1 Population Re–Distribution and Spatial Organization

1.1 Population and Urbanization

Population pressures and excessive population concentration in large metropolitan areas, especially capital cities, were a major preoccupation in the postwar years. Policies to reverse concentration trends were undertaken, aiming at the re-organization of territories. However, spatial re-structuring can have a variety of causes. It can be the outcome of population re-distribution, but it can also result from changes in the patterns of trade and movement or from sectoral policies, e.g. on transportation or industry. Still, in the 1950s and 60s over-population was a major issue in the literature. It was particularly a concern expressed with regard to less developed countries. There are countries, wrote Davis in a book originally published in the late 1940s, like India , Egypt , and Java , that “have grown until swarming millions are crowded on the land” (Davis 1970, pp.603–604). He predicted a dire future for Java in particular, the most densely populated island of Indonesia , which incidentally gained her independence in the year his book first appeared. Java was indeed a most interesting example because, as a World Bank independent evaluation mentions, it was there that in the late 1970s a huge programme of “transmigration ” was initiated to relocate 35,000 Indonesians and settle them, at enormous cost, in peripheral islands of the country (Independent Evaluation Group 2012). The programme was fiercely criticized for its political motives and its environmental consequences. Be that as it may, it remains as a tangible regional development initiative justified on the grounds of overpopulation. The problem facing LDCs was of course real. In the 50s and 60s “a critical situation is indeed being produced in the developing lands by the amount and rate of population growth … “[T]he so-called ‘Population Explosion’ is both a symptom of and a contributing factor to a much larger process of which ‘Underdevelopment’ is another relatively visible manifestation” (Zelinsky 1970, pp.488–490).

Although overpopulation was no doubt a problem, relative to the level of development, Colin Clark had warned that declining or stagnant population can be a more dangerous situation, as historical examples prove, e.g. Greece in sixth century BC, Holland in sixteenth century AD, and Britain in the late eighteenth (Clark 1968, p.273). In the 1960s however, population pressures were a reality which caused waves of migration. Kirk wrote, in a 1958 paper, that “everywhere we see the centripetal forces of migration dominant in the world, from the less developed to the more developed areas, from the smaller to the larger population aggregates” (Kirk 1970, p.317). For a period, the attraction to cities of agricultural surplus labour had been met with approval, until the growth of urban unemployment and the inability of cities to cope began to cause consternation (Todaro 1977, p.218, and 2000, p.303). Over-urbanization was now considered a serious problem in several countries. According to Perlman, the term “over-urbanization ” or “hyper-urbanization” describes a situation in which “urbanization outpaces industrialization and the creation of adequate urban institutions” (Perlman 1976, p.5). The right response, it was claimed, was “to restrict the further growth of cities with populations in excess of 500,000 and to develop other centres … [I]n some cases one may even build a completely new town, starting from scratch …” (Lewis 1966, pp.73 and 223). Development planning was seen as the only possible strategy (Todaro 2000, p.621). As to the development of new, competitive, urban centres, the approach which was steadily gaining ground, was that of a guided urbanization strategy (see the next section of this chapter) which could be formulated “even without a strong concentration of population at the political and economic center of a country” (Renaud 1981, p.4). An alternative, in fact parallel, response, to stem the tide of unemployed migrants to large urban centres, was regional planning. This response could create employment opportunities in peripheral areas and reduce regional disparities, an approach which several LDCs adopted (Taylor and Williams 1982, pp.163–187).

1.2 Concentration and Spatial Re–Structuring

The excessive concentration of population in capital, or simply large, cities was frequently criticized in the postwar period in certain European countries, of which we shall discuss here only France, the United Kingdom, Greece, and the Soviet Union. In France, the domination of Paris attracted perhaps the most venomous comments (see Chap. 8). Naturally, the comments were directed not only against population concentration but also that of economic activities, which is true in the cases of London or Athens as well. The 1947 book of Jean-François Gravier “Paris and the French Desert” had become the standard weapon of those hell-bent on reducing the attraction of Paris, although Marchand’s verdict, in an article which speaks of “hatred” against cities, is that the book had no scientific value and was no more than a polemical tract (Marchand 2001). Paris was accused for sucking the blood out of the provinces (Ardagh 1977, p.185), which lacked internal connections and had to shoulder high social costs (Beauchard 1999, p.21). In the 1950s, the desire of decentralization became the motivating force of regional spatial policy, in order to restore imbalances (House 1978, pp.249 and 307). “Aménagement du territoire ”, the French minister of reconstruction and town planning said in the mid-1950s, “differs from a plan of production or infrastructure by the fact that it does not concern so much production problems as problems of distribution and better utilization of the territory” (Delmas 1963, p.28).

