Fraternity-Testvériség, 1965 (43. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1965-01-01 / 1. szám
2 FRATERNITY Dr. Jean Gottmann is a professor at the University of Paris and one of Europe’s most distinguished geographers. He also has lived and taught at American universities, and is a close student of American ways of living. In the original study on which “The Challenge of Megalopolis” is based, Dr. Gottmann observed that Megalopolis, which admittedly contains the richest, best educated, best housed and best served population of similar size in the world, has many vexing problems arising from the unplanned and helter-skelter manner in which it has grown. The report notes that planning for small units such as city and suburban neighborhoods and urban renewal projects is commonplace. There are also special coordinated authorities for construction and operation of toll roads and bridges, port and airport facilities, and other common tasks. But these pieces do not make a workable and attractive mosaic of measures to deal with the problem as a whole. As Von Eckardt describes the situation, “We are beginning to guard our wilderness, our forests, our water and our mineral resources. We are carefully planning their use, even if this means curbing unlimited laissez-faire free enterprise. Now we must learn to guard and plan the use of our land, and of our urban resources. We can no longer afford to let urbanization run rampant over our country.” Among the concrete steps to be taken, the report recommends a new look at our present system of property taxation which now tends to encourage withholding urban land from needed uses for purposes of speculation. Better use of the land also means finding ways to stimulatue more and better housing for people of low and moderate incomes. Slum clearance is not enough. We need a comprehensive program of slum prevention. Nor are more and more highways and bridge the answer to the city’s transportation difficulties. They simply bring more cars into the city which in turn increases the demand for still more highways and, of course, for more parking spaces. This takes needed land away from housing and park land, and deprives the city of income from taxable property. Man’s need for beauty must also be considered in attacking our urban problems. First priority must be given to housing low-income people. But there is no reason why we can’t at the same time make this housing attractive. Aesthetics is not in opposition to sound urban planning and redevelopment, says the report. Much land inside a city can be turned into green belts, avenues, parks and plazas if transportation is channeled underground. In many cities, lovely pedestrian plazas are built over underground parking garages. Cars, buses and trains should be put in tunnels where they have unobstructed traffic movement. — “We must separate men and machines on our city streets”, says the author. “If it pays to build tunnels miles long under high mountains to shorten the road from Paris to Madrid, from Geneva to Turin, and from Zurich to Milan”, he continues, “it would certainly pay to make our American cities more liveable by channeling as much of its trans-
