I’m going to break some rules by telling you a secret about a project of mine. I am writing a “story” or possibly a “novel” that is intended to describe a utopia that incorporates a great many ideas I have had over the years. One has to do with the involvement of architecture that better minds than mine have tried to use to create better living environments for peoples of all stations of life all over the world. It is co-incidental that there are three major stories about architecture that help to describe how we can make life better for people needing shelter – and more.
The New York Times this past Sunday had front page pictures of some derelict public land that once was military bases that are also bones of contention with their use to protect the American Homeland or be given over to the developers to create more housing for our population that grows through a high birth rate or by immigration. The next is the Magazine section that is devoted entirely to architecture, where ideas of housing have come from and what the future holds. The last is from the Arts & Leisure section whose front page is devoted to the novel idea of planning for the building of Palestine – the day after peace is achieved.
All of these ideas are utopian in nature. We try to make what was, better and hope it will last into the future. I like the notion of Doug Suisman of the Rand Institute who has proffered a plan to link Palestinian cities and connect the West Bank to Gaza. Putting aside the practicalities of hostilities continuing and Jewish Settlements that may or may not be removed from what will become Palestine, his plan looks very much like Roadtown utopia that was dreamed up in the first years the of the 20th Century. This was a linkage of urban areas giving people living in towns (that incorporated railroads and today I suppose highways for automobile travel) access to the surrounding rural agricultural areas. Roadtown was a continuous city with services, stores, apartment complexes and entertainment enclosed. Roadtown did not incorporate a built in Bellamy idea of vacuum tube merchandise distribution. The idea has merits.
I am not stuck on the idea of Roadtown because of the omnipresence of blue and red highways and with the decline of railroads although high speed lightweight systems might work. There is, however, the need to find use for superannuated property that belongs not to the government but to all the people. Why not use the bases and link them up. How come we are closing bases when we are at war and world disturbance, not peace, seems to be looming in the near future?
I belonged to a group called “Housing for the Homeless” and we reconstructed neglected housing into living units for marginal people living among us. That is part of utopia building that I think more of us should think about.