2 Addressing the problem of blight

In any urban neighborhood, creation of public space and private space, with a proper relationship between the two, is the critical issue. Yet in cities around the world, conventional city planning, the deterioration of public space, organization for cars, and modern methods of design and construction have left us with blighted inner cities and morbidly sterile suburban neighborhoods.

Even in the most blighted and congested urban slums, a suitable pedestrian structure can slowly be generated. Where it does not exist today, it can be generated step by step. A slum neighborhood can be transformed to create an economic, flourishing, safe world where pedestrian hulls are growing and being strengthened and connected; where businesses are helped to support each other economically; and where building lots and land parcels have rules which encourage true human uniqueness to appear.

The most interesting and important aspect of this process is the way that these transformations are made, in this instance, to work in time. My idea, essentially, is to show how the qualities we want in a neighborhood — its pedestrian structure, gardens, roads, communal life, and support for each person’s private individuality — can be created step-by-step, by a sequence of actions carried out over many years, gradually, through hundreds of small steps, transforming an existing neighborhood of the type we have today into a living structure.

#book/The Nature of Order/3 A Vision of a Living World/9 The reconstruction of an urban neighborhood#