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Cities as Movement Economies

1997; Elsevier BV; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/b978-044482332-8/50020-2

Bill Hillier,

Urban Design and Spatial Analysis

Cities are the largest and most complex artifacts made by humankind. It is necessary to understand cities before making places. There are two anomalies in the way of seeing cities. The design of cities is afflicted everywhere by a split between understanding and design. There are some issues about how the people understand the city and how they move about in it. This chapter demonstrates a series of propositions. First, the structure of the urban grid, considered purely as a spatial configuration, is the most powerful single factor determining movement, both pedestrian and vehicular; second, because this relation is fundamental and lawful, it has already been a powerful force in shaping the evolution of space in our historically evolved cities; third, this relation has also already been powerful in determining two other prime strategic components of urban form: land-use patterns and building densities; and fourth, this relation, and more specifically the relation between local and global movement, has been the prime factor in forming the part/whole structure of the city. The chapter speculates that socio-economic forces shape the city primarily through movement and that the city can be properly seen as what can be termed a "movement economy."