Design Review: Volume 1, Issue 2 (July 1948)

Book Review

Book Review

The Redevelopment of Central Areas. Ministry of Town and Country Planning.

The period of advancing technics and incipient social disintegration sometimes known as the industrial revolution began in Britain. Hers, of the world's cities, first felt the impact of the machine age; the resultant urban chaos has possibly been more complete there than elsewhere; certainly she has suffered the effects longer. But in her longer search for remedies she has progressed farther, and from the early escapism of William Morris she has turned to a solution first suggested by Patrick Geddes based on the rationalizing of the use of land in the best interests of the community. The growing national consciousness of the need for planning, stirred to action point by the recent attentions of Hitler, has at last brought about a means for achieving this. Comprehensive planning powers (“the envy of less happier lands”) vested in regional representatives of the people under the guidance of a central department of State (the Ministry of Town and Country Planning) have emerged.

Advice to these planning authorities when, with their now formidable powers, they come to tackling the task of urban redevelopment, is contained in the first handbook of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning. In lucid, jargon-free English, the technical officers of the Ministry state the problems, and succeed largely in offering the solutions. New conceptions of use-surveys of accommodation and the distribution of proposed floor space, together with a fresh approach to control of building bulk for day-lighting, have introduced a third dimension to the paper planning of the last decade; a further dimension is added in the realistic approach to the programming of redevelopment projects. Central Areas contains the reply of the planning technician to the positive demands of a planning-conscious public.

One is tempted to glance at the New Zealand scene in the light of a simple statement contained in the handbook: “The aim of redevelopment is to secure that all the activities that take place within a central area do so under the best practicable conditions.” We see our cities,
Grandeur and fun come to the waterfront.

Grandeur and fun come to the waterfront.

small in scale, unscarred by war, and but a hundred years old. But, viewed in terms of such a thesis, there is no doubt that we cannot afford to ignore the claims of redevelopment.