Modernism and development

At the turn of the 20^th century, cities faced a major paradigm shift. This happened as a result of dealing with the consequences of more than a century of industrialization and private business-oriented urban growth. Dense urban centers, such as Paris and Barcelona were subjected to huge urban interventions in which old, fuggy and dark paths and quarters gave way to wide avenues and boulevards. Following this aesthetic, sanitary and strategic intervention, the rules and regulations of what is considered to be the foundation of urban planning and the profession of urban planning were formed (Girouard, 1985). For instance, the Baron Haussmann, who was responsible for the reconstruction of Paris in 1852, enforced regulations on public parks, water works, sewage, monuments, etc.

A few years later, at the beginning of the 20th century, the profession of urban planning flourished initially in Europe and later in the United States, mostly focusing on the development of city standards that could minimize the negative health impact upon the working class living in urban centers. With that in mind, new city structures such as the garden cities of Ebenezer Howard (1965), which defended a carefully regulated city with dedicated housing, industrial and agricultural areas surrounded by greenbelts, were thought and enforced as a standard to be followed (Mumford, 1961).

Embedded in this mindset of city order and efficiency, modernist planning emerged in the 1920s. Mostly based on the influential thoughts of the Swiss architect Le

Corbusier, the modernist city was supposed to be, among other characteristics, car oriented, with wide green paths, encouraging pedestrians to be away from the roads, and separated industrial, commercial and residential areas (Jacobs, 1992). Following this trend, many communist cities as well as a great part of post-war reconstruction sites have been shaped and organized this way. For instance, cities such as Brasília, the capital of Brazil, and Zlín, in Czech Republic, have been planned from scratch by architects and planners who were inspired by the ideal of social progress and freedom through technology – especially the car – that was emphasized as the modernist agenda (Sandercock, 2003).

However, alongside other authors – (Harvey, 1989; Holston, 1989; Sandercock, 2003) – Jane Jacobs (1992), who wrote one of the key modernist critiques called The Death and Life of Great American Cities, argues that this mono-functional space based on a social engineering ideal practiced by modernist planners kills a city’s vibrancy and potential creativity. Referring to the modernist’s urban renewal interventions as a bulldozer approach, Jacobs (1992) uses the example of a neighborhood in New York to emphasize that it is from the city’s chaos and naturally occurring social interactions – and not from the strict regulations and isolated urban spaces – that creativity and liveliness emerge in cities. Expanding on the critiques, Sandercock (2003, p. 21) adds that the twentieth-century role of planning has been to regulate … not only land uses but, often, who – that is, what categories of people – might use that land; thereby regulating bodies in space, administering who can do what and be where, and even when.

Embedded in such critiques and shaped by the urgent demands that emerged within urban centers after the 1960s, new forms of urbanism have flourished. Reacting against the modernist’s city issues, such as the denial of history and everyday life

rhythms (Holston, 1989) and the loss of human fabric in devastating urban renewal and redevelopment practices (Jacobs, 1992), a group of authors (Harvey, 1989; Holston, 1989; Jacobs, 1992; Sandercock, 2003) defend a postmodern planning practice.

Supporting this, Sandercock (2003) explains that it requires a people-centered way of planning, focusing more on the community’s knowledge instead of an over-controlled and comprehensive plan.

All in all, similar to most of the social field of studies, urban planning is historically contingent (Sandercock, 2003, p. 72) and reflects the features of historical moments from which certain schools of thought have emerged. From the ‘garden cities’

of Ebenezer Howard (1965), passing through to the modernists’ thoughts and moving to the postmodern practices, it is important to analyze the historical moment that allowed those types of thoughts to emerge, as well as which dominant group and/or culture it represents. As highlighted by Sandercock (2003, p. 21):

The planning system thus unreflectively expresses the norms of the culturally dominant majority, including the norms of how that majority likes to use the space

… the norms and values of the dominant culture are embodied in the attitudes, behavior and everyday practices of actual, flesh-and-blood planners.

2.2.2.1 Modernity and history

Given the above-mentioned discussion, one could agree that the definition of modernity within urban planning has been strongly shaped throughout the 20^th century Western planning practice. More narrowly, the accounts of modernity worldwide have been influenced by the modernist physical and symbolic projection that considered speed, technology – car, household appliances, among other consumer goods –, dynamism, change and material abundance as modern (Sandercock, 2003) and the lack of that as traditional. In this modern world, alongside material importance, Everyman would have the opportunity to better himself, to shake loose the chains of the past, of

tradition and custom, to invent himself anew (Sandercock, 2003, p. 14). Nevertheless, the controversial feature of this modern city is that it does not represent everybody’s city. Instead, as Sandercock (2003) sharply underscores, this idea of modernity fits the reality of certain types of white, Western men that live in a particular moment and space in history.

Another issue within this idea of modernity is the wrong dichotomy in which everything that is not modern is considered traditional. The postcolonial urban theorist Jennifer Robinson (2006, p. 7) explains that two of the major problems of urban modernity are: first, this opposition of tradition and modernity, and second, viewing the embrace of novelty as ‘innovative’ in Western contexts but ‘imitative’ in others. Unlike the current mainstream urban planning schools of thought, what Robinson (2006), as well as Sandercock (2003), put in question is the underlying assumption that to be modern one should act like the West.

Discussing the different understandings of history and modernity within urban settings, particularly regarding urban heritage, Feras Hammami (2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2012d) highlights that the crux of these conflicting understandings lies on the fact that most planners’ knowledge is based on Western literatures and on mainstream assumptions that are taken for granted within the urban planning profession. Delving more deeply, he concludes that, based on such terminologies and thoughts, the decision on which type of history is worthy of protection and which power forces and social arrangements are reinforced in such urban interventions are not even noticed. Hence, this Western way of looking at cities and their history and tradition become taken for granted by the practitioners as both ‘true knowledge’ and ‘the right way to do it (Hammami, 2012c, p. 13).

More recently, this above-mentioned discussion of what is formally recognized or not as modern and which type of tradition and history should be protected or revitalized can be verified in the continuous urban renewal practices, particularly the ones taking place in global south cities. In such urban interventions, traditional practices, rituals and spaces are usually giving way to high-rise buildings, reshaped spaces and practices focused on offering tourists or other groups of interest a cleaner and more organized experience of such places. As highlighted by the important South African urbanist Vanessa Watson (2009, p. 2262) , planning has been used in such contexts to create acceptable urban environments for foreign settlers, which means focus on sanitary conditions and modernist tools in a top-down, bureaucratic and often inappropriate manner.

To conclude, the twin concepts of modernity and history in cities have been strongly impacted by this early 20^th-century approach to urban planning, in which the West’s ownership of modernity (Robinson, 2006, p. xi) is an underlying assumption.

However, agreeing with the critiques briefly presented in this section, the present research also casts a critical eye towards these biased understandings of modernity and history. Saying that, the following section examines a group of scholars dedicated to looking at cities’ different ways of being modern, particularly focusing on the various understandings of informality within those urban settings.