“For thousands of years, city planning focused on drawing out a street network, with water and sewer underneath, and reserving regular public spaces, and was mostly agnostic on uses or densities. One hundred years ago, that flipped”
The idea that city planning was doing sewer planning for thousands of years is just wrong. Historically there was no such city planning for most of the time.
Berlin, Paris, and London all only got their sewer systems in the 19th century.
I don’t think this is exactly correct: I’m pretty sure that many cities including London and Paris had sewer systems much earlier than that, although they modernized them / made major overhauls in the 19th century. (Anyway, kind of besides the point of the linked thread)
There is a claim that there was city planning for thousands of years.
If you ignore the issue of streets and look at older parts of many European towns the streets aren’t straight because nobody planned them beforehand and they grew more organically.
What happened in the 19th century in Europe was that people actually started city planning. American cities might have a drawn-out street network before that point but in most European cities there wasn’t planning.
The idea that city planning was doing sewer planning for thousands of years is just wrong. Historically there was no such city planning for most of the time.
Berlin, Paris, and London all only got their sewer systems in the 19th century.
I don’t think this is exactly correct: I’m pretty sure that many cities including London and Paris had sewer systems much earlier than that, although they modernized them / made major overhauls in the 19th century. (Anyway, kind of besides the point of the linked thread)
There is a claim that there was city planning for thousands of years.
If you ignore the issue of streets and look at older parts of many European towns the streets aren’t straight because nobody planned them beforehand and they grew more organically.
What happened in the 19th century in Europe was that people actually started city planning. American cities might have a drawn-out street network before that point but in most European cities there wasn’t planning.