Greece was in a sense comparable to France, not in economic or population size, but in terms of concentration of population and activities. That Greece was becoming over-urbanized, mainly because of the growth of Athens, was an idea which underlay quite a lot of thinking or criticism which appeared in Greece in the 1960s (Andreadis 1966, pp.155–156; Chatzoglou 1966, pp.591–596). Decentralization was advocated to restore geographical balance and produce a better equilibrium in the urban system. Regional development planning was the only answer, and it involved the creation of a new settlement system (Kanellopoulos 1962?, pp.19–22). Commentators argued that population and activity concentration in Athens was not so much to be attributed to the capital’s role in the national system of cities, but rather to the absence of centres with adequate countervailing power, able to attract activities (Katochianos 1967, p.25). In the period 1951–1971, Athens had absorbed the entire national population growth (Katochianos 1976). The problem of the gigantism of Athens grew into an obsession and it was not much later that the slogan was launched that the population of the capital grows every day by the size of a village and every year by the size of the third city of Greece, Patras.

The problems of spatial inequality were at the root of regional planning efforts to restructure space. Concentration of activity had caused a great deal of anxiety. Alarmist predictions were not the prerogative of France or Greece only. Stamp was writing in 1963 that “[t]he trend of development in Britain in the years between the two world wars induced alarm in the minds of many who foresaw the obvious results. First and foremost was the phenomenal growth of Greater London to the largest urban agglomeration in the world, yet one which sprawled and scattered itself so as to produce innumerable problems of transport and the journey to work” (Stamp 1963, p.124). The growth of London and of large conurbations, on one hand, and regional employment distribution, on the other, were seen as facets of the same problem. The impetus which had started before the Second World War, “came thus to be associated with the notion of restricting the growth of these conurbations and taking overspill some distance away from them” (Hall 1970, p.69). “In its pure form, the idea of containment was peculiarly strong for the generation that created the 1947 planning system” (Hall et al. 1973, p.47).

The issues of population concentration and re-distribution, on one hand, and urbanization, on the other, took a very special form in the Soviet Union. Rural-urban migration was extremely high in the interwar years. Millions of people were shifted “from agricultural to nonagricultural employment to provide labor for the rapidly growing number of factories, mines, transport lines, construction projects, and government agencies” (Schwartz 1954, pp.33, 52 and 141). The population of the Asian sector of the Soviet state grew from less than 20 per cent of the total in 1913 to nearly 30 per cent in 1970 (Dewdney 1976, p.21). Labasse dwells extensively on the Soviet Union’s “conquest of its territory” and on the massive redistribution of population to the regions east of the Urals , to Kazakhstan and to the Arctic regions (Labasse 1966, pp.515–517). Initially the relocation of populations was directed towards agricultural development zones, but later it was industry that dictated migration policy. Since the Soviet system relied on abundant cheap labour, “this question resolved itself into one of redistributing population between regions”, resulting into a major population relocation (Pallot and Shaw 1981, p.87).

1.3 Population Redistribution

The policy of population redistribution in the USSR was not only about the overpopulated European west and the sparsely populated Asian east. It was also about the ideological position on the value of cities. In his discussion of urban territorial organization under socialism, Saushkin could not hide his aversion to large cities, let alone capitalist ones (Saushkin 1973, p.254). This negative attitude was translated into official policy, at least as far as Moscow and Leningrad were concerned. “In the 1935 General Plan of Reconstruction for the City of Moscow , limitation of the city’s growth was made into a central planning objective, perhaps for the first time in city planning history anywhere” (Hall 1967, p.158). It is difficult to appreciate the extent to which such an ideological prejudice of anti-urbanism influenced regional policy and it is perhaps relevant to notice the lack of available data on population movements for a considerable period of time, possibly because they were enforced by the authorities. Incentives and agricultural resettlement were only gradually introduced (Pallot and Shaw 1981, pp.102 and 107–110).

Population distribution policies were closely linked with energy production and, more generally, with spatial production complexes. In Soviet theoretical geography literature, production processes are thought to combine into one or several energy-production cycles, which “find spatial expression … through combining to make up territorial production complexes”, in accordance with which economic regions are then defined (ibid, p.77). It was this relentlessly pursued coordinated planning of natural resource and production systems and population distribution patterns, which made the Soviet planning version of comprehensiveness far more total and absolute than indicative planning of the 1940s and 50s (Saushkin 1973, p.244; Waterston 1965, p.71).

Inevitably, the issue of exploitation of natural resources takes us to the relationship between economic, development, and spatial planning, or, to put it simply, organization of space. Juilliard (1960) pointed out how economists and other social scientists had gradually been led to adopt a “spatial” point of view and had advocated an interdisciplinary approach he labelled as “voluntary geography ”. In fact, Labasse (1966, p.18), in his book on the organization of space, added the subtitle “elements of voluntary geography” and adopted the same approach. This is an approach akin to that of futurology (see Chap. 11), of which the task was considered to be the invention of models of society in which people could live (Ragon 1986, v.III, p.249). Another representative of the French school of geographers, Phlipponneau (1960, p.82), chose to speak of “applied”, rather than voluntary, geography of which he saw a potential valuable contribution to regional planning. As we have seen, the notion of “applied geography ” was also discussed by Dudley Stamp (1963, p.9) at about the same time: “Undoubtedly the unique contribution of the geographer is the holistic approach in which he sees the relationship between man and his environment, with its attendant problems, as a whole”. In retrospect, his emphasis on a “holistic approach” seems prophetic if we remember the revolution of environmental thinking in later years.

