David Meeker
- 1968
Fellowship Title:
- Urban Problems in Europe
Fellowship Year:
- 1968
Urban Remedies: The International Search
Rome, Italy April 15, 1968 LJUBLJANA, YUGOSLAVIA – “As people live more together, they also depend more on each other. Mankind has built up a society in which man is carrier of all values, and on his life interests and his free conscience should not be imposed any monopoly interests.” Branislav Krstic, counselor for communal affairs of the Yugoslav Federal Assembly, addressed these words to planners from four nations who met here in 1966. He told them that society faces “a question of arranging the space and development of its most important points, which are cities.” The Yugoslav official then asserted, “Before the course of urbanization has accomplished its expensive and inhuman heritage, vie would like to find a remedy and answer some critical questions.” The 1966 conference was introduced to a new, still infant effort aimed at conducting a search for the urban remedy — the American-Yugoslav Project in Regional And Urban Planning Studies. Now, two years later, the American-Yugoslav Project has grown into a robust youngster using the Ljubjlana region, with
Warsaw: Memories in Mortar
May 28, 1968 Warsaw, Poland — There are three Warsaws, blurred into one by bricks and mortar, ideology and memories. Living on in fond reminiscence is the city of Chopin and Madame Curie, which existed here before the Nazi invasion of 1939. The second Warsaw — a sea of rubble, which inspired Hitler to tell the Reichstag in 1945, “Warsaw is now no more than a geographical tem on the map of Europe.” — has nearly disappeared from view but pervades speech and thought. The visible city of 1968 — the third Warsaw — is a driving, sprawling town molded in the pattern of socialist man. This is a city with a new face on an old body and a new guiding force with old memories, seeking a new identity but unable to discard its past. Warsaw is a city with its eye on tomorrow and its mind on yesterday. ‘Heart, Brain and Treasury’ Warsaw was a latecomer among Polish cities, emerging during the thirteenth century. In 1596, it was designated as the
Urban Mix: Prescription For Diversity
April 25, 1968 ROME, ITALY — It has become fashionable to refer to the problems of the Cities in medical terms. Our urban centers are sick, explain the urbanists, with congestion, clogged arteries, acute respiratory infection, malformed growth and sundry other afflictions. Since the physical condition of the body often affects the mind, there is now growing concern for the mental state of the cities, as reflected in the city dweller’s attitude. In its recent report titled “The Threatened City,” the Mayor’s Task Force on the design of the City of New York observed, “…the dreary monotony of the physical city environment has deadened us, training us not to see architecture really and not to be aware of many other things, not to hear obscenities shouted in the streets, not to feel when jostled, not to anger when stepped upon, almost not to weep when dirt gets into our eyes — yet finally to explode in tabloid violence at the wrong provocation. Sometimes, we seem to fear our environment.” Despite its slogan of “Fun City,”
Public Housing In Italy: An Object Lesson
March 26, 1968 ROME, ITALY — The Communist Party headquarters in Borgo del Trullo is a storefront between the butcher shop and the fruit stand. It’s furnished with a red banner, a poster of Ho Chi Minh, four card tables, a well-stocked cooler of cold drinks, and two pinball machines. At the drop of a question, the men who gather here will lay down their cards and take up the subject of public housing. Each has the expertise gained by living in this development of “workers’ housing,” with its 1350 apartments six miles south of the center of Rome. The main commentary is delivered by the club president, a wiry stonemason with piercing eyes. Call him Enrico. The City of Genoa, as seen from an apartment in the new Forte di Quezzi public housing development. On the right, some of the project buildings. The faults of Italian public housing in general and this new project in particular are numerous, Enrico says. The rents are too high, the buildings are not as well made as
Rome and the Autos: A Showdown Nears
February 27, 1968 ROME, ITALY — The Fiat is rapidly devouring the Eternal City. And because Rome is unable to satisfy the automobile’s growing appetite, its narrow streets may be the stage for man’s first showdown with the motorcar. Rome’s traffic problem has become a legend in its own time, growing at such a frantic pace that officials here describe the situation now as “Tragic!” Currently the city has more than 775,000 vehicles plying its streets and new cars are being poured into the traffic stream at a rate of more than 10,000 monthly. Even if the current growth rate for private autos does not accelerate as expected, Rome faces the task of moving in excess of 1,000,000 vehicles by 1970. Traffic experts here say that the saturation point is around Rome’s next corner because the city cannot be shaped to meet the demands of the car. While its European and American counterparts have devoted larger and larger shares of their available land to the auto, Rome cannot consider cutting a swath of expressway