Cities for Living: Europe Plans Ahead

...There is generous use of green space, with dwellings concentrated in clusters, quite unlike American suburbs that spread like ink blots...

...Among the most ambitious efforts to deflect office employment to commer- cial sub-centers is La Defense, a new business and residential cluster located on a redevelopment site three miles west of Paris' Arch of Triumph...

...This be- ing so, the question for urban Amer- ica is: Why must we—with more space, greater wealth, and proportionately fewer people—do less well in organiz- ing our urban areas for the well-being of the increasing number of Americans who live there...

...America is evolving a mixed economy in the European mode...

...We have in recent decades moved steadily to- ward a larger role for government in housing, employment, transportation, and other crucial fields...

...Rampant commercial growth, fueled by the conversion of core property into offices, is also a major concern...

...But they are few in number, serve a small minority of people, and are privately built...

...In Stockholm, absorbing a huge an- nual transit deficit is considered an ordinary function of city government...

...Europe, to be sure, has its failures...

...Yet, thanks to talented planners, a distinguished tradition of orderly de- velopment, and a sane balance of pub- lic and private activity, the increasing- ly affluent Dutch lead largely pleasant, surprisingly uncrowded lives...

...Pain- ful rebuilding out of the ashes of World War II required vigorous gov- ernment leadership and served to deepen the European tradition of pro- viding national answers to national problems...

...When finished in 1978, La Defense will con- tain office skyscrapers, hotels, apart- ments, a futuristic exhibition center, stores, restaurants, underground park- ing for 25,000 cars, and a multilevel transportation complex including a six-lane freeway, buses, and a new ex- press subway (four minutes to the Champ Elysees...

...Out of the deck rise the of- fice towers...

...Nonetheless, the Euro- pean planner has a vital asset: strong government commitment to rapid, eco- nomical, comfortable mass transporta- tion...

...Most cities also restrict billboards and garish neon signs far more than we do, thus dimin- ishing see-sickness...

...The traffic is madden- ing and the city government is in dis- array...

...The challenge of American urban growth thus becomes clearer...

...Through ts special authority to designate green ireas and then make the designa- ions stick legally...

...Indeed, the auto- motive chaos of Paris or Rome could make some of our big cities seem al- most tranquil...

...expanding Federal activity here mingles with pri- vate ventures far more than many of the self-proclaimed individualists who benefit handsomely are prone to admit (consider the U.S...

...But probably the most revolutionary traffic control concept is under serious consideration by the British govern- ment...

...The earliest towns had target populations under 100,000 and usually grew up around pre-existing villages twenty to thirty miles from London...

...In Europe, where the art of city planning enjoys a heritage of some 2,000 years, the planner is highly es- teemed...

...If all goes well, it could be a pleasant switch from new commercial complexes in the United States that bubble with activity by day and then lapse into eerie silence at sundown...

...Although the 5.6 million inhabitants of the highly ur- banized valley have serious pollution problems, a unique regional planning agency has been able to keep about half of the Ruhr's picturesque forests ind fields undeveloped...

...Rather it offers long term, renewable leases...

...It is "road pricing": a driver would pay a price reflecting the degree to which he adds to congestion...

...Indeed, we still tend to glori- fy the frontier spirit of grabbing while the grabbing is good, often excusing mindless plunder of priceless resources in the name of "individualism" or "private enterprise," often nourishing the dangerous illusion that haphazard growth in so vast a land is not much of a menace...

...On the whole, the towns are a success, of- fering a blend of housing for different income levels along with ample em- ployment opportunity, shopping hubs, schools, and other amenities...

...For in the way it de- signs new communities, combats waste- ful suburban sprawl, erects decent housing for the poor, supports mass transportation in the face of fierce automobile competition, preserves charming old buildings, safeguards green space and otherwise faces the challenges of booming urbanization, the Old World often has valuable les- sons for the New...

...Towns of up to 500,000 are planned, using as nuclei large communities farther from Lon- don with existing populations over 80,000...

...Both Western Europe and the United States squirm under population pressure (we must roughly double our urban living space by the year 2000 to accommodate the growing urban population...

...CITIES FOR LIVING: EUROPE PLANS AHEAD SIG GISSLER IV Western Europe watches Amer- ™ ican cities warily...

...We are more affluent per capita and have more undeveloped territory...

...Government-backed loans to Lockheed...

...One of our large problems is an ob- session for privately owned land...

...The United States has some note- worthy new towns like Columbia, Maryland, and Reston, Virginia...

...in this man- ner, and, whatever its current growth problems, it is still the nation's best city planning project...

...The European continent's skies and famed rivers are besmirched by pollution...

...SIG GISSLER is an editorial writer for The Milwaukee Journal who recently spent six weeks in Europe studying twelve metropolitan areas...

...With the sturdy racking of government at the highest evel, he has a positive, creative role, nle talks enthusiastically about what 'will be...

...If the United States taken together were as thickly settled, it would contain more than three billion people, a number roughly equal to the world population today...

