CITY DENSITY

R. Kushner

 

The density of a built system is often what distinguishes the city from the country; dense versus sparse, in terms of built form. The transformation, from dense urban core to country villa, is a not an even, gradual transformation; and this allows lines and conclusions to be drawn regarding the existence of one in relation to the other, and brings into play distinctions between inside and outside and the notion of implied edge from both perspectives. In many European cities the distinction between city and country is quite vivid, as is the density of the fabric inside the city and the green pastures of the countryside, outside. Such cities often serve as models for contemporary urban development for their clarity of plan and clear distinction between the public and private realms.

The density of the typical "old" European city [if there is such a thing, this reference is to European cities which were founded during the Roman Empire - or based on these models; those having a rectangular form and based on the layout of the cardo and decumonus - the cosmological significance of which this discussion intentionally ignores] owes to its development specifically to the definitiveness of its defensive wall. The walls, though no longer present, had enclosed only a limited area, which could be developed only to a certain density before the enclosure had to be enlarged. Often times the density is understood as a desired attribute of the cultures which built such cities; this would lead to the erroneous conclusion that the wall was established as a tool for providing density. Instead, such density should be understood as an acceptable byproduct of the wall which, above all, protected the inhabitants and provided their community with a sense of security and place. Within these cities the piazza is born; a place within the city where the density of the urban block gives way to the spaciousness of the open country; the making of an understandable open place where only limitless space once existed. The functions of the city performed in such a space are numerous, and it becomes the center of social, economic, and political functions - the function of such an urban gathering space will be discussed later.

The history of the typical American city [if there is such a thing, this reference is to the American cities which like their European counterpart, developed along ancient - here indigenous Native American - trade routes, and then underwent a life cycle which took it from trading center to industrial center through the progressive exploitation of various developing transportation technologies: horse and wagon, canal/waterway barge, train, and then finally superhighway automobile/truck transport - to briefly summarize] follows quite a different path; the frontier is the only limit for development in this newly discovered land; the myth of the frontier as an indeterminate edge between the Atlantic coast and an immeasurable amount of land and wealth lying to the west. There exists no wall, no need for fortification, no natural barrier permanent enough to provide typical rules for urban development. The wall was to the medieval European city, what the zoning department is to the present American city.

There is no mistaking the immediate visual differences between the American and the European city [as described above]; nor is their any mistaking the similarities between cities with "zoning enforced density" [see Portland, Oregon] and their European precedents. Rem Koolhaas describes "the culture of congestion" as an acceptable byproduct of the urban development of New York City; Koolhaas argues, that although unstated [explicitly], the cultural implications of this "byproduct" would not have been allowed if it had been undesirable. It follows that the implicit goal of urban density, generated in a walled European city, would arise from a form [the fortified wall] which provided other more explicitly pragmatic purposes [i.e. protection]. If the goal was density, one should find dense cities without walls and continued growth patterns which support dense urbanism in spite of a lack of a definitive container. Instead, one finds nothing more than a nostalgic attachment [which becomes the rationale - now explicitly stated - for a continued production of urban space from a bygone era] to the kind of urban space that the walled city provided, without a de facto wall.

Even where the walled city is romantically revered, one finds European cities struggling to contain their growth [to be read as "sprawl" - no longer a uniquely American phenomena] and requiring zoning guidelines to provide continued density. If the functions of the European city implicitly benefited from the dense urban space and its corresponding open public space [the "piazza" from Italian models] provided by the defensive wall, [summarized above as, "...any of a variety of social, economic, and political functions..."] then which of these functions are still applicable in today's American cities? And if these functions are no longer required of American "public space", what kind of spaces should American cities be?

The Author thinks that, in many respects, the American city has yet to be born; and that the divergence from historical models is not any more barbarous than it is a messianic annunciation of human ingenuity; all hail suburbia? The question to ask is: What are the acceptable byproducts of suburban sprawl, and can the unacceptable byproducts be efficiently slowed or eliminated to allow a progressive development of the "acceptable".