6/9/2019 The Evolution of Green Urbanism - Blogs | Planetizen

 MENU

BLOG POST

The Evolution of Green Urbanism

Today’s "Eco" or "Green" Urbanism movement has ancient, cross-cultural roots. This history is worth
contemplating for lessons relevant to sustainable planning and design.

Dean Saitta | January 17, 2017, 5am PST

 Share  Tweet   

Paulo Nabas / Shutterstock

The evolution of urban planning has been the subject of several recent museum exhibitions, blog
posts, books, and infographics. These representations of planning history are useful for several
reasons. They remind us of where we are and how we got here. They stimulate debate about the
people and ideas chosen for inclusion as well as exclusion. Finally, they promote critical discussion
of contemporary planning values, principles, and ambitions. This in turn offers some possibilities
for rethinking how planners and architects practice their craft.

https://www.planetizen.com/node/90704/evolution-green-urbanism 1/11
6/9/2019 The Evolution of Green Urbanism - Blogs | Planetizen

The Singapore-based Center for Urban Greenery and Ecology recently published a paper of mine in
their journal CITY GREEN called "Planning Sustainability: The Evolution of Green Urbanism." What
follows is a summary of the paper. Unlike other formulations of planning history, mine is
archaeological and cross-cultural, casting widely across time and space. Nine signi cant episodes
in green planning history are described. These episodes cover the time frame of 5,000 years ago to
the present, and geographical areas that span the globe.

A caveat before proceeding. Picking big moments in planning history is an inherently subjective
exercise. There are many people and ideas to choose from. I've chosen people and ideas that had,
for better or worse, a physical impact on cities and more-or-less broad appeal. I present my
selected episodes chronologically, but I use the term "evolution" loosely. Each episode has a
speci c historical context. The nine episodes do not build upon each other in ways that re ect a
simple linear trajectory leading from primitive to advanced, or simple to complex. I close with a
consideration of the relevance of this historical and cross-cultural knowledge for dealing with the
challenges of 21st century city-building. I’d love to hear from Planetizen readers about episodes
that they would include in their own histories of sustainable urbanism.

1. Original Urbanism: Mohenjo-daro

My history starts pretty close to the beginning of urban life with the Indus Valley (Pakistan and
western India) cities of 2300 BC. A distinct and original "cradle of civilization," Indus Valley societies
implemented sophisticated infrastructural innovations in water management that served
sanitation and human health. The city of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan is an exemplar. Nearly all
houses contained bathing facilities, and streets incorporated numerous wells and drains. The latter
moved waste out of the city via brick-lined channels. Water management also gured in the
architecture of social integration. Mohenjo-daro's central Citadel—an acropolis of red brick—
featured a "Great Bath" that likely played a role in public cleansing rituals. Thus, it's reasonable to
regard Mohenjo-daro as our earliest example of the "Eco-City." Certainly, its system of water
management is as historically signi cant as the 19th century infrastructural improvements made in
Paris under Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann (more below) or in London under Joseph
Bazalgette.

https://www.planetizen.com/node/90704/evolution-green-urbanism 2/11
6/9/2019 The Evolution of Green Urbanism - Blogs | Planetizen

Excavated ruins of Mohenjo-daro, with the Great Bath in the foreground. (Wikimedia Commons/Saqib
Qayyum)

2. Old Urbanism: Sennacherib's Nineveh

Urbanization occurred in Mesopotamia even earlier than the Indus Valley, beginning with Uruk at
3600 BC. However, it's only with much later cities governed by named rulers that we see concerted
investments in urban planning. The most compelling example is Nineveh under the reign of
Sennacherib, 704-681 BC. Sennacherib’s experimentation with innovative technical solutions to
urban problems made him a pioneering urbanist. He widened Nineveh's public squares and
straightened its streets to bring in more light. He developed sophisticated engineering works that
channeled water to the city from mountains 80 kilometers away via canals and aqueducts.
Innovative water screws brought water to higher levels, creating "Hanging Gardens": trees
suspended on terraces that were built up around a central pond. These gardens have long been the
stuff of legend, historically associated with another famous ancient Mesopotamian city, Babylon.
However, Stephanie Dalley makes a compelling case for locating the Hanging Gardens in Nineveh.
These gardens almost certainly served functions comparable to today's "Green Roofs": ltering
dust, absorbing CO2, and reducing heat.

https://www.planetizen.com/node/90704/evolution-green-urbanism 3/11
6/9/2019 The Evolution of Green Urbanism - Blogs | Planetizen

