The Irresistible Urge to Build Cities From Scratch
25th November 2018
Embedded in the cerebral folds of every city planner who’s ever lived, there’s a cluster of neurons that lights up like Las Vegas when confronted with the possibility of a blank slate. It started with Hippodamus, the man Aristotle claimed was the father of urban planning. When the Persians destroyed his hometown of Miletus, Hippodamus discovered a bright side to catastrophe: The attackers had erased all the regrettable improvisations that, over the centuries, had made a mess of the place. Tasked with rebuilding, he seized his chance to impose order upon chaos. And so the concept of the urban grid was born.
A designed city is just right from the viewpoint of the designers but might not be from the viewpoint of those who might have to live there. Rather like a planned economy under communism, and we all know how those turn out.