High Rise Industrial Where did it come from?
IH
Urban Renewal Urban Renewal (Urban Redevelopment in the Housing Act of 1949, then Urban Renewal in the 1954 Amendment) sought to jump start the development of aging central cities and inner neighborhoods, by assembling parcels and ownership, acquiring and clearing central land to make it easier for private development to follow. The model of tall towers in green malls, prophetically expressed in the Plan Voisin in the 1920s, was implemented in Urban Renewal plans and private development throughout the 50s and 60s.
Ed Logue, director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority from 1960 to 1968, presided over the city’s Urban Renewal program. Its centerpiece was the clearing of Scollay Square and the building of Government Center. The city had nine other urban renewal areas, including the Waterfront and several inner city neighborhoods.
Reality: Constitution Plaza in 1965 (above) replaced the downtown area of Hartford, CT below . Imagination: Freeways and giant skyscrapers in the center of the modern metropolis, at the Futurama exhibit of the New York World’s Fair, 1939.
Public Housing Mission Main (upper left) and Mission Main Extension, in a 1970s aerial. Public housing evolved from housing reform movements of the 19 th and early 20 th centuries (regulation, philanthropy, slum clearance, state-assisted worker suburbs) to a federal program fought for by activists and enacted under FDR by the Wagner Act in 1937. The last of the New Deal programs, endorsed by unions, it was sold as a construction program. Early public housing developments featured 3-story walkups, identical buildings designed to maximize sunlight and ventilation, in superblocks that eliminated streets, alleys, courts and yards. The cost of land after the war caused earlier planned walk-ups to be replaced by high rises. .
New England Executive Park
Setbacks
Reaction against modernism • lack of human scale • high crime rates and social problems. • Single Use Planning now concentrates on human scale and interaction, mixed use and diversity in society and the economy, emphasizing walkable communities not high speed highways. Experience V. Efficiency
IH Amendment
Height (IH) Superscript 7 of the Density Regulation Table for IH Within 200 feet of RO or RG ‐ 30 feet; for each 100 feet in excess of 200 feet from RO or RG ‐ 15 additional feet, with a maximum of 155 feet, except that no structure located within 1,800 feet of the center point of the intersection of Cambridge Street and Route 128 shall exceed 80 feet in height.
South View
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