What makes a city and what is its purpose?
The atom of the city is the individual human being in the same way that he/she was the atom of the village and of the small town.
The family was a small atomic cluster. And the organic nature of the extended family and family groupings produced the village.
To understand the building blocks of the city it becomes necessary to understand the nature of the human being and family and what makes up the basic unit of common living? The natural village.
The city, the expanded version of the small town was the result of needs beyond the village and came about during the various forms of early trade and cultural groupings. It contrasts the village as it was governed to the superimposed power of this forming broader economy.
Economy is evidenced more in the city than in smaller communities and introduces another underlying force, the force of growth.
Growing cities and their growing economies tend to dissolve the personalized character of community and absorb it into the broader mass.
Even before city planner types began to appear and as cities formed, the rulers of these larger territories did the planning to suit themselves.
The nature of this activity was mostly a form of physical development directed by those with power.
Power later moved from central authority to the power of money and land and later to the captains of trade. It then again became necessary to involve government to manage the more public elements such as streets, canals, bridges and port facilities.
The organic and humanistic nature of the evolution of communities was diminished as cities became the dominant human settlements and centers of trade.
In making a long story short, the conscious planning and designing of cities and even of our little suburbs like Shorewood, in spite of the globalization of cities today, requires an understanding of the early elements and clusterization of these elements as they pertain to individual, family and community interaction.
One of the most publicly visible physical problems is the dehumanization effect of urban streets. We speak to this here as this is one of our best known urban problems.
We must therefore start by viewing our street as part of the human requirement of connective living rather than the sewer-like, waste carrying and car movement characteristics of the streets of today.
Even in the suburb, streetscaping, as it is presently practiced is not going to do it.
It's a cosmetic feature being pasted over the decaying social structure of streets.
The incorporation of new solar energy techniques as canopy structures, for example might bring a physical enhancement as to weather protection and the security requirement of the streets. But this requires understanding the human and community qualities of the street.
Understanding these qualities and how to apply these techniques can help make the street a more attractive place for socialization. We seem to sense this with our superficial approach to appearance. So then the fundamental socialization of our streets becomes the most important place to start and this now becomes our most important goal.
