Replantear la disciplina del diseño urbano

Abstract

114

Most of the urban design theories fashionable worldwide today fit into one of two categories. Either they are impenetrably vague in that they conjure up novel ubiquitous conglomerations that only consist of virtual –and obscure– fields of force. Or else they are affirmative in that they blather about the impossibility of planning the city of today, thus using a lot of verbiage to justify the overreaches of urbanism that have already taken place. What they have in common is the conviction that there is no way to stop the headlong spread and the diffuse fraying out of our cities. What cannot be averted must be accepted and can just as well be interpreted as positive to begin with. Of course the theorists who are intent on this kind of supposed re-evaluation are not likely to get into the awkward position of having to live in the inhospitable settlements from which they manage to wrest an abstract beauty at a distance. They can afford to live cheerfully in the historical city centre, which they complacently designate as obsolete, or in the as yet intact countryside. As long as they are not directly affected, they would shrug their shoulders and open that same countryside to urban development.