1.4 The Present’s View of Past History

This section must have made it very clear that population distribution attracted a great deal of debate and controversy, because of the explosive conditions it fostered, at least as perceived in the period we examined. The problem was expressed in different ways in more or less developed countries. Generalized population pressure and rural-urban migration affected mainly less developed countries, while in European countries concern was voiced with regard to excessive concentration of population and activities in a few cities, primarily the capitals, like London, Paris, Moscow and Athens. Apocalyptic language was sometimes used to describe the situation. Internal rural – urban migration in LDCs swelled the mass of the urban unemployed population and voluntary or even forced urban – rural migration was encouraged and/or imposed in various countries. Population explosion was feared, although not clearly associated, as it should, with the real problem of underdevelopment. Various alternatives were tried, e.g. regional planning schemes to encourage development in peripheral areas. Policies of urban development to restore equilibrium was a tool used, and so was a policy of urban containment to put an end to concentration.

Keywords

Spatial structures, Over-population, Over-urbanization, Population pressure, Internal migration, Balanced urban development, De-concentration, Urban containment, Migration policies, Population re-distribution.

Population and territory, we could say human activity and adapted spaces, are two facets of development. The pressures of a growing population, migratory movements and re-distribution across geographical space were often at the origin of territorial re-organization. Human migration was frequently far from voluntary and peaceful. The slaughter, extermination or mass exile of populations were not rare in all historical periods, the twentieth century included. Of course, spatial re-structuring could also be caused by other natural or economic forces. In our historical overview we found frequent instances of such developments. Land and colonization were among the causes of spatial change that we encountered repeatedly. Land, source and symbol of power and wealth, was always subject to interventions and changes of use which created new landscapes. Colonization pushed the frontiers of human occupation to new regions of which it displaced existing occupants. It is on colonization and land change that we focus first, given their constant interaction, before concentrating on population issues.

Colonization is in essence occupation of new territories and installation of people and activities, hence is by definition a space re-structuring force. This is what happened with Greek colonies in Asia Minor, the Black Sea, Sicily and Southern Italy, Gaul and Iberia. The space produced was not continuous but intensely networked. In sharp contrast, Hellenistic and Roman colonization created vast unified spaces, although the towns founded by the conquerors maintained a network character, especially under Rome, when a combination of Roman policies and actions, in fields like land distribution, road construction, military stations, defence, frontier regions, and fortifications, triggered a multiplier effect. Imperial needs to protect their lands from troublesome neighbours intensified change in peripheral regions which were fortified and garrisoned. The pattern repeats itself in various kingdoms and empires, Roman, Byzantine, Chinese, medieval kingdoms or national states, and takes names like limes , themata , marches , or iron belts in France. Equally, imperial ambitions or short-term expediencies to consolidate royal seats are at the root of the building of new capitals, which shape space by focusing it in a new locus of power.

Spatial re-organization can also result, less perceptibly in the short run, but noticeably over a longer horizon, when hierarchical structures are modified, as happened with the gradual evolution of the lordship system in the Middle Ages. Granting land to vassals, changing the balance between manorial domain, tenancies, and villages, or granting charters to towns and communities, were forces of territorial restructuring instigated by a multitude of decisions. Power devolution and responsibility transfers to regions and local authorities in contemporary societies have similar results. When these gradual adaptations are motivated by changes in the economy, e.g. agricultural recovery in the late Middle Ages, the effects are accelerated and intensified. The exploitation of resources (land, minerals, water), an issue of great concern for all states, whatever their nature, had dramatic consequences, when land was needed for grain, cotton and various commodities, minerals were essential for minting currency or for forging implements and arms, timber for building vessels, water for supplying urban centres, even human slave resources for labour. Black Sea regions, Egypt , Iberia and Gaul , Mexico, Peru, the pampas, the Great Plains, the Australian outback, the Spice Islands , West Africa and many others underwent this spatial impact. Trade, whether over long land routes as in the case of the silk and amber routes, or shorter like those activated by rising medieval city associations, or over maritime routes around Africa or the Americas, also left its imprint on ports, waystations and trading posts in all continents. National and colonial state activity, either to promote economic activity in a consistent manner within the territory of the state itself, as in France or Britain in the modern period, or to expand its frontier in overseas possessions, had profound spatial effects, immediate or in following centuries. Administrative reforms, internal or in occupied regions, left traces which are still with us. Local government organization in England, Napoleonic reforms in Europe or the splitting of native lands in Latin America into regions which evolved later into sovereign states give an idea of how even government structures can change geography. Examples abound in our historical overview.

