Urban Reform: From Utopian Visions to Modern City Planning

Utopian Reformism and Modern Urban Planning

Utopian reformists began to create the first alternative models to the industrial city, attempting to address its social and urban shortcomings. Key figures like Robert Owen in England (1817) and Charles M. Fourier in France (1822) proposed innovative models for worker settlements and their relationship with new industries. Fourier's concept was the Phalanstère.

Haussmann's Paris Reforms

The reform model of Haussmann in Paris (1845) was more comprehensive. It aimed to reorganize the city center, creating avenues for smoother functioning. Based on large-scale public works, it provided employment while also making future revolutions more difficult by replacing narrow medieval streets with wide, straight arteries suitable for troop movement.

Haussmann's Objectives

1. Establish legal and financial mechanisms for state-funded public works to refurbish streets and avenues.
2. Employ a considerable workforce in public works projects.
3. Structure the city with a road system of ring and radial arteries, linking districts and railway stations to the center, using a rectilinear layout for cavalry and cannon deployment.
4. Demolish historic medieval buildings, displacing the proletariat, and construct public buildings and housing.
5. Integrate modern infrastructure: water supply, lighting, and sewerage systems.
6. Erect public buildings for state functions, enhancing squares and avenues.
7. Create a homogeneous urban environment for the bourgeoisie.
8. Relegate industrial suburbs to the periphery for the proletariat.
9. Organize the city with green parks and squares at neighborhood and metropolitan scales.
10. Establish formal planning requirements for visual coherence in plots, road layouts, and public buildings.

Surface Land

Geomorphology

Geomorphology studies the development of land relief due to geological forces. It has three branches:

• Mapping: Based on geodetic outcomes, it creates plans and maps.
• Topography: Portrays a portion of the Earth's surface on a plane, assuming it is flat due to its small extension.
• Geodesy: The mathematical science studying the shape and dimensions of the entire Earth.

Key Concepts

• Trig points are permanently marked on the ground.
• Ellipsoid of reference is the basis for topography and cartography.
• Astronomical-geodetic coordinates denote all vertices.
• Latitude is measured from the Equator in degrees.
• Longitude is measured east or west from the Greenwich meridian in degrees.