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URBAN PLANNING by Akila Muthukumar URBAN PLANNING By Akila Muthukumar INTRODUCTION New York City. Los Angeles. Chicago. Miami. Philadelphia. Dallas. Atlanta. Boston. These are just a few of America’s metro centers. According to the US Census Bureau, 80% of Americans live in urban cities, bustling with jobs and opportunities. However, a large proportion of urbanites expressed desire for suburban and rural life. Their reasons? Chronic underinvestment in infrastructure, housing, and transportation that often leads to crowding and One pressing issue congestion. Simultaneously, they decried the rampant crime and in America’s poverty that sullies city image. burgeoning urban Urban planning is a dynamic field that involves studying the landscape is development and design of metropolitan land to improve the lives of sustainable and city-dwellers. Urban planning requires detailed, futuristic policies efficient and regulations at the local, state, and national level to prevent a transporation. mass exodus from metro cities. Urban planning asks questions like: Oceans of Data Where will people live and work in the future? How can we ensure environmentally sustainable mobility? How will electrical grids, water supplies and sewers fit into the city? How will we regulate businesses and provide social services? XPLANATION OF THE SSUE Urban planning E I takes inspiration Historical Development from early pre- Classical cities. Early Origins Urban Planning takes inspiration from cities throughout history, as early as the pre-Classical period. These early cities were laid out as grids with a hierarchy of streets and alleys that were intended to HARVARD MODEL CONGRESS provide privacy and protect people from noise. This pre-Classical concern for the quality of residential life lives on in modern neighborhood models. As cities became more developed and established their own water and sewage systems, public health became inextricably tied with urban planning. Today, we understand the repercussions of sanitation on not only health, but also the environment. The Roman Empire’s model, which used orthogonal structures and consolidated city services at the center, continues to shape how resources are distributed from urban centers to suburbs. The influence of Renaissance urban planning and rebuilding cities to reflect their cultural prowess lives on today in the need to preserve aesthetic and beautify urban cities. Industrial Revolution During the Industrial Revolution, the urban population increased dramatically as farmers looked for wage labor in factories. Urban planning needed to accommodate exponential population growth and was largely dictated by private business concerns. Alarming levels of pollution from factory fuels and chemicals led people to champion healthier environments for the working class. Major cities became epicenters for the future of leftist politics as this urban working class revolted for safer conditions and better wages. Modernism – a Although the blue-collar urban core from the Industrial revolution movement that has left cities, the occupants of today’s cities – college graduates and focuses city immigrants – still tend to favor similar Democratic and leftist functionality, often politics. relying on high-rise architecture and strict By the 1920s, Modernism brought forth utilitarian zoning skyscrapers, airports and glorified the use of cars. This movement was focused on maintaining zoning, order, and function within cities to ensure they operated like well-oiled machines. After the 1960s, post- World War II, the federal government began processing more grants for slum clearance, improved housing, roads, and urban renewal intended to revive community in addition to function. At the turn of the 21st century, following events like the collapse of the twin New Urbanism towers on 9/11, New Urbanism encouraged critical re-evaluation – A movement and reform of Modernist high-rise architecture and advocated for promoting higher-density projects that focus on human life within cities, environmentally including walkable green space. friendly and human- scaled projects Scope of the Problem Residence and Homelessness First, there is a need for more affordable housing. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), approximately 12 million renter and homeowner households pay more than 50% of their annual incomes for housing – even though © HARVARD MODEL CONGRESS 2021 – REDISTRIBUTION OR REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 2 HARVARD MODEL CONGRESS paying more than 30% of income for housing is considered an unsustainable economic burden. Additionally, in cities like Palo Alto, California, a modest urban lot located near city workplaces costs nearly 4 million dollars, which often means that middle-class families end up as super commuters with over 90-minute travel times. Other difficulties include pushing residents to sell their homes foreclosure – in foreclosure, eviction from apartments, or legal difficulties seizing property when leaving leases and permanent housing. Finally, densely populated a homeowner is cities need more housing units to accommodate for population unable to pay their growth, a struggle exacerbated by lack of land set aside for residential mortgage development. Homelessness has been concentrated in and around urban centers. According to data from 3,000 cities in the 2015 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, major cities accounted for half of all homeless people in the US, and one in five were either in New York or Los Angeles. More recently, on a single night in January 2019, more half of all people experiencing homelessness were in one of the 50 largest cities in the United States. According to a HUD press release from Secretary Ben Carson, homelessness increased in California by 21,306 people, or 16.4 percent from 2018 to 2019, which is more than the national average and contrasts the decline in homelessness in other states and more rural or suburban areas, signaling that West Coast homelessness is at an all-time high (“Homelessness Ticked Up”). Business and Industrial Regulation Starting a business requires acquiring significant documentation West coast and meeting complex standards including construction permits, rent homelessness control, zoning clearance, building permits, and when selling food, increases seller and food-handling permits as well. Many requirements and drastically in zoning intricacies are handled on a city level and lack federally California cities standardized procedures. Thus, business opportunities in urban including Los centers are often given only to the regulatory experts and actively Angeles. disadvantage immigrants who are not fluent in English or Los Angeles Homeless entrepreneurs with full-time jobs and families who are looking to Services Authority start a business on the side. Entrepreneurship and businesses are the lifeblood of urban economic development and require our immediate attention. Second, retaining America’s manufacturing base is a matter of national interest since many of our global competitors’ industrial bases are growing and forcing us to outsource labor. America is struggling, even in our clean-energy-based sectors, to handle trade inequities and cost competition. Urban industries and industrial land use must both be evaluated to eliminate bias against decentralized bases of small manufacturers, which pay high median wages, provide job opportunities for a wide skill-range and © HARVARD MODEL CONGRESS 2021 – REDISTRIBUTION OR REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 3 HARVARD MODEL CONGRESS contribute to industries such as entertainment and fashion in New York and Los Angeles (Mistry). Transportation, Parking, and Pollution Historically, America was built to accommodate cars: residential, employment and shopping zones were separated to mandate travel and off-street parking incentivizes automobile use. More recently, however, parking spaces have been shown to contribute to “increasing traffic congestion, polluting the air, encouraging sprawl, raising housing costs, degrading urban design, preventing walkability, damaging the economy,” and in 2015, the average parking space construction cost was $24,000 aboveground and $34,000 underground, more than the net worth of many U.S. households (Shoup). However, automobiles harm the environment with increased air and noise pollution, and they aggravate gridlock. The average yearly number of hours spent in gridlock per commuter – 54 hours, has tripled since the 1980s and rises to nearly 80 hours in major cities like Chicago, according to the 2019 Urban Mobility Report (Wisniewski). Road construction tends to be a short-term fix that relieves congestion but immediately fuels increased travel capacity. Thus, higher density and compact development are likely necessary to minimize travel distance between locations. Current alternatives to automobile transit mainly involve public transit or cycling and walking, especially for travel across smaller urban corridors. Crime and Safety Residential crowding and increased interaction results in higher crime rates. For example, New York City and Los Angeles have a notorious record of aggressive broken window policing for minor Nearly three- crimes, predominantly in neighborhoods of color. This leads to quarters of urban public opinion about certain neighborhoods being unsafe and a cities experienced a decline in property value. FBI uniform crime reports showcase that rise in violent “Nearly three-quarters, 60 out of 81, of urban cities experienced a crime between rise in violent crime between 2014 and 2017, as the overall
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