>> Yet, there are still quibbles around this as many European cities were rebuilt many times.
> Thats not correct. Some noticeable percentage of German cities and some cities of the war-affected regions were rebuilt. And most partially. The re-architecting of Paris does not have any relevance to cars since it happened in 19th century.
You stated that there was not a lot of urban planning in most European cities as they grew organically. My point is that many (over their _entire_) history were rebuilt many times, and in some of those instances with explicit urban planning. The example of Paris is to simply demonstrate this, not only was the city rebuilt several times, but once for the sheer sake of urban planning. This contradicts your statement: "There was and is scarce 'city planning' in Europe because there is scarce planning that can be done", Paris is _one_ (extremely prominent) counter-example.
>> Beyond the above, the more extended exerts below I believe make the same point I made
> They actually invalidate your argument - including the earlier excerpts: Modernist architects adopting car-centric ideas and high rises does not mean that they got to implement what they wanted to do in Europe.
I don't think that is correct, and hence it does not at all invalidate the argument. I'm not sure if you read all of the important quotes and the references. With the benefit of the doubt, I think proof by contradiction can demonstrate this. If modernist urban planners had no sway, and were not at all influential, then these quotes would make no sense (these are referring to Europe & North America):
- "Modernist principles have shaped city-building since the beginning of the twentieth century."
- "Modernist planning fell into decline in the 1970s when the construction of cheap, uniform tower blocks ended in most countries, such as Britain and France. Since then many have been demolished and replaced by other housing types. "
> “There were these big freeway people, and then there were the counter streams that happened between 1960 and 1970 ... One group was pushing cars out of the city, while others were trying to push them in.”
If Copenhagen was _not_ built as a modernist, car centric city (during the 1950's-1960's), then why would there be a group pushing back against car centricism in the 1960's at all? What would they have been pushing back against? Were they pushing back against how cities were built an ocean away in North America? No.. they were pushing back against how Copenhagen was rebuilt with car-centric, modernist urban planning. I mean, the title of the article is: "how Copenhagen rejected 1960s modernist 'utopia'"
> Aside from that the excerpts explicitly demonstrate that car-centric cities were a US phenomenon. Not European.
Not quite, the excerpts show that there was a lot of influence back and forth. European city planners went to the US and were influenced, and vice versa. Corbusier even designed several blocks of NYC, and the influence was reciprocal, see quote:
- "European engineers were sent in flocks to the US to learn from the environments in which these revolutionary ideas were playing out, returning with tabula rasa development plans to realise their own modernist dreams."
> Some noticeable percentage of German cities and some cities of the war-affected regions were rebuilt. And most partially.
Considering the war effected huge regions of Europe.. that would have been: nearly all of Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, a third of France, and countless more as large areas were flattened several times over. Practically every German city alone was carpet and fire bombed many times. Hence, these are very, very large reconstructions, all at a time when Modernist urban planning was the dominant style of urban planning.
> Because even the mere act of buying any zone in an average European city to demolish it would cost !enormous! amounts of money that nobody would be willing to spend.
I agree... to some extent. That is why the post-WWII reconstruction is so significant. Further, there _was_ also significant outward expansion during this time as well. Here is a quick example that Paris saw large expansions: "These large housing projects, known as the "Grand Ensembles," were constructed by the French government from the 1950s through the 1980s to help ease the housing problems that were prevalent throughout the country. Many of these high-rise buildings and communities still exist today" [1]
In sum:
- It's a straw argument to suggest what I'm saying is that every city was rebuilt in a modernist way.
- Though, WWII presented an opportunity for incredibly large reconstruction
- Post-WWII, there was also a lot of new construction for outward expansion
- During this time, the late 1940s to late 1960s, the dominant urban planning style of both NA and Europe was modernist car-centric (and so these constructions were similar from that perspective).
To refute, please give citations of what the dominant Urban planning style was for post-war Europe. I would love specific citations around this, as I have given you to support my claims (and even most of what I have wrote are direct quotes and references)
@unity, my original statement was this:
"My knowledge is that European urban planning was very similar and car centric until the late 60s."
I think the citations quoted above from multiple sources generously support this. Again, that is not at all saying that all of Europe was rebuilt in the 1950s-1960s willingly and entirely to be car centric. But, the _planning_ of new construction/reconstruction were similar during that period in both the USA & Europe (and Europe by-and-large stopped their new constructions in that style around the early 1970s while the USA by and large did not). There is even a mention in one of the quotes of a lot of that construction having been torn down.
I'd say Warsaw, Prague and Paris are all great examples. Warsaw was completely rebuilt and downtown is car centric (looks very much like an American city). Prague was somewhat unscathed and has a very historic layout, Paris is a mix of reconstruction and historic urban planning. The point remains that there was a pretty specific car-centric urban planning style that dominated in Europe in the late 1940's-1960s.
All that is to say - European urban planning was also, at one time somewhat recently, largely car centric. It is really notable that stopped being the case and is an example for US cities - that they can also transform away from being fully car-centric.