Drawing of a garden at Nineveh, showing aqueduct and a corner of Sennacherib's palace. (Wikimedia
Commons/Public Domain)

3. Eco-Social Urbanism: Jenné-jeno

Africa south of the Sahara has always been a blind spot in global histories of cities and
urbanization. Western assumptions about race and the cultural capacity for innovation are partly to
blame. The West African (Mali) city of Jenné-jeno, dating to AD 400-800, is particularly instructive
as an early example of ecologically and socially conscious urbanism. The Jenné-jeno urban
complex consists of several mound-based communities distributed within a four-kilometer radius
along the margins of the Niger River. Its population totaled up to 40,000 people. The mound
centers appear to have been ethnically distinct but functionally interdependent, guided by
principles of specialized craft production and the reciprocal exchange of goods and services within
a generalized economy. This made great ecological sense in a dynamic and unpredictable
environment characterized by high inter-annual variability in food production. It's unlikely that
Jenné-jeno's unique "clustered city" model of urban planning, or other interesting African models,
can be transferred wholesale to today. But the example retains some relevance for imagining how
ecosocial interdependence and innovation might be better developed within contemporary cities.
Indeed, we might be seeing re ections of this ethos in the self-organizing qualities of the "informal
urbanism" that characterizes today's mega-cities of the Global South.

4. Baroque Urbanism: Haussmann's Paris

https://www.planetizen.com/node/90704/evolution-green-urbanism 4/11
6/9/2019 The Evolution of Green Urbanism - Blogs | Planetizen

The Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann's renovation of Paris between 1853-1870 was precedent
setting for its greening of the medieval cities of Europe. Haussmann used baroque planning
principles—straight, tree-lined boulevards, diagonals, squares, parks, and terminating vistas
focused on public monuments and civic buildings—to open up the city to air and light. Like his
anonymous predecessors at Mohenjo-daro, Haussmann's public sanitation works—subterranean
pipes, sewers, and tunnels—served the cause of improved sanitation, fresh water delivery, and
human health. On the other hand, Haussmann's projects displaced poorer residents to outlying
areas and gentri ed the urban core. His wide boulevards made it easier for authorities to quell civic
unrest by quickly transporting armies to sites of social disturbance. For these reasons among
others, Haussmann's approach to planning earned him great international popularity among urban
elites. "Paris Envy" spread among other European capitals, producing similar forms of urban
renewal. In the United States, Daniel Burnham re-imagined Chicago as "Paris on the Prairie." New
York's powerful planning czar Robert Moses studied Haussmann’s work and applied his tactics in
ways that both greened and socially segregated the city.

Haussmann’s tree-lined Avenue de L'Impératrice, now Avenue Foch. (Wikimedia Commons/besopha)

5. Ebenezer Howard's Garden City

https://www.planetizen.com/node/90704/evolution-green-urbanism 5/11
6/9/2019 The Evolution of Green Urbanism - Blogs | Planetizen

Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City is often cast as the moment when the idea of the Eco-City rst
appeared. Howard's proposal was directly stimulated by the pollution, congestion, and social
dislocations of the industrial city. Howard sought to reunite people and nature, to hybridize "town
and country." Planning elements featured in his famous concentric ring diagram included a central
park, radial roads, single family homes, neighborhoods, zoning for different land uses, vast open
space, and a greenbelt. Howard's model of the Garden City was a powerful in uence in the mid-
20th century, spawning "New Town" movements in many countries. His in uence soon faded, but
made a comeback on the 100th anniversary of the original Garden City formulation through the
work of Peter Hall and Colin Ward. Hall and Ward's updating of Howard re-imagined cities that
could that ful ll the Garden City's original aim to house a diverse, mixed income, and self-suf cient
citizenry. Despite an admirable green sensibility, the Garden City concept remains an inducement
to urban sprawl and in practice has trouble meeting its social diversity goals.

