The Compact City

A Sustainable Urban Form?

Elizabeth Burton, Mike Jenks, Katie Williams, Elizabeth Burton, Mike Jenks, Katie Williams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9781138135635
• eBook ISBN: 9781135816988
• Topic: Architettura
• Subtopic: Pianificazione urbana e paesaggistica

This book presents the latest thinking on the benefits and dangers of higher density urban living. It offers diverse opinions and research, from a wide range of disciplines, and gives an insight into both the theoretical debate and the practical challenges surrounding the compact city. Essential reading for anyone with an interest in sustainable urban development.

Part One

Compact City Theory

Introduction

The relationship between urban form and sustainability is currently one of the most hotly debated issues on the international environmental agenda. The way that cities should be developed in the future, and the effect that their form can have on resource depletion and social and economic sustainability, are central to this debate. The chapters in Part 1 add to this argument by presenting theoretical perspectives on what Welbank has described as The Search for a Sustainable Urban Form. Collectively the chapters form an overview of the theoretical advances in the compact city debate and present thinking on the best option for future urban development; but taken individually they offer strong, and often conflicting, opinions about the benefits and, importantly, the costs of urban compaction.

At one extreme of the debate, there are those who believe that compact cities are an important component of a sustainable future. Hillman, for example, argues that compacting the city is one way of reducing travel distances, and therefore reducing emissions and greenhouse gases, thus curbing global warming. He concedes that living at higher densities will have implications for individual lifestyles, but does not believe that these will be negative. By reducing consumption of fossil fuels, he argues, urban residents could enjoy, amongst other things, lower transport expenditure, less pollution and lower heating costs.

There are then those who believe in what Breheny terms a ‘compromise’ position, who favour neither extreme centralisation nor decentralisation solutions (Breheny, Scoffham and Vale, and Thomas and Cousins). Breheny suggests that many of the benefits of centralisation may not stand up to scrutiny, and he questions whether the local ‘pain’ suffered by urban dwellers will be worth the ‘gain’ to sustainability; especially as some of the gains are questionable. He then advocates a position which supports both the merits of centralisation, for example urban containment and urban regeneration, and the benefits of the ‘inevitable decentralisation’ to towns and suburbs which offer a range of public facilities.

A similar ‘compromise’ position is held by Scoffham and Vale, and Thomas and Cousins. Scoffham and Vale dismiss extreme centralisation and propose instead that individual neighbourhoods should develop, each with a strong local identity and control over local resources. For them ‘compact’ refers more to the degree of autonomy a neighbourhood has, than to its physical form. Thomas and Cousins question the compact city in the light of current economic trends, environmental objectives, aspirations to quality of life and political reality, and conclude that the compact city is ‘unsuccessful, undesirable and unworkable’. In a similar vein to Scoffham and Vale they advocate a decentralised urban form which is physically and ‘virtually’ compact; where local compactness is complemented by regional compactness, and where the routes between settlements are so efficient that travel times and distances are reduced.

Finally, there are those who argue against the process of compaction on the grounds that it is unsustainable, and unacceptable to urban and suburban residents, for the simple reason that the claimed benefits are outweighed by losses to the social, economic and natural environment. Stretton epitomises this view with his critique of urban compaction in Australia. He argues that there is too much to be lost from urban consolidation, and that solutions lie in reforming transport systems, rather than re-structuring cities.

The divergence in opinion in these chapters indicates that the implementation of the compact city needs to be treated with extreme caution. Welbank has argued that in Europe and the UK the search for a sustainable urban form has, to a certain extent, been ‘founded on conviction rather than rationality’. This conviction is grounded in the assumption that the changes needed to bring about strategic benefits will also bring about local improvements, particularly in the quality of urban life. This issue is explored by Williams et al. in a review of the process of urban intensification. They conclude that for the compact city to be acceptable, the benefits must be evident at the local level; only by understanding and managing the inherent problems of adopting strategic aims, which have implications for every neighbourhood, will intensification be acceptable to those already living in cities.

The chapters in Part 1 illustrate that whilst the search for the most appropriate urban form has a long history, as a search for a sustainable form the challenge is fairly new. They also show that this search has yet to find conclusively either in favour of, or against, the compact city. What is clear, however, is that only by rigorous investigation and continued questioning and testing of assumptions, will the implications of sustainability for our towns and cities be understood. These chapters strikingly illustrate the complexity and liveliness of the debate.

Michael Breheny
Centrists, Decentrists and Compromisers: Views on the
Future of Urban Form

Introduction

The sustainable development imperative has revived a forgotten, or discredited, idea: that planning ought to be done, or can be done, on a big scale. Up to the 1960s planning had a long, and reasonably creditable, history of visionary ideas. After that date, the public lost confidence in planners, and planners lost confidence in themselves. Subsequently, pragmatism has ruled. However, there is now a fascinating debate underway about the role of planning in promoting sustainable development, and—here we have the big idea—about which urban forms will most effectively deliver greater environmental protection. Viewed as a narrow environmental debate, the issue is profoundly important. But when the broader economic, social and cultural repercussions are taken into account, it soon becomes apparent that nothing less than the future of western lifestyles is at stake.

This debate is not the preserve of unworldly academics. It is taking place at inter-governmental, governmental, and local government levels across the world. Following the Brundtland Commission report of 1987 (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987), the notion that the natural environment should become a political priority—under the ‘sustainable development’ banner—has taken hold to a remarkable degree. In many countries there have been profound changes in policies and in political and popular attitudes, as commitment to the sustainable development idea has increased. The fundamental question in all places, however, has been how to deliver major environmental improvements. One common answer seems to be to use planning systems to achieve these gains; and, in turn, to use those planning systems to achieve greater urban compaction. Thus, a legitimate, indeed profound, research question is whether such compaction—‘the compact city’—will deliver the gains demanded by the politicians.

