English for Architecture & Civil Engineering I
Prepared by Indra Tj-2004
UNIT V
I. Reading
Planned Cities
Most of the larger cities in the world have grown without plans and blueprints.
London is such a city. Its streets zigzag, snake, and circle. There is no reason
or order to its street-numbering system. Indeed, no one but a veteran taxi driver
knows the whole of London. And before he gets his cabbie's license he must
tour the city for months, street by street, then take a comprehensive
examination to prove that he can find his way about. New York and Chicago
grew in much the same way. They must spread out, pushed by the demands
for residential, business, or industrial space. Today in New York, even a nativeborn Manhattanite despairs of finding his way- around Brooklyn.
There are a few modern cities, however, that were created out of nothing. They
were built strictly by the book according to detailed plans that will also control
future growth. Two such American cities are Columbia, Maryland, and Reston,
Virginia. But the prime example of a city planned and built from scratch in the
twentieth century is Brasilia, the new capital of Brazil.
Brasilia was the brainchild of Brazil's President Juscelino Kubitschek, who held of
ice from 1955 to 1960. Kubitschek, like other Brazilian leaders, was concerned
that most of Brazil's people were crammed into its sea-cost cities. Rio de Janeiro,
then the nation's capital and its second largest city, occupies a breathtakingly
beautiful site on the Atlantic coast. Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, is very near
the coast. Consequently, this meant that riches in timber, minerals, and
hydroelectric power sources in the interior of the county were untapped.
Recognizing that drastic action was needed to develop the interior. Kubitschek
decided to build a brand new capital city in the Brazilian highlands, 600 miles
northwest of Rio de Janeiro. He chose a site that was right in the middle of the
wilderness, on land that had never been plowed.
Monuments, and high-rise apartment' complexes were magnificently modern.
Access roads fed into its streets with no traffic lights. Every feature seemed
logical, reasonable, and right. But for more than a decade, Brasilia seemed all
wrong to the people brought there to live and to work in government offices.
While it was undeniably a beautiful city, it was not yet a community.
For it is people and their history of habitation that turn a city from all collection of
streets and buildings into a community. It is people who give a city life and
character and personality - and a brand-new, tailor-made Brasilia didn't have
those qualities for a long time. But now, happily, its residents no longer feel they
English for Architecture & Civil Engineering I
Prepared by Indra Tj-2004
need to rush back to Rio or Sao Paulo at every opportunity. Instead, they visit,
picnic, and enjoy one another's company. Brasilia is beginning to feel like home
for them.
Other planned cities have faced the same problem of creating a community spirit
and identity. Some observers of life in Columbia, Maryland, another planned city,
have been concerned with lack of spirit there and have made an interesting
comparison between Columbia and Hoboken, New Jersey.
Hoboken, an old waterfront town just across' the Hudson River from New York
City, is an urban planner's nightmare. It has row upon row of old dingy brick
buildings and grass and trees are few and far between. Columbia, on the other
hand, is an urban planner's dream. It has charming colonial and modern houses
on winding streets. There are lovely lawns and beautiful trees. And there are
bicycle paths and hundreds of acres of woods, meadows, and lakes.
Yet something is not quite right. Many Hobokenbchildren are almost fiercely loyal
to one another and their community. They may not have lawns and lakes, but
they find ways to have fun on the pavements and sidewalks. In Columbia, by
contrast, many of the young people seen listless. As one teenager from Detroit
put it. "In Detroit it seemed like something was always happening. But here...”
And he shrugged his shoulders.
What is it about a treeless, grimy, old city like Hoboken that makes people love it
so much ? What is it about a beautiful new city like Columbia that makes young
people shrug with boredom ? These are questions which city planners will have
to face up to. For no matter how well it is designed, a city will not ultimately come
to life unless it inspires the love and loyalty of the people who live and work in it.
(The National Council of Teachers of English, Proficiency in English Through Our Changing
World, McGraw Hill Book Company, 1994, p.154)
II .Vocabulary Preview
Street numbering system
Scratch
Cram
Meadows
Dingy
= sistem penomoran jalan.
= goresan, corat-coret
= menjejalkan
= padang rumput
= kumal, kotor
III. Write T(TRUE) if the following statements are true according to the passage,
but write F(FALSE) if they are wrong.
1. T – F. The streets in London go in curving lines.
2. T – F. Nobody knows the whole London.
3. T - F. Finding ways around Brooklyn are quite easy for a native-born
Manhattanites.
English for Architecture & Civil Engineering I
Prepared by Indra Tj-2004
4. T – F. Some people in Brazil tended to occupy the sites near the coasts. .
5. T – F. Well-planned cities will always be like home for their citizens.
IV. Give brief answers to the following questions!
1.What do London, New York, and Chicago have in common?
2. In what ways are Columbia, Reston, and Brasilia alike?
3. Why did President Kubitschek decide to build the new capital city of Brazil in
the wilderness?
4. Why did Brasilia "seem all wrong" to the people who lived there at first ?
What is necessary to turn a city into a community?
S. Are any reasons given for the eventual development of community spirit and
identity among the residents of Brasilia? ,
6. For what purposes are the new city of Columbia and the old city of Hoboken
compared?
7.Have any city planners been successful in designing beautiful and efficient cities?
What examples of such success are mentioned in the reading?
8. Have city plpnners been successful in building cities with community spirit and
identity ? What evidence to the contrary is given?
V. Vocabulary Expansion
Find the synonym for each word below !
1.Despair
4.Tailor-made
2. Cabbie
5.Fell like
3. Untapped
6.Urban planner
7. Nightmare
8. Few and far between
9. Come to life