1992 / 2158
1992
and capitalism were at war (and they surely still are today), since the first is based on the principle
of equality, while the second on the principle of inequality. Thus, citizenship and capitalism would
conform antagonistic poles (TRINDADE, 2012)
5. URBANISTIC ASPECTS
While urban planning should be a relying source to help to solve many of urban issues, historically,
it has many times been guided by polemic ideas, and was even accused of directly contributing to
great part of our current city crisis. Much of this comes from the intrinsic difficulty of understanding
urban phenomena, as also, from the interpretation of which qualities a city should offer or not to help
to improve our lives and to evolve us as a society.
Léfèbvre (1968) in his “Right to the City” criticized the traditional urban planning by formulating all
city problems as spatial questions. Therefore, if something in a place was not working as desired,
urban planners would consider that there was a “space pathology”, that could be related to “healthy
spaces” or “unhealthy spaces”. For Léfèbvre, however, this priority of space over time (in this case,
the place history) was by itself a social pathology.
For Jane Jacobs (1961), great part of the problems of modern cities don’t come from a lack of
planning, but in opposite, from an “orthodox urbanism” that not only ignores the way big cities really
work, as is based on principles that were by origin clearly established to end big cities and reduce
them to small self-sufficient communities. This urbanism’s origin would be in Ebenezer Howard’s
garden cities, which by the words of Jacobs (1961) would be “really nice towns if you were docile
and had no plans of your own and did not mind spending your life among others with no plans of
their own. As in all Utopias, the right to have plans of any significance belonged only to the planners
in charge.” Howard’s garden city was a so utopian element that sustained itself only by ignoring any
urban aspects that could not be abstracted to serve his Utopia, such as how people “police
themselves, or exchange ideas, or operate politically or even invent new economic arrangements”
(JACOBS, 1961). Even so, it deeply inspired all urban planning in the XX century and still has a
longing influence.
Simon Richards (2007) analyzes the historical evolution of how cities are perceived and tries to
explain this contradiction in urban thinking. In spite of cities being undoubtedly valued today as
excellent places for social activity, throughout most of History, negative and antisocial views were
the predominant ones. Since Plato – who claimed that an urban population free to socialize
indiscriminately would become corrupt and dominated by their sexual and consumerist impulses –,
passing through medieval theologians – who considered the city irredeemably wicked – until more
modern thinkers as Rousseau and Pascal – who advocated an autonomous and solitary life as a
better way to the human development –, it can be seen that the idea of the city as a beneficial
environment for socialization is relatively recent (RICHARDS, 2007). It was from John Locke and
after from Simmel that these new ideas flourished and spread.
Nevertheless, it is surprising that in the moment the old current of thought started to decline, it was
rescued exactly by urban planners who were in the “vanguard” of modern thinking, as Le Corbusier.
Among many examples, he elaborated plans that would lead (as he himself referred) to the “death
of the street”. By proposing the obliteration of secondary routes and stores, limited space for
cafeterias, community centers, and theaters, besides scattering them in big distances and building
them with brute materials as concrete, glass, and steel, Le Corbusier showed his contempt for the
street stirring – exactly the main aspect that today’s urban planners esteem. Every aspect of his
cities was designed to keep people apart and maximize the time they spent alone (RICHARDS,
2007).