An example of an assignment for seminar 5 (Urban design, new urbanism and social life) for the course Residential Mobility and Segregation. Master Human Geography, UU.
Seminar 5: Urban design, new urbanism and social life
Essay Question:
Write a short essay (max. 700 words, excluding references) on the role that physical design can
play in the social cohesion and liveability of neighbourhoods.
Ebenezer Howard is often seen as the founding father of modern urban planning (Tizot, 2018).
With his concept of the “Garden City’, he provided an antidote to the overpopulated and polluted
workers districts in times of industrialization. The central idea was combining the best of two
worlds: the city (its opportunities and jobs) and the country (its beauty, low rents and fresh air).
He designed a concentric model, which consisted of a central park surrounded by larger public
buildings. This would be ringed by excellently built houses, encircled by an outer ring of factories
and services (Howard, 1898). Fundamental to the plan was collective landownership: every citizen
was to be a shareholder. This would help in creating a “happy, co-operating community”,
enhancing social cohesion and liveability (Howard, 1898).
Many urban models have expanded upon, altered, and diverged from Howard’s initial ideas.
It is even stated that “the two most important inventions of the early twentieth century were the
airplane and the Garden City” (Mumford, 1960 as cited in Livesely, 2016, p. 149). Several
typologies of these urban forms were made, including Jabareen’s (2006) identification of four
types: neotraditional development, the urban containment, the compact city and the eco-city. All
of these were compared upon environmental sustainability measures. The compact city-model,
based upon ‘Le Corbusier’s ‘La Ville Radieuse (1929), scored highest on environmental
sustainability. In this model cities are ideally spatially compact, allowing for high-rise buildings and
high population densities, while mixed usages are also guaranteed. This would sustain a good
quality of life, even with high concentrations of people (Jabereen, 2006; Le Corbusier, 1929).
Although compact, dense cities score well in terms of environmental sustainability, they don’t
score well on the social aspect of sustainability (Bramley & Power, 2009).
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