Basic HTML Version
Now, they can simply stop.
A massive power failure, a transport
strike, a sudden winter storm - even
prolonged temperature inversions and
resultant death-dealing air pollution -
these can all grind the massively mov–
ing operations of a city to a stop.
"What bothers me," says W. Willard
Wirtz, former U. S. Secretary of Labor
"is the possibility that our population
figures are such that
a 1111mber of om
basic systems 1l'ill j11.rt .rtop working."
A
lawyer and consultant on urban life,
Wirtz is vitally interested in the inter–
relationship of population and the envi–
ronment. "lt wouldn't surprise me a bit
to pick up the phone sorne day and find
the whole telephone system had just
collapsed from the sheer number of
people using it," Wirtz said in a 1969
AP release.
As our cities have grown, they have
become more and more complex.
More and more people, consuming
more electricity, water, goods and ser–
vices, have required more and more
power, streets and freeways, shops and
factories, more schools, hospitals, fire
stations, and more policemen.
Today, the budgets of most major
cities are strained beyond the breaking
point. The
operation
of a city-keeping
life somewhat palatable for the mil–
lions of inhabitants, each of whom ex–
pects
to
"do his own thing" without his
neighbor ( freely practicing the same
compulsions) interfering - is becoming
increasingly impossible.
Like the day sorne two years ago the
whole Montreal Police department went
on strike. On this "Black Tuesday" of
unbridled rioting and looting, two were
killed (includiog one policeman), 48
were wounded, 7 banks were held up
(that's almost ten percent of the
yearJy
total
!) ,
17 other armed robberies took
place, 1000 plate glass windows were
broken, and at least
$1
million worth of
goods were looted from defenseless
merchants. Also, ovec 200 burglaries
were reported (the normal daily total
was less than 50).
The Anatomy of a City
What
i.r
a city?
What keeps it going? What makes it
at once terribly desirable to millions, yet
obnoxious to the point of revulsion to
millions more?
A "city" is technically a political en–
tity - an administered area, granted a
charter by a state (in the United
$tates). Its boundaries are in constant
flux - determined usually by archaic
and ill-delioed criteria.
Precious few attempts have been
made, and eveo fewer have been suc–
cessful, in determining what a city
really
i.r, oc
should be, and fewer still
have successfully limited the population
and area of a city.
Only with decades-late hindsight
have programs of "urban renewal" or
"civic redevelopment" begun to envi–
sion master planning of a total urban
complex.
Unfortunately, these programs usu–
ally end up being as short-sighted as
were the original street routes in, say,
Boston.
By the time most urban renewal
programs are completed, tbe continua!
massive onslaught of more and more
population, more and more automobiles,
disturbing patterns of changing ethnic
groups, or additional sprawling suburbs
have rendered the renewal programs
obsolete.
From metropolitan centers we have
grown to the modero term "urban ag–
glomeration," which is to say, rr.any,
many smaller cities being gradually
merged into one massive, urban sprawl.
From such agglomerations, such as
the Los Angeles multi-city complex,
have grown terms such as "Megalop–
olis" and "strip city."
The Making of Megalopolis
Dr. Herman Kahn, formerly head of
the Hudson Institute, characterized the
growing strip cities as a huge urban
development, unbroken over a Jarge
land mass, eventually absorbing and
overreaching even state boundaries.
"Bosnywash" was a term be used for
the massive urban development ulti–
mately bounded by Boston to Washing-
Ambouador
Co/logo Photo