THE HOME of MAN Barbara Ward
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THE HOME OF MAN Books by Barbara Ward The West at Bay Policy forthe West Faith and Freedom The Interplay of East and West Five Ideas That Change the World India and the West The Rich Nations and the Poor Nations Nationalism and Ideology The Lopsided World Only One Earth (with Rene Dubos) The Home of Man THE HOME OF MAN Barbara Ward Introduction by Enrique Penalosa Secretary-General, United Nations Conference on Human Settlements & NEW YORK W · W · NORTON COMPANY · INC · Copyright C 1976 by the International lnstilllte for Environment and Development. All rights reserved. Published simultaneously in Canada by MtClelland and Stewart Limited. Printed in the United States of America. FIRST EDITION Library or Coftgr,11 Cataloging I• PubllcaliH Data Jackson, Barbara Ward, Lady, 1914- The home of man. Includes index. l. Urbanization. 2. Human ecology. 3, Forecasting. 4. Social policy, I. Title. HN18.J23 1976 301.31 76-5512 ISBN 978-0-393-06420-9 34567890 CONTENTS Introduction by Enrique Penalosa vii Author's Note xi Prologue I Part One: The Coming of the City 1. II 2. Settlements and Empires 21 The Launching Pad 3. The UnintendedPart Two:City Into the Twentieth Century 29 39 5. 4. The Unintended Metropolis 53 Life at the Margin 6o 6. A Thousand Schools 67 7. Is the FuturePart Possible? Three: The Technological Order 8. Economic Constraints 91 10.9. A Green and Pleasant Land 100 11. Reshaping the Nation 10<) House and Home vi 118 12. Contents The Search for Community 125 13. Living as Neighbors 132 14. The Scale of Community 142 15. Access, Not Mobility 149 16. Toward a TransportStrategy 16o 17. The Conserving Society 169 18. Faustian Bargain or National Thrift? 176 19. The Rural-Urban Balance 20. Part Four: The Poor World's Settlements 192 21. Cities Under Pressure 202 22. Formal and Informal Cities 213 Services and Self-Help 225 23. Services for the Cities Part Five: Problems of Management 234 24. Metropolitan Patterns 245 25. Instruments of Community Part Six: The Universal City 26. A New Economic Order? 27. The Cost of Justice 28. EpiloguePlanetary Housekeeping 288 Index 295 Photographs appear between pages 144 and 145 INTRODUCTION WHAT Barbara Ward is saying in The Home of Man is that we are liv ing at a juncture of history in which decisions made or unmade will be crucial not just to the future happiness of one group or another but to all humanity and even to the continuance of life on earth. While I am convinced that this is true, it is also a presumption. In every age men have laid claim to epochal importance, and judgments of relative his torical influence are measured quite differently according to vantage points of nation, culture, or religion. The case for the second half of the twentieth century, and it is set forthbrilliantly in the following pages, is not only or even mainly that it is an era of unremitting and inescapable upheaval-in population growth, technology, and political transformation-but that the fact of universality has overtaken us before we are politically and socially able to deal with it. In recent years the governments of the world have convened a series of extraordinary conferences which have sought to begin a global inquiry into the possibilities of the human future: Stockholm on the environment, Bucharest on population growth, Rome on food supplies, Caracas on the uses of the sea, Mexico City on the role and status of women, and now Vancouver on shelter and the human habi tat. Paralleling these conferences have also been the meetings of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the sev enth special session of the General Assembly to weigh changes in the world economic order and in the organization of the international com munity. Habitat, the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements-to which this book directly relates-is in a sense a synthesis of all these viii concerns, for it is in human settlements that nearly all peopleIntroduction play out their individual lives, benefiting or suffering from a world system which can bejudged to be in either a crisis of dissolution or the throes of regeneration. I also think this book is a synthesis of Barbara Ward's writing, teaching, and lecturing, in which she has so eloquently pleaded for a new understanding of the interdependence of peoples, for planetary management of both the human and the natural environment, and for the moral as well as economic justification and need for a new world order. In the past two years, as Secretary-General of the Habitat Confer ence, I have visited nearly one hundred countries to discuss with polit ical and intellectual leaders what is most needed to enhance the quality of life for their peoples. From these discussions I am increasingly con vinced that existing technologies are capable of a stupendous improve ment in the human condition everywhere on earth if-and only if they