Rybczynski, in his latest book – Makeshift Metropolis – explains what happened mid-20th century that led to the proposals and conflicts so well represented by the Chinatown Freeway / Strathcona fights – and why we should be careful in the current moment.
The present recession has produced a virtual halt in construction and urban development. The last time this happened for an extended period was during the Great Depression of the 1930s … The effect on architecture and city building was devastating, and not just because little was built.
The disruption was not only physical but intellectual: offices closed,
careers were cut short, practicioners took early retirement, and the continuity of practice was interrupted. Much professional knowledge, normally transmitted between generations through apprenticeship, was lost.
The urban accomplishments of the early 1900s, such as Forest Hills Gardens (right), depended on teamwork – among developers, planners, architects, builders and public administrators – and the lack of new projects allowed these networks to unravel.
Thus, by the 1950s, when the economy revived and cities began to think of rebuilding and replanning, few seasoned professionals were available. At the same tme, a widely held view among the public was that the times called for change. This explains the willingness to attempt radical and untested urban interventions such as urban renewal, traffic separation, high-rise social housing in the cities, and dispersed planned communities in the suburbs.
Perhaps, but if there is a disruption to historically modern planning paradigms, perhaps a new generation wedded on a highly pro-sustainable, anti-automobile development agenda will come to the forefront once the economy picks up.