Why urbanists need to plan small

Michelle Provoost and Wouter Vanstiphout, "Make No Big Plans," Architectural Design 82 (2012): 5 

The take-away: Given the prevailing relationship between finance and architecture, the possibility for large-scale urban planning to make positive social impacts appears increasingly remote. In response to these conditions, the authors call for urbanism projects that are small-scale, imminently useful, and able to “actually deliver on their promises”. 

Abstract

In the face of ‘derivative architecture’, artificial commercial speculation that was a feature of the previous economic boom, Michelle Provoost and Wouter Vanstiphout of Crimson Architectural Historians call for a new understanding of the real city and its actual needs, basing interventions on observations rooted in society and spatial structures.

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