Robert Fishman and Critical Urban Studies - Assignment Example

Robert Fishman and Critical Urban Studies I. Introduction II. Fishman’s Critical Delineation of Urbanism III. Conclusion I. Introduction Robert Fishman is one of the pioneering urban design critiques in the world. He is associated with the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan for quite some time. He has written a number of critically acclaimed books such as “Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia (1987) and Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier (1977)”1.

 Besides, he won a number of prestigious prizes and awards related to urban planning including “Laurence Gerckens Prize for lifetime achievement of the Society for City and Regional Planning History; the Walker Ames Lectureship, the University of Washington, Seattle, 2010”2. The purpose of the essay is to have a glance at the works of Robert Fishman that is one of the legendary figures in urban planning and urban design. The present review looks at the key contributions of Robert Fishman to the understanding of new urbanism. II. Fishman’s Critical Delineation of Urbanism Fishman has concentrated much of his energies in understanding the myth of the urban wherein utopias and illusions govern the reality of the urban dwellers.

Fishman’s works are nt simply about the cities that we see around us but also the cities in our imagination . He is necessarily historical in many of his accounts of urban life. In understanding the urban utopias in twentieth century, he dwells much upon the works of three planners; “Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier”, and in order to answer the questions related to ideal city and social justice (Fishman, 1982, p.3). His analysis is full of many new insights. According to Fishman, these three great urban planners were trying to “escape from the inevitable limitations of short term solutions devised for particular cities.

Instead, they tried to consider the urban problem as a whole” (Fishman, 1982, p.3). Here, he is looking at some of the great beginners of urban studies for their organic contributions and revolutionary approaches to the understanding of urban issues and solutions. Not only in his studies, he highlighted the importance of collaborative efforts in building up urban theories but also he himself engaged in a number of collaborative academic projects which aimed at the development of urban studies.

Fishman always loved to dig upon the gap between real cities and imagined cities. However, he did not reject the imagined cities simply as utopian cities. Rather, for Fishman, urban utopias are very much constitutive of the urban realities. He always believes that cities are not the problem; on the other hand, human societies need new kinds of cities. It is the survival of the old cities that is threat to the human society. Therefore, Fishman argues to reinvent urbanism as a new way of life. In his celebrated book, Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia, Fishman argues that the suburban was not a unique product of America.

For him, the rise of suburbs had many parallels in London, Paris and Manchester. In Fisherman’s detailed study of the American planning tradition, he has looked at how the American planning gave importance for mastery of efficiency and grandeur. He has traced the history of American urban planning in a meticulous manner. Fishman look at the days of crisis for urbanism from the post-World War II days to the boom of 1980s and finds that American planning system has multiple continuities and discontinuities.

He has forcefully argued that “with far fewer resources, these planners of America’s great cities left a magnificent legacy of public spaces, public transit, public parks, public libraries, public schools, public health, and public safety” (Fishman, 2000, p.1). For Fisherman, urban architecture is much about the traditions that made it possible. It did not mean him that there cannot be any ruptures in the great traditions of urban life. On other hand, he himself would argue that it is the collapse of such traditions actually vitalise new forms of urbanism. III. Conclusion Fishman’s contributions to urban studies are remarkable, especially to the fields of urban architecture and urban design.

Among the scholars of urban life, he plays a significant role in deconstructing the myths and illusions of urbanism. As scholar, he is one of the leading authorities on American planning and urban traditions. End Notes 1. See, Fishman’s faculty profile at 2. ibid. References Fishman, R. (2000). The American Planning Tradition, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Fishman, R. (1988). Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia, New York: Basic Books. Fishman, R. (1977). Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century, New York: Basic Books.