The human element is present in all these instances of spatial re-structuring. Population growth, decline and movement are the common denominator. Symptoms of over-urbanization and population pressure have been identified as the cause of colony creation, e.g. by the Greeks, or as the reason of military and trade policies to import food for the urban masses, as in the case of the Roman and Byzantine Empires, anxious to feed the populace of Rome and Constantinople . Migration was repeatedly encouraged, e.g. to the Americas during the nineteenth century European exodus, and often enforced brutally, as in the case of Indians in Spanish America or in Russia. In colonial days thousands of Europeans settled, with often sad consequences, in British, French or Portuguese colonies in Africa. Already in the ancient world, migrants were frequently enlisted as mercenary soldiers and individual settlers joined their compatriots in already established colonies. Demographic reasons, poverty, land hunger and agricultural production crises, even natural disasters, were the explanation of migration, but the banishment of undesirables was a regular practice long before the deportation of convicts to North America or Australia. Economic and social phenomena, such as the domination of large estates, which central states tolerated or actively encouraged, were at the root of migration movements of impoverished peasants, e.g. in Roman Italy, the Byzantine Empire, or even England in the days of the enclosures of rural open fields. Medieval smallholders and serfs fled, when they could, to take to the road and seek their fortune in petty trade, crafts or wasteland cultivation, thus setting in motion a process of agricultural and urban transformation.

Invasions produced massive movements everywhere, from ancient times but also in medieval periods and in the modern era. The Romans imposed the regrouping of Greek populations in Thrace or Epirus or brought their own settlers in towns they had destroyed and then re-built, Byzantines “pushed” populations into vacant Asia Minor lands, Franks forced movements of population in Greece after the Fourth Crusade, Spaniards expelled Arabs to Morocco after the Reconquest, Germans pushed Slavs out of their lands in the east, and Indians were enclosed in native settlements in North and South America. Slave trade was the most brutal form of enforced migration. By and large, all civilizations were based on the use of slave or serf labour, but the magnitude of slavery peaked particularly in certain periods. The slave trade was essential for the functioning of Roman latifundia and it became a major component of colonial expansion, ever since the Portuguese became the protagonists of African slave transportation to Brazil and then other destinations. Slaves became a major input in the development of the plantation economy of the Caribbean islands and of the American South. It would be pointless to stress the long term social and spatial consequences.

2 Towns and Urban Networks

2.1 New Towns

Urban development and new town creation have been touched upon already. The first decades after the Second World War witnessed a flurry of new town foundations, although the seeds had been sown in the interwar years. The foundation of new towns in the twentieth century is the object of a vast literature. New towns were perhaps the most publicized instrument of spatial planning. The period of the 1940s, 50s and 60s was arguably the most fruitful in terms both of realizations and of theoretical discussion on the subject. The interest in urban development was not limited to policy making and the building of individual towns. It embraced a wider theoretical discourse on the nature and value of the urban system as a whole and as a separate variable. Curiously, condemnation of cities and espousal of a deliberate urbanization policy often co-existed as ideologies or seemed to alternate depending on the dominant theory at any given moment.

The experience of new town building in the twentieth century, mainly in the 1950s and 60s, has been recorded in numerous publications, which contain a comprehensive review of new towns in developed and less developed countries, which followed the precedent of English garden cities (Merlin 1972; Chaline 1996), created on the basis of Ebenezer Howard’s ideas of the end of the nineteenth century (Howard 1965). If we make an exception for cities built for political reasons, of which Brasilia is a good example, new towns were created to enable the development of backward regions, especially in Eastern Europe and Siberia, or to alleviate the pressure and congestion of large urban agglomerations, e.g. London, or to re-orient their growth, as in the case of Stockholm . The term “new town” remained however ambiguous, as it included vastly different realizations in various countries, more or less developed, capitalist or socialist (Merlin 1972, p.7). Many new towns were rather satellite-cities or mere dormitory-towns, rather than self-contained entities (Beaujeu-Garnier and Chabot 1963, pp.246–249). The Soviet Union built scores of such satellites, although some of them may have provided local job opportunities (Malisz 1980, pp.165–166).

Elsewhere, new town policies aimed at restructuring major metropolitan regions or, alternatively, at creating new economic growth points (Burtenshaw et al. 1981, p.284). Self-containment was a major objective in the building of new towns in the UK, although the term “satellites” continued to be used (Esher 1981, pp.95–100; Marmaras 2015, p.9). The appearance of garden suburbs early in the twentieth century, as opposed to garden cities, caused dissatisfaction among proponents of Howard’s legacy (Hall and Ward 1998, p.41). The mass foundation of new towns in Britain was to wait until after the Second World War. During the process preceding the voting of the New Town Act of 1946, the then minister of town and country planning insisted that “such Towns should be established and developed as self-contained and balanced communities for work and living” (Schaffer 1972, p.35). Progress was rapid after the designation of the first new town in that year. By 1971 there were twenty-one such towns in England, two in Wales and five in Scotland, all built by special Development Corporations (Hall and Tewdwr-Jones 2011, pp.68, 116 and 332–333). Commenting on the regional planning dimension and the industrial decentralization goals of the new town policy, a French observer remarked that it was not an accident that such a policy was conceived first in the country which gave birth to the industrial revolution (Labasse 1966, pp.291 and 302–314).

