Has New Urbanism Delivered on its Promise? Comparison Essay by scribbler

A comparison of Le Corbusier's modernist city plan with the Mesa del Sol project in New Mexico to determine whether New Urbanism has delivered on its promise.
# 152211 | 2,707 words | 9 sources | MLA | 2013 | US
Published on Jan 14, 2013 in Environmental Studies (Urban Issues) , Urban Studies (General)


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Description:

This paper contrasts Le Corbusier's modernist city plan for a "contemporary city" with the more recent New Urbanist Mesa del Sol project in New Mexico. The paper discusses how urban planning changed due to the different challenges faced in the industrialist and post-industrialist situations, and argues that the New Urbanist design program successfully attacks the modern malaise of isolation and lack of communal identity, presumably making life more pleasant for its residents.

From the Paper:

"First published in 1924, Le Corbusier's The City of Tomorrow presents a modernist view of the "contemporary city of three million inhabitants." He showed his plan first in 1922 at the Salon d'Automne in Paris. In this text, Le Corbusier suggested an urban business center of twenty-four tall 60-storey towers, rectangular in form, reached by car on superhighways. Beside this commercial center would be a cultural and civic center on a grid pattern and nicely landscaped. A residential area would consist of 12-storey apartment buildings placed in landscaped superblocks. Surrounding the whole city would be a protected space of woods and greenswards that separated the city from the outer industrial districts and garden cities.
"This proposed vision for the contemporary city was based on modernist ideas. One was that the center should be restored and built up vertically. His way to "increase the open spaces and diminish the distances to be covered" was to construct upwards rather than outwards (Le Corbusier 163). He also opposed the "corridor street" with its dark internal courtyards. To correct this, he thought the residential quarters ought to be constructed away from noisy, dusty, traffic-clogged streets and connected to the commercial center directly through fast arterial motorways (Le Corbusier 170)."

Sample of Sources Used:

  • Barnett, Jonathan. Redesigning Cities: Principles, Practices, Implementation. Chicago, IL: American Planning Association, 2003.
  • Calthorpe Associates. Community Master Plan. Mesa del Sol Development Project, 2005. Web. 10 April 2010 http://www.mesadelsolnm.com/mds/media/docs/pdf/masterplan/Level-A-with-addendum.pdf.
  • Congress for the New Urbanism. Codifying New Urbanism: How to Reform Municipal Land Development Regulations. Chicago, IL: American Planning Association, 2004.
  • Evenson, Norma. Le Corbusier: The Machine and the Grand Design. New York: George Braziller, 1969.
  • Filler, Martin. Makers of Modern Architecture. New York: New York Review Books, 2007

Cite this Comparison Essay:

APA Format

Has New Urbanism Delivered on its Promise? (2013, January 14) Retrieved March 24, 2023, from https://www.academon.com/comparison-essay/has-new-urbanism-delivered-on-its-promise-152211/

MLA Format

"Has New Urbanism Delivered on its Promise?" 14 January 2013. Web. 24 March. 2023. <https://www.academon.com/comparison-essay/has-new-urbanism-delivered-on-its-promise-152211/>

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