> But, the _planning_ of new construction/reconstruction were similar during that period in both the USA & Europ
That's where you go wrong. There isnt 'urban planning' in Europe because there isnt any space to plan anything. What could be called 'urban planning' in Europe is laying out subway tracks, maybe demolishing a run-down shanty neighborhood to build apartments. Thats it. Naturally there is no way to plan anything around cars. The most you can do is to eat up a little sidewalk in the biggest avenues in the biggest cities to make one more lane for the main street. And that's what was done for ~80 years.
> I think the citations quoted above from multiple sources generously support this
They dont. You moved on to 'urban planning was like that' argument from 'built like that'.
> European urban planning was also, at one time somewhat recently, largely car centric
Repeating it wont make it so. It wasnt, and still isnt. Aside from some part of Germany that rebuilt its destroyed cities and built autobahns, entire Europe was about tiny cars and tiny streets, leave aside any phenomenon like suburbs.
You cannot extrapolate from 'Le Corbusier and his friends liked cars and wanted to demolish cities' to 'city planning was like that'. If city planning was really like that (if it actually existed that is), then Le Corbusier and his friends would get their way and entire cities would have been rebuilt.
> Thats not correct. Some noticeable percentage of German cities and some cities of the war-affected regions were rebuilt. And most partially. The re-architecting of Paris does not have any relevance to cars since it happened in 19th century.
You stated that there was not a lot of urban planning in most European cities as they grew organically. My point is that many (over their _entire_) history were rebuilt many times, and in some of those instances with explicit urban planning. The example of Paris is to simply demonstrate this, not only was the city rebuilt several times, but once for the sheer sake of urban planning. This contradicts your statement: "There was and is scarce 'city planning' in Europe because there is scarce planning that can be done", Paris is _one_ (extremely prominent) counter-example.
>> Beyond the above, the more extended exerts below I believe make the same point I made
> They actually invalidate your argument - including the earlier excerpts: Modernist architects adopting car-centric ideas and high rises does not mean that they got to implement what they wanted to do in Europe.
I don't think that is correct, and hence it does not at all invalidate the argument. I'm not sure if you read all of the important quotes and the references. With the benefit of the doubt, I think proof by contradiction can demonstrate this. If modernist urban planners had no sway, and were not at all influential, then these quotes would make no sense (these are referring to Europe & North America):
- "Modernist principles have shaped city-building since the beginning of the twentieth century."
- "Modernist planning fell into decline in the 1970s when the construction of cheap, uniform tower blocks ended in most countries, such as Britain and France. Since then many have been demolished and replaced by other housing types. "
To further explore this point, (and this article I really encourage you to read in its entirety): https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/05/story-cities-...
> “There were these big freeway people, and then there were the counter streams that happened between 1960 and 1970 ... One group was pushing cars out of the city, while others were trying to push them in.”
If Copenhagen was _not_ built as a modernist, car centric city (during the 1950's-1960's), then why would there be a group pushing back against car centricism in the 1960's at all? What would they have been pushing back against? Were they pushing back against how cities were built an ocean away in North America? No.. they were pushing back against how Copenhagen was rebuilt with car-centric, modernist urban planning. I mean, the title of the article is: "how Copenhagen rejected 1960s modernist 'utopia'"
> Aside from that the excerpts explicitly demonstrate that car-centric cities were a US phenomenon. Not European.
Not quite, the excerpts show that there was a lot of influence back and forth. European city planners went to the US and were influenced, and vice versa. Corbusier even designed several blocks of NYC, and the influence was reciprocal, see quote:
- "European engineers were sent in flocks to the US to learn from the environments in which these revolutionary ideas were playing out, returning with tabula rasa development plans to realise their own modernist dreams."
> Some noticeable percentage of German cities and some cities of the war-affected regions were rebuilt. And most partially.
Considering the war effected huge regions of Europe.. that would have been: nearly all of Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, a third of France, and countless more as large areas were flattened several times over. Practically every German city alone was carpet and fire bombed many times. Hence, these are very, very large reconstructions, all at a time when Modernist urban planning was the dominant style of urban planning.
> Because even the mere act of buying any zone in an average European city to demolish it would cost !enormous! amounts of money that nobody would be willing to spend.
I agree... to some extent. That is why the post-WWII reconstruction is so significant. Further, there _was_ also significant outward expansion during this time as well. Here is a quick example that Paris saw large expansions: "These large housing projects, known as the "Grand Ensembles," were constructed by the French government from the 1950s through the 1980s to help ease the housing problems that were prevalent throughout the country. Many of these high-rise buildings and communities still exist today" [1]
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/high-rises-of-the-parisian-s....
In sum: - It's a straw argument to suggest what I'm saying is that every city was rebuilt in a modernist way.
- Though, WWII presented an opportunity for incredibly large reconstruction
- Post-WWII, there was also a lot of new construction for outward expansion
- During this time, the late 1940s to late 1960s, the dominant urban planning style of both NA and Europe was modernist car-centric (and so these constructions were similar from that perspective).
To refute, please give citations of what the dominant Urban planning style was for post-war Europe. I would love specific citations around this, as I have given you to support my claims (and even most of what I have wrote are direct quotes and references)