The political urgency of this debate is demonstrated by the fact that we have a rare case of politicians racing ahead of academics, pressing for specific policies before the research community is able to say with any confidence which policies will have what effects. Perhaps this arises because national governments are keen to meet—and be seen to meet—international environmental obligations.

Although, as we will see, the debate is tending to favour heavily one solution, the scope of the debate can be usefully summarised by classifying stances initially into two groups: ‘decentrists’, who favour urban decentralisation, largely as a reaction to the problems of the industrial cities; and ‘centrists’, who believe in the virtues of high density cities and decry urban sprawl.

The decentrist and centrist views of urban form have long histories, albeit that the motives for their promotion in the past have been somewhat different from those driving the current debate. These histories are important, however, because although they do not cast much direct light on the sustainability question, they do put that question into a wider context. They also act as a reminder that decisions made on environmental grounds will have broader—economic, social, and cultural—repercussions that must not be ignored. There is a danger at present that the sheer weight of the environmental argument will swamp all other considerations. Indeed, for some this is the hope.

Thus, the review presented here will (a) reflect briefly and selectively on the histories of the decentrist and centrist arguments, and (b) outline the contemporary debate, focusing as it does on the environmental issues. In the historical review the decentrist and centrist approaches will be considered in turn. In the contemporary review, the two will be considered together. This is because the current promotion of one or the other consists largely in criticism of the opposite position, to a much greater degree than in the past. This makes for a slightly messy presentation, but does allow the richness of the interplay of ideas between the two stances to emerge. When the decentrist and centrist positions have been reviewed, it will be argued in conclusion that the existence of a third stance ought to be recognised: a conscious middle line in this debate—the ‘compromise’ view.

The weight attached in this review to various positions reflects the material readily available to the author. Thus, it has a strong Anglo-American flavour, with a bias in favour of the British material. In turn, within the British literature there is an inevitable focus on projects with which the author is particularly familiar or has been involved. Thus, the perspective is partial, perhaps even narrow. However, it is hoped that the coverage is sufficient to map the boundaries of the debate.

Historical advocacy of centrism and decentrism: radiant city, garden city or
Broadacres?

Different protagonists in the centrist versus decentrist debate over the years have had different motives. The mainstream concern has been with the quality of urban and rural life and, to a lesser extent, the aesthetics of urbanity. As Hall (1988) says, the history of 20th century planning ‘represents a reaction to the evils of the nineteenth-century city’ (p.). From Howard, Geddes, Wright, and Le Corbusier, through to Mumford and Osborn and many followers, this was the motive. In the post-1945 period, with the cities appearing to be rather less evil and the problems being increasingly of 20th century origin, planning motives became more diverse, more specific and less visionary. Nevertheless, centrist and decentrist camps remained clear, and, as we will see, the occasional big idea did emerge, through to the early 1970s.

Many wonderful histories of planning have been written. The ideas and practices explained below have all been covered thoroughly and expertly elsewhere (for example, Hall, 1988; Fishman, 1977). Indeed, this review relies heavily on these sources. What is different here, however, is the attempt to see elements of this planning history directly in terms of the decentrist versus centrist debate.

It is difficult to know where to start in reviewing the history of discussions about appropriate urban forms. It is probably fair to say that the decentrist view has the longer pedigree. Conscious practical town planning developed in Europe and North America in reaction to the squalor of the towns and cities thrown up by the Industrial Revolution. Although this reaction included initiatives within those towns and cities, it also spawned decentralised solutions. In the UK these took the form of private, philanthropic ventures from the early 19th century onwards, most obviously at New Lanark, Saltaire, Port Sunlight, Bournville, and New Earswick. The common denominator of all of these initiatives was a desire to plan for communities in healthy and efficient surroundings, away from the disease and congestion of the industrial towns. These planned communities made only a minor dent in the dominant process of urban centralisation, which continued in Europe until the immediate post-1945 period. Nevertheless, they are important in this history because they established, for the first time, the idea that there might be a conscious alternative to centripetal urbanisation.

The most important period in the history of the debate about urban form was from 1898 through to 1935. During this period the boundaries of the debate were mapped out. The extreme cases were both proposed in full in 1935; by Le Corbusier the arch-centrist, and Frank Lloyd Wright the champion decentrist. Both had the benefit of being able to reflect on the work of Ebenezer Howard, in terms of his ideas and their practical application at Letchworth, Welwyn Garden City and Hampstead Garden Suburb. In fact, both felt the need to propose antidotes to Howard’s influential views. The following brief historical review will be built around these three contributions; because they all proposed big, total solutions to the urban problem, and also because they represent the extreme position. Other contributions to the debate can be built fruitfully around the three defining views of planning history’s most important ‘seers’ (Hall, 1992).

Placed alongside the extremes of La Ville Radieuse and Broadacres City, Howard’s Garden City proposal seems to hold the middle ground. Indeed, later it will be suggested that Howard ought to be regarded not as a centrist or decentrist, but as a representative of a compromise position. However, others, and most obviously Jane Jacobs, have cast him firmly as a villainous decentrist; indeed, as the villain.

The order in which these three sets of solutions should be reviewed is not obvious. The extremes of Le Corbusier and Wright might be presented first, in order to demonstrate that Howard is best cast in the middle ground rather than as the decentrist villain portrayed by some commentators. The alternative is a more obvious chronological coverage, because this both reflects the sequence of ideas and allows the work of Le Corbusier and Wright to be seen, in part, as a reaction ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Part One: Compact City Theory
• Part Two: Social and Economic Issues
• Part Three: Environment and Resources
• Part Four: Measuring and Monitoring
• Part Five: Implementation
• Conclusion