In France, eight new towns were originally planned for construction around Paris, on the basis of a 1960 planning scheme, but only five materialized, together with another four near large cities (Stathakopoulos 1982, pp.51–52 and 72–74). In contrast to British new towns, the Paris new towns were located at a small distance from the capital, their aim being rather to restructure the Paris agglomeration (Delamarre et al. 2015, p.44; House 1978, pp.340–341). More than the Paris new towns, of interest to us is the French theoretical debate on growth poles and the policy of enhancing the weight of eight regional metropolises, or countermagnets, to balance that of the capital (House 1978, pp.350–351). Perroux had first introduced the concept of growth poles and the notion of the driving or propellant industries (industries motrices) in the 1950s. The importance of a driving industry lies in the inputs and pulses “it induces into its environment”, the favourable climate it creates, and the innovations it generates (Perroux 1971, pp.279–283). Following Perroux, Boudeville formulated a general theory on polarized development and growth poles in the 1960s. To him, the concept of the industrie motrice is the key of urban and regional growth, which takes place through the influence of one sector on all the others and the concentration of activity in a small number of firms (Boudeville 1965, pp.72 and 93–96). He was however criticized for distorting the notion of the propellant industry, which he practically identified with the existence of an urban centre (Moseley 1974, pp.8–10). Urban centres were assumed to have the potential to propagate development. For this to happen, cities, the black box of econometrics in the expression of Perrot (1992, p.42), had to develop as nodes of a hierarchy or network. Earlier, in the 60s, J. Hautreux and M. Rochefort had developed a theoretical approach to the notions of a hierarchy of cities and of the urban frame or “equipment” (armature urbaine) of a region, with a clear intention to use it for the French territory (Aydalot 1985, p.371).

It was as a result of this theoretical research that the policy of designating eight metropolises of equilibrium (métropoles d’ équilibre) was adopted in France, followed by the designation of an additional ten main and twenty-four secondary regional centres (ibid, p.372). “The policy of the ‘balancing metropolis’ … was a response to the overwhelming predominance of Paris, and recognized the very weak role of the French provincial capitals”. The policy of the medium-sized cities “can be seen as a reaction to the gigantisme of the 1960s with its emphasis on large-scale developments” (Scargill 1983, pp.34–36 and 63). A version of this policy was followed in the late 1970s in Greece, through the designation of “rival cities”, which were supposed to compete with Athens and Thessaloniki (Wassenhoven 1979). The concept of growth centres was gaining support in various parts of the world. In Australia, “from the mid-1960s the concept of growth centres gained increasing support in academic, business and government circles” (Logan 1981, p.97). The building of Canberra , the federal capital, had of course predated this debate by several decades.

Building new towns, in the sense of the British model, was not universally followed. The Soviet approach rested on totally different ideological and programmatic assumptions. In the liberal environment of the United States, in the 1970s, new towns had a different character. “The United States has emphasized maximum private initiative in new towns creation in the absence of an explicitly stated urban policy”, but with federal guarantees (Corden 1977, p.18). Lysander (renamed later as Radisson) was an exception, in that it was sponsored by a public agency (Kaiser 1978, p.68). The building of capitals in the 1950s and 60s, in Latin America , e.g. Brasilia , and Asia, e.g. Islamabad and Chandigarh , was guided by political objectives and needs which differentiate them from West European new towns as described above or from Soviet examples for that matter. The same is true of African capitals which appeared much later, like Dodoma , the new capital of Tanzania , or Abuja of Nigeria, or African satellite towns, such as Festac in the Lagos metropolitan area of Nigeria (Adedokun 2013).

As implied already, the experience of socialist East European counties, especially of the Soviet Union, is a case apart, but has great interest for the comparisons we attempt in this book. This is due to the nature of USSR as a true twentieth century empire. After an early start in the 1930s, regional planning received a new impetus after the war and in the 1960s involved specific physical spatial plans and a policy of creating a system of settlements. This style of planning was naturally linked with industrialization plans and the rural-urban migration movement which the regime encouraged or imposed. Nevertheless, the growth of large cities was not effectively checked and small towns continued to suffer from a lack of opportunities (Pallot and Shaw 1981, pp.215–227). Not all new towns were totally “new”. British policy had made a distinction between “new” and “expanding” towns, but even new ones were often founded as substantial extensions of existing settlements. This was the case with socialist towns too (Beaujeu-Garnier and Chabot 1963, pp.246–247). Generally in Eastern Europe, new socialist towns were difficult to classify into new ones and expanded small towns (Hamilton 1979, p.183). This is not to deny that thousands of new settlements were built in the Soviet Union on greenfield sites in remote areas (Mellor 1982, p.80). Even in the 1960s, more than 23 towns were built every year on average (Lappo and Annenkov 1998, p.36). New town building was frequently dictated by political objectives, e.g. in Poland , the Ukraine, Belarus, Germany, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and parts of Russia itself, “where political support for the Soviet system was relatively weak” (Baločkaitė 1991, p.64). A good deal of the settlement activity in the Soviet Union was related to the policy of rural development and the improvement of agriculture. In the 60s the emphasis was on grouping of rural villages into sizeable settlements, depending on their viability. Soviet theoreticians spoke of a “socialist settlement system” (Pallot and Shaw 1981, pp.229–242).

