The social dynamic

Abstract

The second half of the twentieth century was full of plans and proposals about where and how people should live. Yet as we have seen in cities throughout the developed world-in Amsterdam, Chicago, Dublin, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, New York, Paris and Stockholm, among many others-the dreams have often turned to nightmares for many of the inhabitants. In many unsuccessful large housing projects, those able to leave, leave behind what sociologists now despairingly call ‘residualized communities’. The failure of architecture and planning to recreate forms of urban community and solidarity has come to haunt politicians and planners in cities throughout the world, and in many places residential districts and quarters that were designed and developed only 20 or 30 years ago are being demolished in order to experiment anew. But will we be any wiser ‘when we build again’? If not, the world of new housing will quickly polarize between ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’ communities, both gated in some form, one based on self-selection by price, and the other on welfare allocation and sheer lack of economic mobility.

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