ABSTRACT
In this book we have emphasized the chronic problems with development and planning of cities in the twentieth century and until today. The chapters on India, Palestine, the U.S. and Latin America emphasize everything that is wrong with orientalist city planning, dependent urbanization, and enclave urbanism. But are there any alternatives? Is urban planning of any use and is there any constructive role for planners, architects, engineers and designers in the century ahead? If we look carefully at these chapters, they strongly suggest that there is a role for professionals who understand and can help shape the built environment, not as independent technocrats but as participants and collaborators with global community movements. We have mentioned some models that can be followed: the ideas and practices of Mahatma Gandhi and Vandana Shiva in India are foundations; the groups like Bimkom, ICAHD, Ir Amim and the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages in the Negev, all in Israel/ Palestine; the makers of New York City’s one hundred community-based plans; the MST in Brazil; and Cuba’s urban organic farms. We would need at least another book to unearth the vast wealth of ideas, proposals and plans that have emerged from these and many other social movements and their leaders, not from the centers of the “enlightened” societies but from the peripheries of the world. They are setting out for us the premises for a more just way of organizing human life on earth in both cities and rural areas, and they should inspire all those who profess to become urban planners. They are helping us collectively invent new ways of planning in the new century of the metropolis. They will be the urban/rural planners of the twenty-fi rst century and those of us fortunate enough to be professionally trained would be even more fortunate to have them as our collaborators, advisors and “clients.”
