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Patrick Geddes, a pioneer in urban planning exercised the discipline across the British Empire, studying cities and compiling plans according to newly defined standards. One such definition was Density.
While Geddes himself rarely referred to 'density' per se, his opinion on the matter was nevertheless clear, hailing Raymond Unwin’s views on low housing density. Geddes’ urban solutions, whether in Britain, in Indian or in Palestine generally drew on the popular Garden Cities paradigm, regarding it as the manifestation of his own urban Eutopia.
Consequently, the part in his traveling Exhibition devoted to current town planning was mainly composed of material relating to Garden Cities and suburbs, providing ‘swifter and cheaper communications’ and aiding to ‘loosen out the crowded city, and so serve all its interests most efficiency in the long run’as well as being ‘of hygienic orientation, i.e. of buildings to light, houses to sunshine’ thus providing essential conditions of health. Finally, Garden Cities echoed Geddes’ yearning for the medieval town. Thus, Geddes’ suggested urban model was based upon European standards; regarding Density as well as other principles, Geddes’ suggestions were not very different from those of his colleagues.
The examination of Geddes’ defined standards and their practice in the colonies reveals his colonial attitude towards indigenous societies, local cities and their mutual evolution. The proposed paper constitutes a discussion in the history of Density in urban planning, and more specifically, the meaning and the implications of such a definition in the colonial context. Using ‘Density’ as one of many prisms through which to examine the relationship between the imperial rule and local indigenous population, the paper suggests another look at the social, political and cultural gap between modern imperatives and traditional lifestyles, Western preconceptions and local conventions as well as the seemingly unavoidable gap between planners and their clients.
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