Overhaul In Cities’ Governments Urged

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31587, 26 January 1968, Page 21

Overhaul In Cities’ Governments Urged

To eliminate disorder in many cities, a complete overhaul of city government was needed, said the Dean of Architecture and Town Planning at the University of Adelaide (Professor R. Jensen) at the A.N.Z.A.A.S. Congress in Christchurch last evening.

With steady inroads from vehicular traffic, there could be no question of simply adhering to present patterns, he said.

“The alternative to deliberate planning is at best a muddle, and at worst the deterioration of our cities into environmental slums,” Professor Jensen added. There was absence of a governing elite with both the taste to discriminate and the authority to bring about desirable standards of urban design and planning. “If we are to survive into future civilised urban life with self-respect, and above all to create a sense of beauty in our environment, we will probably have no alternative to a complete overhaul of city governments. “There is no longer any room for the dilettante, or the amateur politician with vested interest,” he said. “This is the day of the informed and educated professional.” Town planning and building acts, and their administration, would need radical reappraisal, and the pretences of voluntary control and collaboration exposed in all their sham ineffectualness. Professor Jensen said that boards of design working with a comprehensive plan were needed. Neither owners nor creators of individual buildings, with their absence of knowledge of over-all future development, were in

any position to ensure the appropriateness of their own contribution. “Even Government Departments are notorious in seeking to build up their own prestige in an anti-social fashion,” be said. “Never has the need for the visual quality in the city been more vital or more neglected than it is today, and its constant deterioration is obvious.” A “lure to be resisted” in the assumption of likely

dominance 01 car travel in the city centre, was the idea that one of the changes to be legislated for in urban design was that it should be related to the “motorist’s vision.” The car was all destructive of the city, and one of the tolls it exacted was unquestioning concentration. For the driver, the city could only be a background blur. Not only must the city be planned on a basis of ultimate pedestrian movement if it was to survive, but it must be

designed at a pedestrian scale at the core. Professor Jensen said that a total approach to city planning would be needed. A technique had recently been developed for this purpose by combining a modelscope with closed-circuit television. Convincing groundlevel sequence of visual impressions with models could be gained. This technique would provide a means of preliminary study leading to an ultimate analysis in model form simulating life conditions and viewed as it would be by the pedestrian. This tool in the right hands and applied intelligently would go a long way to solve the problem of creating a decent city environment.