A man named Orville Simpson II has an idea to build virtual utopias, called Victory Cities. (Simpson, 1998) They are designed as cities built in the countryside, all connected through various types of transportation. There will be no crime, pollution, over population, or other everyday problems; it will be a utopia. A utopia is a place where there are no problems like death, poverty, or crime. It is “perfect” world (Merriam-Webster.com) A Victory City will have no everyday problems involved in it. Will Victory Cities be a successful utopia, or not?
One of the most important factors in a Victory City is the money system. Mr. Simpson’s brilliant idea for the money system is having all citizens carry a banknote around with them. When someone
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These are imaginative ideas for the residential areas, but it can have problems, such as some people being jealous of the people with larger apartments. People today don’t share apartments with strangers, making it a different system than our society, but I think it is still a great idea. It will be a large part of a Victory City.
Another essential element in a Victory City is transportation. Within the city, there will be only two types of transportation: elevators, and small electric cars. The high-speed elevators make it possible to move around a building, from one place to another, in only five to ten minutes. The electric cars are very safe, even children can operate them, and they will prevent many accidents. Connecting Victory Cities will be larger electric cars and trains, running through tunnels underground. The transportation system is quite different than our way, as we can choose between varieties of different vehicles, and it is not allowed in a Victory City. I think it is a brilliant idea for the transportation in the city. Mr. Simpson’s safe transportation system will be a major part of the city. A fourth element in a Victory City will be a food system.
A utopia is a place of ideal perfection. However, according to the Merriam-Webster, it is also an impractical scheme for social improvement. Though dating back to the earliest days of U.S. history, utopian communities became a part of American thought by the 1840s. Various groups that were struggling because of urbanization and industrialization, challenged the traditional norms of American society with a desire to create a world without capitalism, immigration, and the tension between communities. However, these attempts failed due to individualism, materialism, the lack of growth, and little balance.
A utopia sounds like a wonderful thing. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “utopia” as an “imagined or hypothetical place, system, or state of existence in which everything is perfect, esp. in respect of social structure, laws, and politics.” (OED, 2015, entry 2) But what happens when someone tries to bring this imagined land of perfection into reality? Both in fictional literature and in real life applications, utopian dreams destroy societies.
A person’s perception of Utopia varies depending on their life experiences and what they hope to expect of the society in which they live. It's an ideal place where equality, serenity, protection, and freedom are essential qualities.
The collection of articles, “The Shame of the Cities” written by Lincoln Steffens, evidently reveals the history of corruption in many American cities during the 18th and 19th century. The chapter, “Pittsburg: A City Ashamed” focuses wholly on the effect Christopher Magee had on the city of Pittsburg during the time of his ruling. With the help of William Flinn, Thomas Bigelow, and E.M. Bigelow, Chris was in complete control over the city. While some of what he was doing was very helpful toward, it is undeniable that he was the cause of Pittsburgh’s extensive corruption.
The idea of a ‘Utopia’ is captivating to many people. Utopia is defined as a “perfect society”, where there exist no flaws between relationships, economic standards, political standards, and more. Many stories feature caricatures of utopias, such as Harrison Bergeron.
It is time to make a change in New York City. Recently the New York Council has passed a proposal where low- cost rental units will be built. This could definitely benefit the neighborhoods who haven’t seen much change in a long time. These people who live in certain neighbors need to be able to
These improved housing will increase the neighborhood and property value, increase social mixed, reduce crime rate, and reduce vacancy rates. While the superficial key of gentrification is the upgrade of housing, there is actually other great benefits that gentrification bring to the neighborhoods. In terms of symbolic implications for urban change, gentrification is the urban changes and improvement which also redevelop the area’s image. Fancy restaurants, high-priced boutiques and shops, high houses’ values, and fancy house have changed the neighborhood's image or symbol from a rural neighborhood (before gentrification) to a high-class neighborhood (after gentrification). Gentrification has certainly restructure the economic of one’s neighborhood by bringing up new standard in consumption. The decrease in crime rates and increase in property value can stabilize the previously struggling neighborhood, restoring interest in the inner city life as a residential. These changes are able to encourage other forms of development of the area that promote the economic
Whether or not it is desired, it will take its course. Along with buildings and the urbanization of a particular area, a rise in population and neighborhoods are bound to follow.
Every utopia needs a government that is in complete and utter control of the people. Control is power in our government, and if you have control everything runs ever smoothly.
Edward Glaeser, an economics professor at Harvard, is a scholar of the economy of cities and their various problems and regularly writes about this in his famous blog of The New York Times Economix . In The Triumph of cities , it offers a valuable insight into the advantages of large cities and makes a thorough and rigorous analysis of the strategies of some successful cities that can serve as an example for the development of its strategic plan outlining.
With the rezoning proposal approved, in 2006, developers will be able to build apartment buildings. But not the typical buildings where the sole purpose is shelter, but luxury condos where people get to live in style.
Dear Prof. D’Amico, The book I am reading is, “The City Always Wins” by Omar Robert Hamilton. This reading of the book is a story of a group of protestors on the front line of the revolution. Based on an aftermath mix up of the uprising on Tahrir Square in 2011 at a time when Egypt was corrupted by government ruling and polices/military. Rolling the streets of Egypt to abuse or break laws that sparked the revolution that made all protesters bound of all classes to form up and to stop this tyranny.
“The best that can be said of the conception is that it did afford a chance to experiment with some physical and social planning theories which did not pan out. “ This quote reflects Jane Jacob’s philosophical ideas in an attempt to criticize the social housing’s design approach and its associated urban planning in modern era. “The physical and social theories” outlines the urban planning idea of social housing (Utopian idea) and according to Jane’s statement, such experiment of these theories were deem to be unsuccessful. It is inevitably certain to some extent that a provocative statement towards modern era social housing approaches would hold true due to the minimal success the plans brought to the city, such as solving the working class commendations temporarily. Nevertheless, it is a failure to deliver long-standing social improvements corresponded with the increasing suspicion of modernism, one cannot simply attribute ill fate to its “innovative physical features” (As Jane said, the Utopian and Utopia), but should rather considered a range of other elements in the larger aspect of society: factors such as difficulty of racial integration, problems of financing and management, lack of bridging between architecture and planning, as well as the increasing preference of suburban lifestyle from the rising mid class. These problems reflected evidently in some stereotypes of social housing communities built in the modern era such as Pruitt-Igoe, sunny side Gardens, Paul
The mixture of buildings of different conditions are necessary to public life because it otherwise would be neither interesting nor fascinating. But the main reasons are because they ensure low rent yields, encouraging the growth of small enterprises. Large swatches of new construction would only prevent income since not many would afford it, and the demand for it would not be as large as it would need to be.
The city I propose as a perfect city, would be as close to an ecocity as possible, although have some differences. For example, for electrical needs, I would suggest the city have a solar power plant, but on those desperate times, energy would be bought from other electrical plants from nearby towns or states.