6. Le Corbusier's Radiant City

The Swiss architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, aka Le Corbusier, drew on the traditions of
Haussmann and Howard to originate what we know as "modern" urban planning in the late 1920s
and 1930s. Like Haussmann, Le Corbusier proposed opening up the city by eliminating streets in
favor of broad arterial roads and increasing parks and open space. Channeling Ebenezer Howard,
he imagined an encircling band of Garden Cities on the urban periphery. His city center would be
vertical, distinguished by superblocks containing tall, glass-and-steel towers in green settings. The
entire city was conceptualized as one immense park. "Towers in the Park" would serve as "radiant
prisms." The Radiant City's crowds would live in peace and pure air, where, in Le Corbusier's words,
"noise is smothered under the foliage of green trees." The in uence of Le Corbusier was
considerable in the renewal of American cities in the last half of the 20th century. However, the
overall effect was not quite as intended. Towers in the Park tended to frame desolate, windswept,
and alienating spaces. Diverse neighborhoods gave way to expressways and residential
segregation by race and class. Still, the Radiant City concept continues to have resonance today.
The approach is mirrored in the planning of eco-cities in China and elsewhere, e.g., Tianjin Eco-
City.

https://www.planetizen.com/node/90704/evolution-green-urbanism 6/11
6/9/2019 The Evolution of Green Urbanism - Blogs | Planetizen

Le Corbusier’s model of the Plan Voisin for the reconstruction of Paris. (Wikimedia
Commons/SiefkinDr)

7. Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City

Like Le Corbusier, the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was inspired by Howard's Garden
City. But Wright radically decentered it. Instead of building up, he proposed building out,
expanding across the landscape. Broadacre City grew out of the landscape, with an organic
architecture that expressed the local environment and responded to the local climate. Wright's
famous "Usonian" houses employed native materials, natural light, and passive solar heating.
Broadacre City got lots of exposure in the American popular press during the 1930s. It had special
appeal because it comported with an American ideology of rugged individualism and an emerging
motor car culture that pulled citizens ever outward in search of prosperity. Clearly, suburban
sprawl is part of Broadacre's legacy. We've also seen a proliferation of the building types
associated with Broadacre: low, horizontal ranch houses, mobile homes, roadside markets, drive-
through restaurants, and suburban malls. These abundant artifacts of Broadacre continue to
bedevil urban planners seeking a genuinely green and sustainable urbanism.

8. North American New Urbanism

https://www.planetizen.com/node/90704/evolution-green-urbanism 7/11
6/9/2019 The Evolution of Green Urbanism - Blogs | Planetizen

New Urbanism and its progeny—Smart Growth, Transit-Oriented Development—emerged in the

1990s to reintroduce traditional town planning in the United States, using both Garden City and
Broadacre City principles. New Urbanism broke with Broadacre in calling for clear town centers and
edges. But it argues, with Wright, that architecture and landscape design should grow from local
history, climate, and building practices. The Charter of the New Urbanism urges compact, mixed
use centers, walkability, human-scaled buildings, tree-lined streets, and adequate green space. Its
ecological approach seeks to harmonize neighborhood and region. Andres Duany's urban transect
is New Urbanism’s signature image. New Urbanism has been a commercial success in the United
States, but critiques abound. It can be reasonably argued that New Urbanism repackages the basic
principles of Old Urbanism as exempli ed by cities like Nineveh. It hasn't always remedied
automobile use or served the cause of walkability. And while New Urbanism is committed to green
principles, it hasn't been effective in accommodating ethnic or income diversity or reducing socio-
economic segregation in American cities.

9. South American Social Urbanism

My last episode is perhaps the most relevant one for guiding efforts going forward. It draws on the
Global South and is exempli ed by the cities of Curitiba, Bogota, and Medellín. Here, charismatic
mayors drove targeted, experimental interventions in the urban fabric that served both the
environment and society. In Curitiba, Jaime Lerner created parkland to control local ooding,
planted millions of trees, and recycled just about everything. His Bus Rapid Transit system, with its
stylish stations, de-stigmatized bus travel so that more people would use public transportation.
Enrique Peñalosa did the same for Bogota, pairing his Transmilenio bus system with one of the
most extensive networks of bicycle lanes in the world. In Medellín, Sergio Fajardo built iconic
libraries in parks and expanded the Metro cable car system to connect the poorest areas of the city
to the urban core. All three mayors exemplify experimental urbanism in the tradition of
Sennacherib. But Social Urbanism has not been an unalloyed success. Bus systems can be
overcrowded, car traf c and congestion are still present, people have been displaced, and gaps
between rich and poor remain. But the principles and strategies of Social Urbanism still have
promise: replacing the "big plans" of Haussmann, Burnham, and Le Corbusier with small urban
projects, and using "urban acupuncture" to produce interventions in the built environment that
might catalyze larger social effects.

