In 1922, the architect Le Corbusier launched the first of several visions for modern city-building — the Ville Contemporaine, or City for 3 Million People. The basic layout called for 60-story cruciform towers in large rectangles of open space, linked by highways and punctuated with an airport. It was scorned at the time — as a concept, it was proposed to replace a large swath of Paris, as unthinkable then as now. Since then, of course, such large-scale planning has come to be associated with the urban renewal and “towers in the park” that Jane Jacobs and others have discredited. Thinking in broad terms about the megacities of the 21st-century developing world, however, Le Corbusier might have had some ideas worth revisiting. Back then, the Swiss-born founding father of modern architecture was coming up with new ways to accommodate vast increases in urban inhabitants. That trend has only intensified. Half the world’s total population already lives in cities, and that urban population is expected to nearly double in the next 40 years from 3.5 billion to 6.2 billion people — nearly all in developing countries. When urban populations double, the areas required to accommodate them will more than triple. Shlomo “Solly” Angel, adjunct professor of urban planning at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service of New York University and a lecturer in public and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University, is among those urging that it’s time once again to think big.
The city-building required today is not so much about tearing down existing areas for slum clearance and urban renewal, but rather making realistic plans for new urban land. That, Angel says, requires planning for expansion and infrastructure as soon as possible. “Most people who desire to live in urban areas will already be in them by 2100, but by that time it will be too late to act,” Angel says. “If the land required for public works or public open spaces is not protected from encroachment before it is developed, it will be next to impossible to ensure the orderly development of cities to make them more efficient, more equitable, and more sustainable.” As a visiting fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Angel is lead author of
Atlas of Urban Expansion, a comprehensive guide to the past and future characteristics of metropolitan growth and expansion, and the forthcoming companion volume,
Planet of Cities. He plans a major presentation on both at the
World Urban Forum organized by UN-Habitat in Naples, Italy, in September.
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