The City in Mind
Urban construction must follow some kind of ideology. It should follow some kind of logic. Mainly, it must keep both business and housing central in location and priority. This will allow the economy to be centralized and allow for a profitable city. A profitable city benefits both citizens and terrain as well. The city’s leadership must oversee logical planning. The leadership must have the before mentioned logic in mind and should not be disputed. Most effectively, this leadership should be the government, since all building regulation is controlled by the government. A successful city has both leadership and logic. Having both will not only make local profit but will also make the city endure for generations. Without a central leadership grounded in urban ideals, constructing and maintaining a successful city is impossible.
Atlanta, based on Kunstler’s observations, is not a successful city. Atlanta’s dependence on oil and cars is the chief reason why. Atlanta has no centralized population within its urban environment. It also has no business in its downtown. Kunstler writes, “It has become normal for corporate CEOs to locate their new suburban offices within a five-minute drive of their own homes” (67). With corporations moving out to the suburbs, employees will move or work in the suburbs also. This keeps economic activity away from the downtown and spread out over the suburbs. A society dependent on highways and automobiles is the result of a decentralized city. A society completely dependent on oil is “at the mercy of events half a world away” (Kunstler, 60). As environmental and political issues continue to strain oil reserves and production, Atlanta’s automotive-driven society will be impossible. Atlanta, by these standards, is a temporary city. With its decentralized suburban population, it is possible to wonder if it is a city at all. Atlanta’s dependence on one nonrenewable resource could cause the city’s self-destruction. With work, housing, and business miles apart, Atlanta would cease to function if the automobile was immobile.
If Atlanta is temporary, Paris is timeless. Logic geared its renovation after the revolution. A new underground tunnel system was created for sewage, wider streets were constructed so the army could pass through, and slums were removed for civic constructions. Universities and libraries were built where slums once were. Land that was used on houses would serve the citizens better if utilized as business or commercial land. “The estimated figure [of houses demolished] from 1853 to 1870 was nearly 20,000,” Kunstler writes on page 26. While Atlanta does the opposite, building more houses –creating more suburbs – civic institutions and business construction would be useless since there was no centralized location to put them in. The destruction of houses does not mean the reduction in dwellings. “About 44,000 dwelling units (many apartments)” were built (Kunstler, 26). Paris was building higher and more carefully, instead out outwards and wastefully. By keeping the city in the city and increasing the number of apartments, Paris grew in population but kept the same city plan. The population was centralized and the businesses flourished. The city still hasn’t changed much to this day. It is successful.
What allowed Paris to flourish was its strong leadership. Without a leadership willing to take initiative for the good of the city and its citizens, progress is impossible. Louis Napoleon and Haussmann both shared the same vision: to use urban ideals to ease Paris into the Industrial Revolution and beyond. They used careful planning and logic to keep the population central and active. Unlike Atlanta, Napoleon and Haussmann were in a government leadership position. Haussmann even got away with getting funding by “declaring a project “completed” before it was begun and issuing installment payments to the contractors…” (Kunstler, 21). This and other ploys could only be accomplished with a person in power. He did this with no profit to himself which is indicative of the level of seriousness Paris’s leaders exhibited to renovating their city.
Atlanta had no leadership at all. It had no one to steer Atlanta to a successful direction. Atlanta is constructed through superficial impulses of the common citizen--the suburban, SUV driving, strip mall shopping citizen. Millions of individuals and not a unified leadership are constructing the city. Without leadership, the suburbs and the city are constructed in anarchy. It is the impulsive building of homes and roads without sound reason that makes Atlanta so chaotic. Aside from suburbs manifesting, the only logic is to build a road to that location – be it house, corporation, or strip mall. The only logic is to keep the dependance on oil. Unlike Paris in the 19th century, the government does not support urban renovation. In fact,
“By the 1970s, the business leadership and the white political establishment were not quite sure what kind of city Atlanta was anymore, or where it was going, or who it belonged to. But fewer and fewer of them actually lived in the city anymore.” (Kunstler, 66).Atlanta’s leadership do not even live in the city. Most effective renovation is carried out, as seen in Paris, by the government. If the people in the government do not even care to live in the city, they would not care to bring economic activity back to the city or to add civics buildings and transportation. Urban renovation is impossible even without the support of the government. DPZ (Duany and Plater-Zyberk), who started the New Urbanist movement, tried to bring the population back to the city. They wanted to create a neighborhood called Riverside which would be an area that would have apartments, businesses, and shops all accessible by foot. Unfortunately, the government gave the project no support and the citizens did not want to reject their suburban “American Dream.” An urban village violated local codes. After fighting for it, a gate was erected because of paranoia about crime (Kunstler, 70). What the DPZ wanted was an Urban renewal. The government and the citizens molded it into a suburb within the city. As Kunstler wrote on page 71, “when the edge comes to the center you have a problem.”
Without strong leadership, a successful city cannot be constructed. Citizens have not always been supportive. Even some of the French ridiculed Haussmann for his projects and his funding methods. It is the leadership that is responsible for the city. Napoleon and Haussmann lived in Paris and had goals and a way to implement them. Atlanta’s leaders, whoever they are, do not even care to live in the city. With such indifference to their own location, it is no wonder that the streets of downtown Atlanta are empty even during lunch hours and that more money is spent on roads than urban transportation. Whether or not a city is successful or not is not the issue anymore. Some cities do not even have the means to construct a successful city with a centralized population and a flourishing economic life. Without leadership enthusiastic about urban ideals, this is impossible.