https://www.planetizen.com/node/90704/evolution-green-urbanism 8/11
6/9/2019 The Evolution of Green Urbanism - Blogs | Planetizen

Biblioteca España, Medellín, Colombia. (Wikimedia Commons/SajoR)

Conclusion and Prospectus

My framing of the Green City’s evolution doesn't directly address today’s developing "Eco-
urbanism" movement. But it's evident from this brief history that Eco or Green Urbanism has
ancient, cross-cultural roots. Infrastructural development at Mohenjo-daro presages what we see
in 19th century Paris and London. Sennacherib anticipates Haussmann, Le Corbusier, and the
South American mayors who implemented strategies and methods of Social Urbanism. Jenné-
jeno’s leaders, located off the radar of traditional urban studies, integrated ecological and social
concerns into a single, distinctive brand of urbanism. Today's New Urbanism largely replicates
what we see in Old Urbanism. Of the better-known people in my history, Ebenezer Howard is being
revived, Le Corbusier is still being channeled, and Frank Lloyd Wright continues to cast a long
shadow over the art of building organically.

Thus, there are signi cant lessons from the past that might inform today's green, sustainable
planning. The past is a deep repository of reference points for considering the do’s and don'ts of
contemporary urbanism. For me, the primary challenge for 21st century Green Urbanism is to
better connect environmental and social justice goals; to unite the sustainability conversation with
the equity conversation. This is a disconnect in many current versions of Eco-urbanism. In so doing
we should rethink the urban governance models that can bring us to an effective integration. We
might be guided by the wisdom of the civic leaders throughout history who exercised enlightened,
top-down activism while simultaneously supporting bottom-up initiatives for change.

All that said, who and/or what would Planetizen readers include in their own histories of
sustainable urbanism?

https://www.planetizen.com/node/90704/evolution-green-urbanism 9/11
6/9/2019 The Evolution of Green Urbanism - Blogs | Planetizen

Dean Saitta
Dean Saitta is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Urban Studies
program at the University of Denver. He teaches courses in urban
anthropology, archaeology, and evolutionary anthropology.

TOPICS | Architecture | History / Preservation | Urban Development MORE

1 Comment Planetizen 
1 Login

 Recommend 1 t Tweet f Share Sort by Newest

Join the discussion…

LOG IN WITH
OR SIGN UP WITH DISQUS ?

Name

Artleads • 2 years ago

More on the Eco Social urban form. It's fairly similar to what I've conceived of as a post carbon model
for no centralized urban living. Only, it would be based not on new construction but on the
refashioning of what was already present...

Below: The Non Centralized City–somewhat specialized, relatively self-sufficient clusters that
informally traded among themselves. There were even nomadic cities more to the north, and they
used materials at hand to build…

Ancient Middle Niger

The cities of West Africa’s Middle Niger, only recently brought to the
world’s attention, make us rethink the ‘‘whys’’ and the ‘‘wheres’’ of ancient
urbanism. These cities present the archaeologist with something of a
novelty: a non-nucleated, clustered city-plan with no centralized, statefocused
power. Ancient Middle Niger explores the emergence of these
cities in the first millennium BC and the evolution of their hinterlands
from the perspective of the self-organized landscape.

http://assets.cambridge.org...
see more

△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

https://www.planetizen.com/node/90704/evolution-green-urbanism 10/11
6/9/2019 The Evolution of Green Urbanism - Blogs | Planetizen
ALSO ON PLANETIZEN

How Wealthy Suburbs Stay That Way and Less Paint and More Barriers Make for Better
Block Outsiders From … Urban Cycling
1 comment • 12 days ago 1 comment • 8 days ago
Tom Christoffel — They are protecting the value, IrvinDawid — One area of research that definitely
the majority of which is based on debt, private and needs attention is the nexus of bike safety and
public. It's just … gentrification. From …

One Response to Gentrification: Banning Bay New Urbanism and Jacobs: A Tangled
Windows and Balconies Disconnect
2 comments • 10 days ago 8 comments • 10 days ago
Shayne Trimbell — This is merely treating the R. John Anderson — I am impressed with the
symptom, not the disease. Will they no longer consistency and lack of rigor found in critiques of
allow new German … the New …

✉ Subscribe d Add Disqus to your siteAdd DisqusAdd 🔒 Disqus' Privacy PolicyPrivacy PolicyPrivacy

Copyright Planetizen, Inc. © 2000 - 2019. All rights reserved.

https://www.planetizen.com/node/90704/evolution-green-urbanism 11/11