2.2 Urban Networks and Urbanization Policy

The Soviet view of a settlement system, but also the French concept of armature urbaine , provide the opening for a short discussion of the urban network, as an analytical parameter, and then as a tool of national urban policy . Derycke defines the urban armature as a whole of cities, within a given geographical space, or, more specifically, a whole of their interrelationships, together with their rural hinterlands, and in some cases together with other cities beyond their region (Derycke 1979, p.197). The notion of the “urban network” (réseau urbain) received a great deal of attention in France in the 1950s and 1960s. Coppolani (1959, p.8) believed that a coherent, logical and effective spatial planning (aménagement) of the national territory ought to have as its basis a plan for its urban network, so as to endow each region, large or small, with nodes of its nervous system. The “urban hierarchy” was given special emphasis in economic and social geographical thought (Prost 1965, p.27). Geographical studies had already focused on the urban organization of regions, as for example a 1960 study of Alsace (1960, p.338) .

In the same period, analytical concepts like the rank-size rule or the primate city distribution gained widespread currency (Prost 1965, pp.118–129; Berry and Horton 1970, pp.64–75). The pursuit of a settlement system more conducive to the attainment of development goals was considered as essential in countries dominated by a primate city, both in industrially advanced nations, like France, and in less developed ones, like Greece. The demographic growth of Paris, it was thought, should be brought down to the average rate of population growth of the country as a whole (Delmas 1963, p.61). Similar concerns over the dominant position of the capital, Athens, were voiced in the postwar years in Greece. Several Greek commentators, as Carter reported, often spoke of Athens as a “hydrocephalic monster” (Carter 1975, p.395). Katochianos (1967) studied in the 1960s the national network of urban centres of the country and its hierarchical structure in a way which directly led later to the adoption of measures to reinforce medium-size cities. The concept of the capital-dominated urban system, as opposed to a genuine network, was popularized by the centre- (or core-) periphery model, usually associated with the work of planning theoretician John Friedmann in the 1960s. The concept of the core-periphery dichotomy centres on the quasi-colonial relationship that exists between the main centre (or centres) of a country and the rest of the national territory, from which the centre absorbs people, capital and resources (Friedmann and Alonso 1964, p.3). References to quasi-colonial relationships were no doubt influenced by the 1960s’ radical critique of the capitalist metropolis – satellite relationship between colonial powers and their former overseas territories (Frank 1969, pp.44–45). At about the same time, E.A.J. Johnson (1970, p.212), an economic historian, adopted Friedmann’s thesis and also referred to internal neo-colonialism in developing countries. He advocated a balanced, hierarchical settlement system.

The “urban system” has attracted the keen attention of urban geographers and planners during the 1960s and 70s, as the interest in systems theory and its application in spatial regional planning was taking shape. “Urbanization … is in fact a process of system growth and structural transformation. The cities and urban regions … constitute a set of interrelated subsystems nesting in a complex hierarchy of increasing scale upward from individual urban areas to a national urban system” (Bourne 1975, p.11). Bourne’s formulation had been preceded by that of Lowdon Wingo who looked at the settlement system as capable of optimization through an appropriately designed national urban growth policy, which “treats the settlement pattern as a highly interdependent system, whose principal elements are urban and rural settlements containing factor endowments and productive activities which add up to national totals and exhibiting specific welfare characteristics” (Wingo 1973, pp.17–18). These theoretical interpretations and an analysis of the Greek urban network made it possible for Wassenhoven to explore the interface between settlement system and the socio-economic formation of Greece in the postwar period (Wassenhoven 1980, p.304). Using a systems terminology, Bourne and Sinclair approach the urban settlements as “a complex web of interrelationships and interdependencies. It is those links – involving the movement of people, goods and capital or of growth stimuli – which give meaning to the notion of an urban system … The cities become the de facto control points in the national economy and the territorial power structure” (Bourne and Sinclair 1984, pp.11–12). They could have written the same thing about the Roman Empire.

This conceptual environment produced an emphasis, in the applied policy field, on urbanization strategies or national urban policies. In developed countries, as Self has argued, and in spite of the variable meanings of the term, such policies included efforts to divert growth to depressed regions, then coordination between development and urban policies at the regional level, and finally actions for cities as problem areas in their own right (Self 1982, p.92). Central guidance naturally presupposed an appropriately centralized government structure. In a federal state, like Australia, this condition was not satisfied. “Attempts to develop and implement urban policy in Australia are hampered by the fact that three levels of government are involved in urban development” (Neutze 1981, p.207).

