2. Urban Sustainable Development and Quality of Life: Planning for the Future
Life in the cities, the interrelationships between cities and regions in both a horizontal and vertical sense, and what then is really the interface at global level, depends on factors such as economy, transport, infrastructures, housing, natural and social resources, institutions, energy, forms and types of organizations, education, community, family and cultural perspectives as based on sharing values, ideas and expressions as furthered by dialogues, debates and discussions, along with other means by which mankind has defined production and reproduction as a combination of consciousness, material and immaterial conditions.
However, one thing is often neglected: Master Plans and planning in general, architecture and city management / engineering / governance. Repeatedly the question is asked but what can make our cities grow and still be governed by the people? Lewis Mumford in his book “The story of the City” expresses an amazement in what no single effort to bring about another type of organization has succeeded where the city is capable of reducing itself to lowest levels of poverty, if only to rise out of the ashes again. This ongoing life of men repairing cars and trucks while in another part of the city secretaries water the plants in their offices and still elsewhere sailors cast free the ropes of the ships tied till then to the piers, all this and more encompasses an ability to let life unfold along streets, in houses and offices, in parliament and through what the newspaper report on a day by day basis.
(here then reference shall be given to CIED’s effort to link culture to economic development by refining planning methodologies).
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