FEATURE
Poor town planning is a major problem in cities , leading to the rise of informal settlements .
“ Many large , central cities are losing jobs , especially the good paying ones ; at the same time they have a sharp increase in the proportion of the population with low incomes and an increase in the cost of municipal services . The cost per person in New York was reported last year to be nearly eight times that of the average smaller town . Growing concentration of population has become a liability rather than an asset .”
In the light of this evidence , Richard Buckminster Fuller , the eminent engineer , planner , geometrician and innovator , concluded :
“ Cities , as we know them , are obsolete in all respects of yesterday ’ s functions . To rebuild cities to make them accommodate the new needs of modern man is like trying to reconstruct and improve a wrecked ship , as the shipwreck rests upon the reef , pounded by the surf of technological obsolescence is invisible but is more inexorably powerful in its destruction than are the pounding of the waves of a visible ocean .
“ Man now sprawls horizontally upon the land uncheckable by the planners who enjoy the right to ‘ suggest ’. Visionless realtors , backed by government funds , operate indiscriminately in acquiring low-cost options on farmland upon which they install speculator houses .”
US Senator Mark Hatfield added : “ It is clear today that the great experiment of our cities is a failure . Derelict cities and centralised power are the twin symptoms of the sickness of these times , because it suits the policies of our centralised state to keep cities as the ' prisons of the poor ’.”
Eric W Sanderson author of TERRA NOVA The New World after Oil , Cities and Suburbs [ 2014 ], wrote : “ Three powerful forces – oil cars and suburbs that buoyed the American Dream . They made it possible for the nation ’ s economy to flourish and our power grow . Yet now across many different measures the quality of life America is declining . Cars consume 20 % of our income , kill and maim , discourage exercise and force us to squander time in traffic . Expensive sprawling culturally barren suburbs devour farmland and cheapen our existence .”
All major South African cities are now experiencing traffic ‘ grid lock ’ which was explained by the famed town planner Lord Holford on a visit to South Africa in 1963 who said : “ Trying to solve the transport problem by providing more roads is like feeding the pigeons – the more you provide , the more they come .” Paradoxically , the same condition operates every time a government minister makes a statement about building houses or upgrading squatter camps which encourages more people to arrive from rural areas .
See page 28 for more .
26
SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2016
AFFORDABLE
SA HOUSING