The situation was more complex in less developed countries, where urbanization could operate as a conduit and catalyst of development. Urbanization without industrialization was viewed as a disastrous prospect, although regrettably these processes were often analyzed independently (Bergeron and Roncayolo 1984, pp.23–24). Apart from its association with industrialization, urbanization was seen as conducive to “modernization”, a fairly loose concept (Germani 1973, p.26). “A national urbanization policy”, according to Renaud, “is especially important for developing countries because the location of new economic activities and the movement of population affect the efficiency of their national economies and the stability of their political systems” (Renaud 1981, p.5). The prevailing wisdom was that a national urbanization policy would be more effective if supported by central planning, to avoid the problems of Western urbanization (Hauser 1965, p.35; Germani 1973, p.37). It is tempting at this point to abandon our reliance on documents of the first postwar decades and attract attention to a 2016 United Nations report, simply to demonstrate that a national urban policy continues to enjoy a place of priority: “A National Urban Policy is both a process and an outcome that harnesses the dynamism of cities and urbanization. Urbanization presents unprecedented opportunities, but also substantial challenges ... A National Urban Policy complements and reinforces rather than replicates local urban policies. It also helps align national activities with global priorities” (UN Habitat III 2016, p.2).

2.3 The Present’s View of Past History

More than any other policy, the building of new towns dominated the planning literature of the postwar years, as we were able to present in this chapter. Several new towns were founded in Western Europe, especially in the UK, although, apart from the British ones, not all were self-contained towns; the term was used also for satellite towns or even large dormitory suburbs. Simultaneously, in the context of national spatial policy large cities in certain countries were designated to act as counter-magnets and balance the influence of capital cities. Such was the case of the French métropoles d’ équilibre. The theories of propellant or driving industries and of growth poles offered support to this policy. Thousands of new towns were constructed in socialist countries and even in the US there had been a handful of private ones. At the same time new approaches appeared concerning the settlement system as a whole, a development to which testifies the emergence of concepts like urban “equipment” (armature urbaine) , urban network, and urban system. The urban system denoted a “whole” characterized by the synergy of its urban components, in complete contrast to the core – periphery model which was the rule in several countries. Urbanization policies or urban strategies were based on these theories and were assumed to depend on central planning. Urbanization was seen by many as closely linked with industrialization and modernization.

Keywords

New towns, Satellite towns, Growth poles, métropoles d’ équilibre, Urban network or system, Core-periphery, Urbanization policies or urban strategies, Industrialization and modernization.

History, as we saw in Part I of this book, abounds with examples related to cities, new towns, urban networks and urbanization. The urban element or component is also omnipresent, like land, in all the chapters of Part II in different guises. This is hardly surprising since from the time of the “urban revolution” in Bronze Age Mesopotamia , so attractively depicted by Gordon Childe, the city was the focus of developments in human society. As Chaline has remarked, most organized and sedentary civilizations have created, at a given moment in their history, “voluntary” towns, in contrast to spontaneous urban development (Chaline 1996, p.14). There is not a single term of those we associate with the postwar period that cannot find a case in the historical past to which it can be applied. Apart from the obvious examples of new towns and urban networks, concepts introduced to describe modern spatial configurations, like the core-periphery model, could be comfortably applied to the Roman and Byzantine Empires. Rome was, as we pointed out, the orbis, the personification of the Empire, which was its periphery. Equally, Constantinople was the Vasilevousa, the Regal or Reigning City. There was no way in which another city could fully balance their influence. At first glance, one cannot speak of an equivalent of the métropoles d’ équilibre. However, and in full awareness of the far-fetched analogies, we can mention the example of Ravenna , which became capital in the Roman Empire’s years of irreversible decline and, in the sixth century AD, seat of an Exarch, who, as we pointed out, was the representative of the Byzantine Emperor with full authority. Thessaloniki could not of course compete with Constantinople, but it was a centre of power, ever since its choice as seat of a Roman Emperor at the time of the Tetrarchy, before Constantine moved his capital to Constantinople. It is even today labelled “co-capital” of the Greek Republic. In the case of colonial empires in the Modern Era, we do find cases where cities were elevated to a higher government status to restore equilibrium, as in the case of the Spanish Indies, when Buenos Aires became the seat of a new viceroyalty in addition to those of Mexico City and Lima . It was an eighteenth-century version of a métropole d’ équilibre. All cities, not just those with the glamour of capitals, were the conveyors of new values. A capital was the prime source, but the towns scattered across the length and breadth of an empire, ancient or colonial, were the transmitters. In the Roman Empire they spread the gospel of “romanization”, as urbanization was thought to be the carrier of modernization in postwar developing countries. New towns sometimes appeared in the vicinity of capitals, practically as satellite cities, like Ostia near Rome. In some cases they grew as the new seats of royal power, when palaces were moved out of the old city walls of capital cities, as in Westminster or Versailles . Quarters of foreign communities of entrepreneurs were planted in the heart of cities, e.g. Naucratis , Constantinople or Peking, like modern free trade zones.

In the previous paragraph we tried to show that the germs of concepts which we think as products of contemporary planning thinking can be found in bygone years. The parallels are sometimes tenuous, though not in the case of new towns which remain the best example. In our account, we presented the repeated occurrence of new town foundations. We dwelled extensively on Ancient Greek, Hellenistic and Roman colonies, in Europe and parts or Africa or Asia. We explained the similarities and differences, especially with regard to the networks they formed and the continuity of space they produced, e.g. in the Hellenistic oecumene or in the lands unified by the Pax Romana. The nature of networks varied. In the case of Greek colonization there was no centre to which the links converged, as in the Roman one. There were occasional links between colonies and mother-cities and a nexus of common culture, which did not prevent them to fight each other. Nevertheless, a common space was created, resembling a topological space of nodes and connections. All sorts of variations existed with colonization sometimes proceeding like the growth of the branches of a tree. Greek colonies sowed the seeds of future urban development, especially in the Italian peninsula and Sicily . Hellenistic new towns, mainly centres of government, were vastly greater and the connections they fostered were more complex. Alexandria was of course in a category of its own. It was important that the prosperity of existing Greek cities like Rhodes and Pergamon was not adversely affected.

