Be failed

[BonzaiJoe]

1º: Congrats BJ!!
2º: Why are you against city planning? It usually means a better place to live, no car traffic problems and many other things which are good

Here is my opinion about city planning. I apologize for the delay :-) I didn't get the job, by the way. Job market is tough and after all, I don't have the technical abilities or even the theoretical architectural education to be an actual city planner. However, actual city planners don't possess the cultural insight or the understanding of urban life that I do, which is one of the great problems.
Anyway, here we go:

My view on city planning is left-liberal, like my general political views, as opposed to socialist or liberal-conservative. To me, the purpose of city planning is regulation, and nothing else. The public authorities must make plans for urban areas in order to make sure that profit-driven entrepreneurs do not form city spaces in ways that are beneficient to themselves, but detrimental to the public - everyday people who walk in the streets. What's important - and what I meant by saying that I'm against city planning - is that authorities do not make rigid or detailed plans for any area. Authorities must allow for, and secure, a development that is orchestrated by many different independent agents who have great creative freedom in their design process. Authorities must only strive to make sure that no single agent shapes urban space in a way that hurts that hurts the surrounding area. This is known as 'context' to architects. When building, the task of the public authorities is to secure 1. Diversity, 2. Respect for context.
In Copenhagen, the municipal authorities and leading architects generally hold a very progressive view of architecture and city planning: they accept that good architecture is not achieved by designing great buildings, but by designing buildings and areas that interact fruitfully with their surroundings. They accept that in order to make good architecture, you need to consider many different things: local demographics, traffic flow (most importantly good conditions for pedestrians), local culture, architectural context, visual context and seve­ral different kinds of environmental issues. Many of them are even aware of these two crucial facts:

1. The desirability of pedestrian activity (walking, meeting, sitting or simply hanging around) in public spaces is essential not only to the quality of life of city dwellers, but also to the turnover of local businesses and to the attractiveness of the city in a national or regional context (which again generates income in terms of tourism and business investments).

2. The desirability of pedestrian activity in an urban public place cannot be determined by any simple set of factors, but is rather a very complex working-together of different factors, most importantly the simultaneous presence of positive factors appealing to many different kinds of people (if you don't agree with this, I'll explain in another post why it's so important).

They are aware of this, but still they make huge development projects, building up entire 'sub-cities' from scratch, letting the same people make all the important planning decisions in a large area and the entire shaping of this area depend on the given ideologies of a certain time.
These people have understood the importance of 'mixed primary functions' in an area (that people are present on the street for different reasons and at all times of the day), which has not been understood by socialist- or neo-capitalistic planners (resulting in large 'ghetto' residence areas populated either by poor people (with very high crime rates), or by rich people, creating segregation and even, in the long run, undermining democracy). What they have not understood is that it is impossible to lay down the aforementioned 'complex working-together of different factors' from above and all at once. In fact it is doubly impossible. First of all, it is impossible because truly diverse planning cannot be made by one agent at one time. A greater number of different ideas are needed, and there are 'trends of the time' that it is not possible to wrestle free from. A city area must develop bit by bit, in order to achieve diversity and in order to have the ability to adapt to ever-changing contexts. If it is laid down from above all-at-once, it will depend on the ideas on which it is based being not only perfectly grasping the complex mechanisms that make for a successful public space, but also on these ideas being permanently capable of securing a successful public space - that is, the conditions for this being constant. This is of course also completely impossible.

This is the problem. Planners have delusions of grandeur. They get seduced into thinking they can build a city. Even in liberal Copenhagen, we are still suffering from architects and planners who think they are gods. 

[Duplode]

These people have understood the importance of 'mixed primary functions' in an area (that people are present on the street for different reasons and at all times of the day), which has not been understood by socialist- or neo-capitalistic planners (resulting in large 'ghetto' residence areas populated either by poor people (with very high crime rates), or by rich people, creating segregation and even, in the long run, undermining democracy).

For a cruel joke disguised as bedroom community look up on Google Maps for "Cidade Tiradentes, São Paulo", with satellite layer on for extra impact. Shelving 40k people in the middle of nowhere and expecting them to commute 2+ hours takes something worse than mere hubris, though...

[BonzaiJoe]

That looks hellish. A city not built for human beings.

Another of my favourite examples of infernal city planning is Dale City, Virginia, USA.

[Chulk]

What do you think about La Plata (my hometown)?

[BonzaiJoe]

Interesting, I didn't know about this city...

Judging by the information I can gather by looking at it from above on Google Earth, I can see it has three very positive parameters: it's very centralized, population density seems to be high and total building percentage (ground coverage) seems to be very high. If this is true, it means that public parks should be successful and that sidewalks should have some activity.
At first glance, it looked like a city designed for cars rather than people, but on a closer look, it seems like the streets are quite narrow and even covered with cobblestones, which should keep car speed down. This is very important.
On the negative side, all the blocks are much too big, which hurts street activity (diminishing the positive effect of population and building density), and the city bears the imprint of being 'laid down by a god', planned from the beginning, which means that truly great and diverse city life in public areas is probably non-existent, despite good population density and realistic amount of 'green' space. The very strict planning leaves very little adaptability and limited breathing space for grass roots space-shaping initiatives. It seems like high demands for mobility and short deadlines for building the city have come before the needs of the people actually living there.

[CTG]

10+1 exams in the next three semesters - none of them are scientific. Be sure I won't complete all for the first try.

[CTG]

10+1 exams in the next three semesters - none of them are scientific. Be sure I won't complete all for the first try.

And the first one is coming tomorrow. It's pure law... suffering is guaranteed. But at least I've already printed what I have to learn in the night.

[BonzaiJoe]

Good luck!

[BonzaiJoe]

By the way, Duplode, have you ever visited the Brazilian cities of Curitiba or Salvador? They're really interesting from a city planning perspective, in each their own way, and I'd like to know how they feel to be in. Are they alive? Interesting? Economically thriving? Culturally thriving? Would you like to go back there?

[Duplode]

By the way, Duplode, have you ever visited the Brazilian cities of Curitiba or Salvador? They're really interesting from a city planning perspective, in each their own way, and I'd like to know how they feel to be in. Are they alive? Interesting? Economically thriving? Culturally thriving? Would you like to go back there?

I visited Curitiba once. Unfortunately, it was a long long time ago, and I did not explore the city freely enough to truly get its pulse, so I do not have much to say. In any case, it was a nice place to be in, certainly more amenable than your typical major city.

(By the way, IIRC Renato hails from Curitiba, so perhaps he could give a proper picture of daily life there.)

[CTG]

Done. It wasn't as bad as expected. Result: next week, prediction: 80%.

[CTG]

Done. It wasn't as bad as expected. Result: next week, prediction: 80%.

100

[CTG]

Thursday, another potential fail... pure law, without any logic.

[CTG]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand EXAM!

[CTG]

another potential fail... pure law, without any logic

I won't fail - however, I won't be proud of the result (weak mediorce or worse)...

Test part: 20-22 pts from 30, the mistakes were coming mainly from lack of knowledge (one or two were missed because I misread the question - typical mistake from me)
Essay part: 8 questions, one of them without, two of them with a minimal, three of them with a partly insufficient answer, the other two seems to be more or less good. Expecting 20-25 pts from 40...

I hate when I have to MEMORIZE instead of UNDERSTANDING the subject.