Urban Transitions Flashcards
5 Big Urban Eras
- Mercantile Era pre-1800
- Agricultural Settlement 1800-1850
- Great Transition 1850-1945
- Post WWII BOOM 1945-1975
- De-industrialization 1975-2000
Mercantile Era Pre-1600
Colonial expansion to ‘new world’
Staples export: fur, lumber, wheat, …..
Indigenous population decimated
Cities emerge, Montreal 6,000 (1800)
Grid road patterns dominate layout
Agricultural Settlement 1800-1850
Settler population expansion
High immigration from Europe
Land clearing, open access agriculture (Western prairie)
Agricultural, rural economy serviced by city
Overcrowding, disease, fire, social conditions … urban problems
Railroads promote western expansion but also city development
Great Transition 1850-1945
Railroad network
Expansion staples economy
Settlement of prairie
Industrial heartland formed (S. Ontario)
Inner city formed
Central Business District (CBD)
Transition (mixed use activities)
Factory belt (harbour or rail yards)
Residential (segregated - income, ethnicity)
Grid Street Plan
Ebenezer Howard
1910s
Garden City Movement
Le Corbusier
Towers in the Park
Fordist Economic Boom 1945-75
Regime of accumulation
Post WWII consumer
Henry Ford; assembly line, working class
Car ownership, flight to suburbs
Governments build roads, highway, city freeways
Urban “renewal” initiatives, demolition of older buildings, neighbourhoods, loss of inner city life and vibrancy
The Model T Ford
4 cars in the USA in 1894
16 made in 1896
8000 in 1900
30 million in 1940
WW II delays car production/roads
67 million automobiles registered in the US, average cost $1500
POST WWII
Post WW II: grid street compromised
Introduction of curvilinear street plans
Cul-de-sac designs
Suburban expansion, freeway expansion
From public to private space
Urban Form In the Suburbs
Horizontal expanse of city population
Low density
One and two family dwellings, low rise apartments
Insulated neighbourhoods, small green spaces
Urban grid road pattern replaced with superblock, curvilinear street design, loop streets, cul-de-sac
Abandonment of the CBD, inner core
Critic of CBD abandonment1950-1970s
Jane Jacobs; May 4, 1916 – April 25, 2006
Critical of modernist planning approach
Opposed freeway development in NY city
Supported social connectivity of urban streets
Supported organized chaos of city life
Repulsed by physical destruction of old urban neighbourhoods
Deindustrialization 1975-2000
1975 urban core area industries decline, relocate
Rise of Edge Cities (suburban centres) – competition
Suburban expansion, rise of super malls
Automobile dependency
Urban Transportation Transitions
Street car neighbourhoods (1910-40s)
Auto-oriented development
(Post-WWII)
Transit investments
(1970s/80s)
Edmonton LRT, Vancouver Sky Train
(2000s), reduced automobile-dependency, urban villages, live/work
