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Within the hexagonal grids, houses were allocated according to a complex formula of race,
occupational rank, and socio-economic status, which had nothing to do with the traditional structure
of civil lines in India.
In South and East Africa, the British produced a number of instant mini-capitals: Harare, Lusaka,
Nairobi, and Kampala. Cities were considered completely white with a separate Indian bazaar at a
respectful distance; Africans were officially supposed to be farmers, or were herded into squatter
reservations with the aid of mass deportations and pass systems. Military had a virtual stranglehold
over the planning system. The British segregated themselves as best they could, and lived in
bungalow-style at exceedingly low densities. In South Africa, the mining compounds produced very
high death rates from tuberculosis and pneumonia.
It originated the Durban system, using revenues from a municipal monopoly of beer sales, to fund
African-worker housing and social facilities, and thus allowing white ratepayers to avoid financial
obligations.
Common to all these plans was the land-use and settlement structure. There was a central
government office node and a commercial office area; and a central shopping area that was adjacent
to both. All these were designed around a formal geometrical road layout, with broad avenues
meeting at traffic circle surrounded by very low-density European residential areas, a style known in
Lusaka. The African compound was relatively very small and was clearly segregated on one side of the
city as far as possible from the European areas by a physical barrier such as a railway track.
Difference as against New Delhi, was just not a matter of money. The consultants plans for the
African capitals never aimed at Lutyens geometrical complexities. Though the government house was
always given a prominent and dignified position.
Canberra
The new Commonwealth of Australia government chose Canberra for Australian Capital Territory in
1908. It organized an international competition to plan the city which was boycotted by British and
American institute of architects due to low prize money. Only young architects and students
competed and it was won by Walter Burley Griffin, an American student who had worked in Frank
Lloyd Wrights office. But the design was termed impracticable by the board which was appointed by
government and it made some modifications which were not received well by the public. And the plan
was not implemented for several years and the suburbs began to grow without any plan. In 1957
William Holford from England recommend plan modifications and the next year John Overall was
appointed National Capital Development Region Director and started implementing the plan.
Unbelievably, after 45 years Griffins Plan began to take shape and it was effectively complete by the
millennium.
Griffins described the plan as an irregular amphitheater. From the lowest point of the basin towards
south west, the land rose in steps, which formed like a stage on which symbolically important
buildings of the Commonwealth: the Court of Justice, the Parliament House, finally on the highest
internal hill within the basin the Capitol building were planned but latter Parliament was given
bigger role and placed on Capitol hill.. The military establishments and market center were placed on
front left, the national university and municipal center on front right when facing towards Capitol Hill.
These two were joined by broad highways crossing the lake. Later an elegantly monumental art
gallery and national library have joined the Courts of Justice at front of stage.
Griffin made some of his most innovative leaps in designing the residential suburbs. He was
influenced by garden city movement he had designed linear parks leading to vast central space of
playing fields. These neighborhoods, and the new towns that are supplementing them farther out, are
strung like beads on the strings of the traffic roads which pass between and around them. So
Canberra became one of the last Cities Beautiful, and also the worlds biggest Garden City.
summary again rightly points out a fact from the chapter that Africans were allotted new houses
known as compounds as far as possible from the European centre of the city, where government
houses again were given superior and dignified position.
The author briefly takes a positive turn in the chapter when it shifts to the planning of Canberra. As
described in the summary, the plan envisaged in 1911 through a low profile competition, started to
take shape after 45 years; only to be fully realized near the end of the millennium. Noted for its
ambitious vision as irregular amphitheatre, the summary failed to explore the argument that the plan
also had religious undertones influenced by Madame Blatavskys Theosophical movement, which aims
at social desegregation and equality.
The chapters epilogue focuses on the visions set not by planners or architects but dictators of
totalitarian regimes. Each dictator chose his favoured ideas to develop his city, but the central theme
was same as city beautiful movement, where monumental architecture and grandeur represented the
regimes superiority. Though, most of the visionary projects imagined by these dictators could never
be established. In these cities, wide thorough fares with towering buildings were used only to hide
settlements squatting between them. The summary again fails to emphasize on the same issue and
rather delves into the technical aspects written in the chapter.
Overall, the chapter concludes with the fact that the City Beautiful movement spawned for over 80
years. It was followed by wide ranges of world ideologies and political alignments. The summary
rightly extracts out the insight of the author that with few exceptions, entire focus was on superficial
and monumental building of the cities. But it (summary) again fails to add to the fact that the lack of
social consciousness then led to the emergence of the concept of liveability and urban design.