are supported by effective political commitment at both the na tional and international levels. This is the issue which is put by The Home of Man on the eve of the Habitat conference. Do we have the nerve, vision, and steadiness of purpose to fashion a new relationship within the human community in which men can live together productively and within the naturalen vironment which sustains us? I do not personally believe that life itself will be extinguished, despite the perils of the nuclear age and the myriad other assaults on our ecological support system. Sooner or later the necessary decisions will be taken. What is at issue now is the degree of human suffering and environmental damage that will be the consequence of unneces sary delay, and also whether the degree of delay will not steadily diminish the chances that change will occur within a context of free dom, human diversity, and tolerance. Barbara Ward's unique contribution to the analysis and under standing of these issues is more than her skills as economist, social theorist, and writer-advocate. With her dedication and personal en ergy, and her ability to state her case free of officialrestraints, she has becomethe rallying point of a growing movement which demands that the international community reset its priorities and come to grips with the real rather than cosmetic problems of mankind. I would also like to Introduction ix join the author in paying tribute to the memory of the late planner and founder of the Ekistics movement, Constantinos Doxiadis, who must be acknowledged as the modem father of the science of human settle ment. Enrique Penalosa Secretary-General, United Nations Conference on Human Settlements AUTHOR'S NOTE RARELY CAN an author have reason to be grateful to so many people for so much help. The materials for this book could not have been as sembled and sifted without the dedicated work of Stephanie Rice War ren and David Satterthwaite. It would never have emerged from the writer's hieroglyphics without the continuous and invaluable help of Irene Hunter and, in the final stages, of Philippa Barton and Robert Jackson. David Runnalls, RobertStein, Gerald Leach, Brian Johnson, Christian Halby, Richard Sandbrook, and John Sweeney-all col leagues and friends at the InternationalInstitute for Environment and Development-gave admirable advice and searching editorial criti cism. They in tum join the author in thanking Mrs. Margaret Rose for all that she has done to sustain their efforts. An even wider group of helpful and friendly correspondents around the world must be thanked for the patience and care with which they have been ready to contribute papers or answer queries Mr. David 0. Aradeon, Professor Thomas Blair, Mr. Christopher Benninger, Professor Keith Branigan, Miss Coralee Bryant, Mr. Eric Carlson, Dr. George Coelho, Mr. Charles Correa, Professor Jean Gottman, Mr. Frederick Guttheim, Dr. Jorge Hardoy, Professor Chauncy Harris, ProfessorJens Hedegaard, Sir James Jones, Professor Otto Koenigsberger, Dr. Appridocio Laquian, Mr. Jack Mundey, Mr. Max Nicholson, Mr. Wilfred Owen, Mrs. Anne Power, Mr. Jonathan Power, Miss Rosemary Righter, Dr. C. A. Shivaramakrishnan, Mrs. Jane Stein, Mr. John Turner, Dr. Luis Unikel, and Mr. Peter Wilsher. Colleagues who have given admirable assistance in various technical tasks include Mr. Tibor Farkas, responsible for the illustrations, and Mr. Philip Quigg, for liaison with the publishers. Thanks are due to xii Author's Note the World Banlc, the OECD, and other national and international agen cies for their unfailing readiness to provide facts and statistics. These official statistics have been used throughout theHunger, book, unless Politics excep Markets.tions are specified. Thanks arealso due New York University Pressfor pennission to use material fromthe Forewordof and Above all, the Canadian Government, "onlie begetter" of the whole enterprise, must be most warmly thanlcedThe for Home unstinting of Man finan cial supportand encouragement. Their generosity makes it possible to devote all the royalties that may be earned by to popular education about the needs of human settlements. Special thanlcs are also due to the World Banlc for a grant that assisted materi ally in the preparation and distribution of the book. One debt of gratitude cannot, unhappily, be paid to the living. The author is deeply conscious of the degree to which her own interest and perhaps that of the world at large-was first stimulated in human fullysettlements and sadly, by a beloved friend and teacher, now deceased. But at least it is possible to recognize the debt and dedicate this book, grate to the memory of CONSTANTINOS DOXIADIS PROLOGUE June 5, 1975 THERE ARE two reasons why it is exceedingly difficult to get a coher ent grip on the issue of the human habitat-the settlement where all the world's peoples, save for dwindling groups of nomads, are born, live out their lives, and go to their death.