...In Amsterdam, for example, redevelop- ment plans are painstakingly drawn to weave around 7,000 officially desig- nated "monuments" in the ancient center, most of them highly prized residential structures...

...Do we have the guts to try it...

...And the Swedes are not alone...

...We speak glibly of "balancing" freeways with transit, but in Western Europe they do more to back such words with deeds, even if it requires heavy public subsidy...

...The Swedish capital began buying land in 1904, purchasing large areas outside the old city limits with the dual purpose of preserving green space and providing room for future "garden suburbs...

...Spacious housing, mainly apartments, is meshed with such community facilities as shopping centers, day nurseries for working mothers, and, most impressive of all, efficient public transportation at a low price...

...Stockholm, Dus- seldorf, Geneva, and other cities have "old town" areas, historic enclaves sprinkled with enchanting shops and restaurants, that are faithfully de- fended against excessive modernity...

...The paramount lesson is strong planning . . ." But what of mobility...

...Hardening of the auto arteries is not the only threat to livability in Europe's central cities...

...All industries and other in- stallations must conform to strict anti- noise rules...

...A striking illustration is Vaudreuil, a showcase city of 140,000 planned by the French government along the love- ly banks of the River Seine, about an hour's drive northeast from Paris...

...His various journeys would be tabulated and at the end of the month the driver would pay a congestion bill much as he now pays a telephone bill...

...Concentration is what makes the metropolis inherently attractive, allowing a rich mixture of people to pursue an immense range of activities...

...To be sure, there are historical and cultural differences...

...Flex- ibility is the key...

...Still, Europe sets some stimulating examples for us...

...The only hopeful sign is the 1970 Housing Act that provides some new financial aids to town developers, with both pri- vate groups and public agencies (such as a state authority) eligible to apply...

...Finally, we have a racial problem on a scale unknown in Europe—a blight of the soul that profoundly com- plicates the solution of nearly every urban vexation...

...The centerpiece is a sixty acre elevated pedestrian plat- form, studded with fountains and plantings...

...Unlike West Europe, new towns here have not been made an impor- tant instrument of public policy...

...Smoke from factories will be carried off in subterranean conduits and released only after centralized fil- tration...

...There is no Shangri-La for urban man, anywhere...

...The objective is to force a driver to weigh more carefully the cost of motoring and perhaps convince him to take the bus...

...They were not able, for in- stance, to accommodate all of Lon- don's overspill population...

...We still see politicians reck- lessly invoke the hobgoblin of "social- ism" to thwart or cripple sensible gov- ernment efforts in the common inter- est...

...However, massive advance acquisition of land and the planning of its use has a major precedent in the United States...

...For they show, above all else, that concentration is not an evil in itself...

...As a consequence, our metropolitan areas illustrate the free market run amuck, with land speculators exalted and planners treated as starry eyed sooth- sayers...

...The British have designated thirty new towns since 1946, some virtually finished, many well advanced, several only on the drawing board...

...In West Germany, a subway boom is underway, thanks to attractive subsidies from the national government...

...Good housing is in short sup- ply everywhere—even in Sweden, which builds at nearly double the U.S...

...We don't want to preplan all details," one of the pro- ject's bright young planners explained to me...

...This is precisely he kind of anti-sprawl power that American planners need to protect >riceless "environmental corridors" in our burgeoning metropolitan areas...

...He is not reduced merely to hunting bad development as is so of- ;en the pathetic fate of his technically :ompetent but politically denigrated American counterpart...

...Buy one ticket and ride any or all systems...

...Most of the land has since been for- mally annexed by the city...

...European planners offer equally in- spiring lessons in rescuing open space from the blade of the bulldozer...

...Western Europe, in contrast, is com- posed of small nations that have had to conserve their natural endowments, develop more compactly, and rely on a stronger role for government, especial- ly at the national level...

...What can Europe teach us...

...The result has been broader acceptance of public ownership and control of property, greater subordination of personal de- sires to the community welfare...

...Thus, the city of Stockholm today owns about seventy-five per cent of the ground within its administrative borders...

...The most astonishing job is quietly taking place in the Ruhr Valley, industrial heartland of thriving West Germany, famed for a forest of smokestacks—not virginal countryside...

...The difference in attitude is stun- riing...

...Most of the traffic will flow through underground passages and tunnels...

...Witness the Netherlands...

...Its strategy is to ink together wedges of greenery that prevent Ruhr cities from growing to- gether and help combat air pollution {the leafy wedges, in effect, are the ungs of the valley...

...If the ideas are not easily imported, they at least deserve attentive consideration...

...By retaining ownership, Stockholm not only implements its master plan more effectively, but any subsequent rise in the land's value goes to the community rather than to a few profiteering sharpies...

...As a result, scarce money can be spent instead on good housing...

...British towns have not fully met their goals...

...Money from the leasing pays off loans floated to buy the property in the first place...

...Today the scale is greater...

...Refuse will be taken through underground pipes to processing plants where heat resulting from its disposal will be used to supply part of the city's requirement for central heating...

...He may be right...

