“Town Planning”
In a circular letter to local organisations the Haringey Borough planning officer sought help to plan a “human” city. Our local branch sent the following reply.
1. While we appreciate your desire that “the city must be human”, we would say that this aim could never be realised within the present economic and social system.
2. The basis of this system is the ownership of the means of producing wealth by a section only of society, with the result that wealth is produced for their profit rather than to serve human needs and that the rest of society depend for a living on being employed for a wage or salary.
3. As you and your colleagues are no doubt only too well aware town planning today takes place within this context. You have to accept as given the distribution of incomes that arises out of the wages system and rations the consumption of the vast majority of people to a level well below what they would choose if they really had a free choice. This means that many of the “facilities” you plan are geared not so much to what people need as to what they can afford.
4. Again, of course, there is the notorious problem of land prices which we are sure must waste a considerable amount of the time of the Council to the detriment of real town-planning. Before you can begin to “plan” you have to cut through an undergrowth of vested interests arising out of the private ownership of land and buildings. Even after the plan has been implemented you are still not free of this problem since you then have to deal with who is going to reap its financial benefits.
5. You say town-planning exists to make towns and cities “safe for people to live in”. It has been quite clear for some years now that the oil-driven motor vehicle is a menace to urban life and that any move to make towns really “safe for people to live in” must involve a sustained attack on the use of these vehicles with their killings and maimings, their dangerous fumes, the congestion they cause and the new roads they demand. We would suggest that a really safe town would not tolerate oil-driven vehicles and would rely for transport on an efficient and comprehensive public service (supplemented by electric cars and even bicycles). But can you imagine such a long-overdue change being dismissed as other than “Utopian” in the face of vested interests like the motor manufacturers with their need to export?
6. You go on to say that a properly planned town “must give all the people the best living conditions possible.” We agree, but we doubt whether you would really want the record of your department to be judged by “living conditions” in Haringey! Take housing for example. Ever since 1851 laws have been passed to solve this problem, but the problem persists and will persist as long as capitalism does. For bad housing is not really a problem of housing at all, but is a problem of money—or rather lack of money. The knowledge, the materials and the skills (including those of people like yourself and those in your department) exist, and have long existed, to provide a decent home for everybody. The only reason this is not done today is because most people could not afford to pay the rents such houses would require, which is the direct result of their being excluded from ownership of the means of production and having to live on wages.
7. We agree too that there should be effective democratic participation in the planning of towns (as part of a fully democratic society), but would question the extent to which this is possible under capitalism. Most people just do not have the time either to inform themselves properly about or to fully take part in political affairs. Besides, even if they did they would come up against all sorts of economic and social obstacles preventing and nullifying the application of their democratic decisions.
8. It should be clear by now that we consider the work of trying to reform and patch up the present social system as ultimately ineffective. At best “town planning” can only alleviate bad living conditions; it can never abolish them. Besides, the modern town (a concentration of working class dwellings and capitalist factories, shops and offices) is an essential part of the present economic system. “Town planning” must accept this and so serve capitalist needs, even though human interests might well be served by a massive decentralization of people and industry. In view of this we prefer to concentrate on advocating the fundamental social change which alone will provide the framework within which people can give themselves “the best living conditions possible”; the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production by all the people and their use to provide an abundance of good-quality goods and services which people can take and use freely according to their needs. We hope, therefore, you will understand that we cannot help the Council in the ways you suggest.
9. We can, however, offer some idea of what town planning could be like in a socialist society.
First, with production solely for use and not for sale, town planning would be freed from the commercial and financial shackles which today render it ineffective.
Second, with all land vested in the community, its use really could be properly planned to suit the community. (That effective planning demands, as a minimum, the common ownership of land has been clearly seen by a number of well-known architects).
Third, with an effective social democracy, the people and qualified planners could co-operate to make towns safe and attractive places to live in. The exact form this co-operation would take would have to be settled at the time.
Fourth, as we have indicated, the distribution of people and industry in Socialism will be quite different from under capitalism. People can live and work in smaller communities which combining the present advantages of “town” and “country” rather than in the concrete jungles of today. The change-over to these new communities would of course take time and involve a large amount of planning.
We would suggest too that working under these conditions would be much more satisfying for people like yourself and those in your department than working under capitalism. You would be able to forget about “local government law” and “the principles of compulsory purchase” and get down to some really “human” town planning.
HARINGEY BRANCH