our society to formulate a concept of the
physical environment most truly appropriate to life in our times.
2) The architect must
provide large
blocks of the information needed in above. He is on dangerous grounds
when
he leans too heavily on his intuition if this flies in the face of
ascertainable
fact about people’s actual needs, desires and ways of life. He is on
safest
ground when he tries to find the visually and functionally satisfactory
answers to clear-cut, definable physical problems in above.
The physical problems, while
sometimes
controversial, are often enough defined. The visual or esthetic
problems
have not been sufficiently identified. Here are some: changing taste -
an honest appraisal of “new” esthetics. Are there any? Consistency in
the
arts and the validity of transference, i.e., should a painter’s
experiments
influence a large scale site plan? In the townscape, isn’t Paul Klee as
valid a support to the designer as Maholy-nagy?