The scale and of course durability of Roman colonization exceeded that of the Greeks. An enormous number of towns were founded by the emperors, a number of them starting as military camps and facilities. The empire’s more than one thousand cities formed a dense network, which as we said before, was the territorial backbone of the Roman imperial body. Here, we can confidently speak of the existence of a conscious urbanization policy on a state-wide scale. The word colonia had a different connotation from the Greek apoikia and towns – municipia or civitates – were no longer poleis in the Greek sense. Besides, the designation colonia ended up as an honourary title especially in annexed territories. Colonies, first in Italy and then beyond it, under the Republic and then on a massive scale under the Principatus, were the product of either military camps or efforts to direct poor citizens to new locations where land was available and strategic interests were served. Even the town design, the time-honoured Hippodamian grid , arguably betrays the origins. Land and settlements for army veterans was not an innovation, but their influence on civilian colonies was especially pronounced. More than the simple multiplication of urban nuclei, it was the network of towns which is impressive, because it allowed better control and resource use of the countryside. Because of the hierarchical structure of the empire there came into existence a nesting pattern of provincial and regional capitals and, at a lower level, various municipalities and settlements, with Rome of course as the pinnacle. The resulting physical “pyramid” was largely held together by the network of Roman roads. We cannot but be reminded of modern concepts like réseau urbain and urbanization policy.

The Byzantine Empire had a similar centralized network, but, in comparison to the Romans, the Byzantines were not new town builders. They seemed, in broad lines, to rely on improving the urban network they had inherited. Constantinople , itself a renowned example of a new capital, was the centre of activity in a typical core-periphery relationship. In our review, we stressed that new capitals are the best-known examples of new towns in all epochs. We examined a large number of them from Memphis to Washington D.C. The Middle Ages in Western Europe, was also a poor period in the story of new town construction, at least in the Greek or Roman tradition. We had however foundations of fortified settlements in border zones, e.g. Alfred the Great’s burhs as early as in the ninth century, the French bastides in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries or the Spanish strongholds in areas re-conquered from the Arabs. Otherwise, the term “town foundation” must be used with precaution, given the totally different context. It denotes rather a designation by kings and lords of sites for rural settlement or in recognition of the existence of nucleated communities. In the late medieval period, the French villes neuves or dozens of settlements founded by English kings or Spanish poblationes , are good examples, although the latter had an additional defensive objective.

The interest of the Middle Ages is not of course in outright new town building. The urban process in that protracted period is important because of its cumulative and gradual character, which however was produced by a large number of decisions, the juxtaposition of which produced revolutionary change. This step-by-step process was caused by the expansion of agricultural land, at the expense of forests, the erosion of the rigid character of the manorial system , the development of trade, and the rise of towns, but also by individual actions and concessions made by the lords. The recognition of immunities, the granting of town-charters, even the deliberate creation of settlements, were the tools with which a renewed urban network emerged. Castles, monasteries, provisional seats of royal courts, markets, faubourgs , and merchant quarters were the pebbles in a mosaic which eventually grew into an urban pattern. The outcome is obvious; the decision-making process less so, but it did exist. There were of course regions where the evolutionary path and the structure of power were not the same, as in the case of Italian city-states, or in the case of sixteenth century Russian and Italian Renaissance new towns, but here we are already in the Modern Era.

In the post-1500 period, colonial exploration and expansion is the dominant theme, as far as cities and their foundations are concerned. We had the opportunity to review extensively the process of colony foundations and their impact on the evolution of all continents, especially America. We referred to early Portuguese trading posts, new towns founded by Spanish and Portuguese conquerors in Latin America, British colonies in North America and their special character, French colonies in the Caribbean and North America, colonial treaty ports, and Russian foundations, of which incidentally St Petersburg was a clear imperial symbolic gesture of modernization. We observed the peculiar similarities, across many centuries, of the fate of cities first sacked by conquerors and then rebuilt by them, as in Corinth , Carthage and Mexico City . We pondered on how colonial priorities and/or war games changed the pattern of growth of cities as focal points of power, and through it of the future of vast regions, as in the case of contests between Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America or between British, French and Dutch in the North American Atlantic seaboard, in Indonesia and India . We saw how land and natural resources were throughout history the driving force of colony creation and territorial expansion. Finally, we observed how agricultural, trade and industrialization policies, towards the end of the Modern Era, resulted in, and were facilitated by, urbanization in the homelands of the colonial and industrial powers. Here, urban development generated new geographical landscapes, not in a spontaneous manner but rather as a result of central government choices.