History & Theory of Planning: Regional Planning

History & Theory of Planning: Regional Planning

• 1.
  PLAN 3022: PlanningHistory & Theory Week 05: Emergence of the Planning Professional – Regional Planning Anuradha Mukherji Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning
• 2.
  Regional Planning PATRICK GEDDES Scottish biologist (1854-1932)  Urban environmentalist: Introduced the concept of ‘region’ to architecture and planning  Cities in Evolution (1915)
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  Regional Planning Associationof America (RPAA) RPAA, a loose network rather than a formal organization (1923) A small club of urban issue oriented New York City intellectuals, housing and urban reform Most productive years: 1923-1933 Key members: Clarence Stein, Henry Wright, Lewis Mumford, Benton MacKaye Followed the ideas of Ebenezer Howard and Patrick Geddes Members were individually and collectively involved in a wide range of projects… most ideas were generated through group interactions Envisioned small self-sufficient rural communities in ecological balance with their natural resources, a utopian vision that was never realized
• 4.
  Regional Planning Associationof America (RPAA) Core Members of RPAA Clarence Stein Benton MacKaye Alexander Bing Lewis Mumford Henry Wright Catherine Bauer Shared an idea that “the regional city would replace the ‘mono- nucleated city’ …with a new type of ‘poly-nucleated city’ in which a cluster of communities, adequately spaced and bounded, [would] do the duty [of] the badly organized mass city” (Mumford, 1938, 489-93).”
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  Regional Planning, 1930s Enthusiasm for metropolitan regional planning had spread rapidly in 1920s  The leading community building experiments conceptualized and implemented by the RPAA were Sunnyside, NY and Radburn, NJ  RPAA completed a regional plan for the NYC regional in 1931, again in 1968 and in the mid-1990s
• 6.
  RPAA Members CLARENCE STEIN Jewish socialist and community planner  Urban designer – Sunnyside and Radburn  Organized the “club” in 1923  Active lobbyist – developed and maintained close political ties, on several housing and regional planning policy committees and commissions from 1919-1928 BENTON MACKAYE  Wilderness/rural conservationist  Liked quiet, small-town life  Developed the “Appalachian Trail” idea (1921)  “A refuge from work life in industrialized metropolis, a series of work, study, and farming camps along the ridges of the Appalachian Mountains, with a trail connecting them.”  August 14, 1937 — Appalachian Trail completed as a continuous footpath  A central figure in the development of RPAA’s “regional city” concept.
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  RPAA Members ALEXANDER BING A real-estate financier and first RPAA president  Developed deep concern for needs of poor, less privileged, turn-of-century Jewish immigrants  Involved in RPAA’s housing reform projects  Creation of ‘guaranteed home mortgages system’ for working people LEWIS MUMFORD  RPAA’s theorist, philosopher, urban critic, and author (RPAA spokesperson)  Editor of RPAA’s special number of Survey Graphic in 1925  Connection with Geddes  The City, firm (commentary, writer)
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  RPAA Members HENRY WRIGHT Housing designer and analyst  With Stein: Large scale residential layouts for Sunnyside, Radburn, and Chatham village  With MacKaye: The historical causes of land use change in the New York State region CATHERINE BAUER  Social issues in housing and urban planning (1931- 1933)  ‘Leftover’ spaces for the community – development of essential programs in education, health, community social service, recreation, daycare, art and music  Instrumental in securing the 1937Federal Housing legislation
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  RPAA Ideas  Advocatedbuilding new communities in urban regions as part of a strategy of urban dispersion, expansion, and rebuilding: Mackaye, Mumford, Stein, and Wright  New forms of large-scale community layout and design: Stein and Wright  Advanced ideas on affordable housing and financing systems, to make housing sales to families of moderate means easier: Ackerman, Stein, Wright, and Bing  Formulated new concepts for the structure of large urban regions in which open space preservation would guide urban growth: MacKaye, Mumford, Wright, and Stein  Advocated greater equity in housing production, location, and design: Ackerman, Bing, Stein, and Catherine Bauer  Recommended specific new state and national planning and housing policies and the laws to implement them: Stein, Kohn, Whitaker, Mumford, and Bauer
• 10.
  Tennessee Valley Authority TennesseeValley Authority (TVA) Act on May 18, 1933 Signed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt Theoretical Idea: Building a set of multipurpose dams around which a series of programs would develop the regions natural resources – hydroelectric power as a source of new industrial revolution, a basis for 2,000 mile linear city
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  Tennessee Valley Authority Broadexperiment in regional planning through notions of rural planning and regional development General goals: • Improve agriculture, industry and commerce • Elevate general standard of living in the region • Develop power • Control floods • Armaments production facility (later scraped) Eastern Appalachian, the poorest part of the poorest region of the US Region diverse in climate, resources, racial composition and cultural patterns
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  Norris Dam PowerPlant Wheeler Dam Tennessee Valley Authority POWER AND DAMS Lilienthal, one of three original directors believed, providing affordable power to all people in TVA region should be the agency’s first priority.
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  Nitrate Plant No.2 at Muscle Shoals, AL"Liberty Bell" U.S. Nitrate Plant No. 1 Nuclear Plants POWER SYSTEM LARGEST IN THE SOUTH IN WW II Important resource for war, power & industry Built 12 hydroelectric projects during WW II to provide additional electric capacity Muscle Shoals facility used for defense industries Tennessee Valley Authority
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  INDUSTRY (attracted bycheap power) Target industry includes: transportation-related manufacturing, energy generation (solar, hydro, and marine, biofuels, and other power supply resources), plastics, logistics/distribution/warehousing, food processing, and data centers. Tennessee Valley Authority
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  Forest tree nursery Theuse of fertilizers Education Tennessee Valley Authority AGRICULTURE Reduced soil erosion, raised crop yields, and advanced agricultural diversification
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  PUBLIC HEALTH Malaria studiesand control; Physical examinations; Immunization Tennessee Valley Authority
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  CONTROVERSY Economic development: Eminentdomain and just compensation Tennessee Valley as a biological ‘hot spot’, environmental concerns Tennessee Valley Authority
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  Tennessee Valley Authority INCONCLUSION Core ideas remained rhetoric rather than reality Remained more a power production and flood control corporation Munitions production that was removed from the earlier plan became a driver of economic development of the Valley The radical ideas of regional espoused by RPAA remained miniscule, community development, public health and educational services got a tiny sliver of total budget Idea of towns where rich and poor would live together and residents would combine agriculture and craft industries never realized Difficult to implement, especially as Congress opposed to public housing Today, TVA primarily a hydro-power authority, ‘moving water is what they do’