...Since World War II, the land has been used—consistent with the city's master plan—to develop handsome residential sub-centers, little cities within the city...

...In crisp contrast, Stockholm shows the gratifying results possible when advance public purchase of raw land is used as a powerful tool for guiding urban growth...

...Although still largely on paper, Vaudreuil is hailed as the first town fully designed to control noise and pollution from its earliest stage...

...The multiple crises of urban America are frequently invoked to speed creative action in the cities of Europe...

...Some of their living features were too drab...

...That is what has produced a lack of animation in other new towns...

...Equally intriguing is the approach to Vaudreuil's living patterns...

...His car would be equipped to flash its identity to a computer center as it passed over electronic strips in the pavement at entry points to congested areas...

...Our cities are younger and have often grown more explosively...

...A crucial field test of the idea is likely this year...

...It is at least a start...

...The folly lies in how we concentrate, in how we house the peo- ple in the central city, make prof- ligate use of air and water, uglify the landscape, devote prodigious portions of our urban space to the idolized automobile, balkanize local govern- ment, and generally mock the ideals of planned growth...

...In central Paris, the curator of historic areas must approve the "compatibil- ity" of any new building planned in a protected area (not even the style of chairs in the parks can be changed without his permission...

...In the countryside beyond, he government pioneered the construe- ion of carefully planned "new towns" lesigned to absorb London's excess »eople and industry and to help con- Fallout trol mushrooming regional growth...

...Rarely does Stockholm sell land...

...Some natives doubtless feel that way, yet it seemed to me that European planners have done a remarkably effective job of keeping renewal zeal and the pur- suit of profit within decent limits...

...About 100,000 persons will eventually work at La Defense, but it is hoped that about 20,000 will also live there, giving the $1 billion project life around the clock...

...Rome, for all of its architectural won- ders, is a mess...

...Hamburg, meanwhile, has transformed its former transport hodgepodge into a brilliantly synchro- nized network of subway, bus, street- car, railway, and even ferry boat serv- ice for 1.5 million daily patrons...

...As a remedy, a ven- turesome strategy of planned dispersal is emerging...

...Both strain to cope with massive movement off the land and to the city, with de- terioration of the urban core, with housing shortages, soaring automobile ownership, thickening traffic, befouled water and air...

...In any case, offices and light industry will mingle with housing, schools, and shops in an ef- fort to stimulate variety and excite- ment—the most attractive elements of old cities...

...How else do you keep service good and fares low...

...One might assume from much of the above that the classic beauty of old European cities is being hopelessly profaned by commercialism...

...rate...

...The paramount lesson is strong planning— the idea of anticipating growth pangs before they strike, of nurturing the best features of urban society while repell- ing the worst, of using precious space wisely and with a touch of enduring B^race...

...And you are on your honor—no turn- stiles or ticket punchers, only spot checks with fines for cheaters...

...Nevertheless, there are also great similarities between the United States and Western Europe...

...Apartments will be sound- proofed...

...In Europe, as here, it increasingly means cars— and traffic tangles...

...To Americans, this all has a radical ring...

...While the United States gropes For some coherent development guide- lines and President Nixon pays little more than lip service to the need for a. "growth policy," Europe increasing- ly blends broad national growth ob- jectives with imaginative regional and local planning...

...Hol- land's three major cities—Rotterdam, The Hague, and Amsterdam—also rely heavily on public purchase of land to shape development...

...After six weeks in Western Europe this spring, studying a dozen big cities, I came home convinced that it is time we watched Europe more closely—not with a sense of dread, but with a sim- ple wish to learn...

...The move- ment, admittedly, has been tardy and piecemeal, sometimes subtle or inad- vertent, certainly lacking overall strat- egy...

...Its green areas will be carefully pre- served...

...Many cities have turned downtown streets into malls, a merciful separation of man and motor vehicle that is fre- quently so popular with shoppers that delightful "people jams" ensue...

...It is a small, densely populated nation, con- taining more than thirteen million res- idents in about half the space occupied by the state of Maine...

...George Washington and Thomas Jefferson created Washington, D.C...

...Says an American urbanologist who las studied cities in Germany and else- vhere: "In Europe, city leaders will isten to their chief planner the way mr aldermen would listen to the city lealth commissioner if an epidemic of mbonic plague broke out...

...But they have significantly eased pres- sures on the capital city and served as trial-and-error models for a wave of new town building across Europe...

...While by no means beyond :itizen criticism, he operates with a rundamental sense of assurance that lis toil will bear fruit, that he can :ruly influence, if not wholly control, Dowerful social trends...

...Nor is the pedestrian ignored...

...By placing the mantle of growth on fairly large communities, the government can capitalize on the existence of many costly public facil- ities, such as sewage disposal plants...

...But we have turned the ideolog- ical corner on government activism and are a lot closer to the Dutch and the Swedes than many of our outworn political shibboleths indicate...

...Consider the mighty London region, banners after World War II boldly mcircled the flourishing, overcrowded apital with an inviolable "greenbelt" hat has since become a kind of nation- 1 shrine...

...Our languages and many of our customs overlap...