|
|
- Info
Urban sprawl
| Author: |
Whyte, W.H., Jr. |
| Date: |
1957 |
| Periodical: |
In: The Exploding Metropolis. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books |
| Abstract: |
Sprawl is bad aesthetics; it is bad economics. Five acres are being made to do the work of one, and do it very poorly. This is bad for the farmers, it is bad for communities, it is bad for industry, it is bad for utilities, it is and for the railroads, it is bad for the recreation groups, it is even bad for the developers. And it is unnecessary. In many suburbs the opportunity has vanished, but it is not too late to lay down sensible guidelines for the communities of the future. Most important of all, it is not too late to reserve open space while there is still some left-land for parks, for landscaped industrial districts, and for just plain scenery and breathing space. The obstacles? There are many local efforts by private and public groups to control sprawl and save open space. But each group is going at the problem from its special point of view, indeed without even finding out what the other groups are up to. Watershed groups, for example, have not made common cause with the recreation people or utilities; farmers and urban planners have a joint interest in open space, but act more as antagonists than as allies- and all go down to piecemeal defeat. It is going to take a political fight to bring these groups to focus on the problem, and the sooner begun the better. Many planners feel they should work first for a master government to deal with all the problems of the metropolitan area- or, at the very least, a master plan- educate the people into supporting it, then apply it to such particulars as land use. This is very orderly and logical; the trouble is the land may be gone before it works. The proposal to be presented here is based on a more pragmatic approach. It is to look at each of the different self-interests involved- such as those of the farmers, the utilities, the communities- and see what kind of plan would best unify them. Such a program will involve compromises, but it can produce action- and action that may well galvanize the whole regional planning movement. |
|
