History of Urban Planning in Research Proposal

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The only major change that has occurred is the fact that there are so many more people now, urban planning is all the more important (Jackson, 1985, p. 76).

Getting in our time machine and hurtling towards the present, urban planning in the United States began to gain momentum in the middle of the last century as the great housing boom that followed the Second World War began to eat up what had been rural land for centuries. Suburbs began to double and then double again in size like radioactive mushrooms. Commuting on newly land freeways became more and more a part of people's lives (Wheeler, 1995, p. 71). Some of these changes were generally welcome (the large backyards of the suburbs) and some were definitely less welcome (those long commutes).

One thing that was clear during the 1950s and into the 1960s was that cities were being systemically changed as more and more people moved out of the country and into urban and suburban areas. Transportation became more and more important to consider (Tunnard & Pushkarev, 1963, p. 48). So did race relations as many city residents participated in "white flight," retreating to suburbs and leaving the cities (which would begin to be called "inner cities") to blacks, and later Latinos and Asian-Americans. Cities began to fall apart, which was a problem for every one (Garvin, 2002, p. 119).

As cities seemed to become less and less functional, suburbs themselves no longer seemed socially safe enough for some people, who began to flee every further away from people who did not look like them or share their values, seeking refuge in gated communities that had all the psychological heterogeneity of Camazotz, a mythical city in Madeleine L'Engle's novel a Wrinkle in Time in which every single house has been built to be the exact same size, the exact same shape, and is painted in exactly the same color.

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(Even more disturbing in the novel is the fact that in front of each of these houses is a child bouncing the same type of ball in exactly the same rhythm.)

Different phases of urban planning still exist across the country, with white flight still a concern in some places, gated communities flourishing in some communities while in others they are being broken up. Some cities are pushing to have more pedestrian-friendly areas while other urban governments are still focussed on people who commute in cars. In the midst of this checkerboard of urban planning strategies, there is no clear next step for urban planners (Santamouris, 2006). That is thus the question that this research takes up: What will be the next vision for American cities?

It might be a radical shift toward an emphasis on environmentally friendly cities, especially as such environmental planning will become more and more important as climate change begins to effect cities across the nation. Will this ecological disaster that we are facing in fact prompt an essentially uniform response to the problems that cities face?.....

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