City Planning
Both Henri Lefebrve and David Harvey brought up the issues that capitalism has on the planning and development of cities and I see their points but I have a hard time reconciling a solution on it. The shift in the decision ultimately moves over to collectivism where everyone has a say in the happenings within the city, however this extreme doesn’t satisfy anything either.
One of the main issues with how they analyze cities, and just larger swaths of land as a whole, is that one size fits all. When a collective majority votes people into offices that run highways through low income black neighborhoods (Milwaukee, WI), what good did collectivism do there? In one of the readings it said something along the lines of, social boundaries become more evident in cities, and I think that’s the case whether it's monetarily or politically driven on any spectrum.
I think cities have to be broken up into smaller segments and recognize neighborhoods as smaller collective units within it. They need voices of leadership that can attend to those people and work through the active problems that they face. Once a problem becomes too complex, then it can be discussed with other surrounding communities.
What would you suggest for reshaping a city into something more palatable for what you consider the “everyday person”.
I agree - I think a sore point to unitized neighborhoods with their own leadership though are the opportunities for corruption. In some ways the more levels of government that cities have, provides more opportunities for power to be taken or shifted. It's inevitable. Not that an authoritarian all-powerful mayor is better either. To your question though - I'd say we have the structure down pat, we just need to seriously invest in our buildings making them highly valued for a long time and across the entire city.
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