Spontaneous Cities: Lessons to Improve Planning for Housing

Nikos Angelos Salingaros
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Nikos Angelos Salingaros: Departments of Mathematics and Architecture, The University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 5, 1-15

Abstract: The world can learn two key lessons from spontaneous settlements: ( i ) design so as to adapt to human biology; and ( ii ) design to save energy. Timeless processes of urban growth and sustainability have forced societies to conserve energy. Yet, nowadays, a profession focused on design ideology and short-term profit discredits many economical and effective long-term design methods. Decision-makers, politicians, and urbanists talk of energy conservation while continuing to use failed notions of industrial urbanity in place of documented solutions that work. Most damaging is the myopic academic elite’s fixation on an unsustainable industrial-modernist visual vocabulary of minimalist forms. By promoting typologies based on images dating from the 1920s, instead of using scientific analysis, the industry serves extractive global imperialism rather than satisfying the world’s population needs. We should instead learn from how self-builders adapt form, geometry, materials, surfaces, and ornament to maximize the user’s emotional experience in an otherwise extremely challenging environment.

Keywords: human-centered design; informal cities; spontaneous settlements; organic growth; sustainability; urbanism; planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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