Talk:Urban structure

Untitled
There is an unnerving bias to this article. While I won't dive too far in semantics (Okay, maybe a little bit), this article as well as many other articles in the urban planning series suffer from sub par NPOV.

This article neglects that much of modern, especially American, urban structures developed from automobile use. The last particular section is amusing-- the latest source on this article dates to 1945 far before the prevalence of automotive use. Although Phoenix is decently old, the majority of Phoenix was developed past the 1960s and follows a typical suburban development. Automotive-oriented design, especially in modern American cities, has little to no rhyme or reason due to the scaling of infrastructure and it's non-relation to actual people; this modern city design is about capacity, time traveled, proximity by automobile and cost. The principle is more mathematical and mechanical than intuitive and relative to actual people, cultural institutions or special use districts. But what is even better about this article is that the most recent source on the subject was written 30 years before Phoenix could even sustain a population expansion as it wasn't til 1968 that the Central Arizona Plan Aqueduct was built.

I'm not sure if that is a typo in this sentence "A gridlike pattern is common in North American cities, which unlike European Cities, are typically built around a central business district..." but this needs to be fixed. If you look above, I have laid out as to why Phoenix cannot be even remotely close as to a good example of American structures. Furthermore, cities established before 1785 (see Land Ordinance of 1785) have this typical grid pattern not because of any sort of logic. The American Grid system was developed because of parceling of land created by this ordinance. By building roads on the edges of parcels, property owners could retain fee simple rights thus increasing or maintaining property values. The most basic part of this grid system was "sections" or 640 acres configured into squares-- coincidentally, major collector arteries tend to be exactly 3 miles apart from on another. The Land Ordinance of 1785 further perverted the model by claiming 6 square mile tracts of land as townships although few were actual functioning towns. This goes further into homesteaded property (see Homestead Act of 1862) as properties (sections) were even further subdivided into 4 subsections. To basically sum this up, most road grids present within the United States are primarily arbitrary due to the Land Ordinance of 1785.

And now for the second part. Now while I could attempt to debunk the "multiple nuclei model," I will not. I would like to point out that the examples are stereotypical hogwash from racist Reconstructionist literature. The assumptions given are totally wrong and dangerous given the repercussions of the damage that can actually be done by them. These 'theories' and 'information' lead to the development of real life places with real life consequences. As pointed, this article completely lacks any mention of the other reasons as to why urban structures are defined by the actions of its people. While this article states uses, it also neglects that modern American cities between 1860 and 1960 developed primarily out of de jure and de facto racism, ethnocentrism and segregation of one or more groups. More so, like almost all Roman cities, Rome actually has a double foci city as practice in roman planning was to build two or more perpendicular roads-- this religious interpretation completely ignores cultural practices as the double foci plan placed administration and religion opposite daily activities. The web-like radiating pattern is a modern invention by Georges-Eugène Haussmann and Pierre Charles L’Enfant (See Washington D.C. and Paris[belle epoque]). There is a very big wedge between incidence and intent in planning as Cologne had no master plan.

Not only again is this article dangerous, it is a disservice. By not acknowledging more on this subject and using relatively outdated sources and theories, we're effectively limiting our experiences on what urban structures actually do or not do. We're also not education people on the numerous consequences that the physical side of government actually has on the ability to influence the lives of its constituents. As the people might be the basis of a profession, let's not forget that the mafia and the KKK got their foothold in this country by controlling local planning boards in the same time frame of these articles from the same exact cities used as points of reference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.204.199.52 (talk) 21:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Question
Is there such a model for an agricultural settlement ?. ,,PilpelShata (talk) 06:38, 11 December 2019 (UTC)