The End of the Big City
Everywhere now human voice and vision are annihilating distance-penetrating walls. Wherever the citizen goes (even as he goes) he has information, lodging and entertainment. He may now be within easy reach of general or immediate distribution of everything he needs or to have or to know."
(Frank Lloyd Wright, 1935)
February 12, 1932 was the day Frank Lloyd Wright lectured to nearly 300 people at the City Club of Chicago. He lectured about the"rights of the individual and the broad acre city where every family will have at least on acre of land." Wright proclaimed, "We live in cities of the past. We can not solve our living and transportation problems by burrowing under and climbing over, and why should we? We will spread out and in so doing will transform our human habitation sites into those allowing beauty of design and landscaping, sanitation and fresh air, privacy and playgrounds, and a plot whereon to raise things."
Three years later, in the spring of 1935, Wright unveiled his proposal for Broadacre City. This was his utopian proposal for a semi-rural city of about 4,000 people. Broadacre was Wright's idea of a highly decentralized, technological, semi-autonomous and agrarian community spread thin over four square miles. Broadacre City was not located anywhere in particular, but it was seen as a large community that would cover the entire United States (Usonia in Wright's mind): the city becoming the entire country. Broadacre was originally met with enthusiasm, but was eventually ridiculed. In 1966, Norris Kelly Smith stated:
Judged by the pragmatic standards of the workaday world, it is so irrelevant that it has been
ignored- for the realization of Broadacre City would require the abrogation of the Constitution
of the United States, the elimination of thousands of government bodies from the make-up
of the state, the confiscation of all lands by right of eminent domain but without compensation,
the demolition of all cities and therewith the obliteration of every evidence of the country's history,
the rehousing of the entire population, the retraining of millions of persons so as to enable
themselves to be self-sustaining farmers, and other difficulties too numerous to mention.
Also, according to Robert C. Twombly, Broadacre "was farther reaching than the New Deal's Green belt towns which posited the continuation of the central city, of land-tenure systems, of restrictive zoning, and of traditional patterns of social organization. Broadacres assumed a completely new social fabric, a radical reordering of life-styles and priorities based on a rural-urban synthesis following a massive retreat from the city" (Zellner). Wright's utopia was not a supported idea.
Each city was a four square mile lot that was divided into one-acre lots. The city could house 1,400 families. "Standard elements in the Broadacre City proposal included: non-polluting factories, farm cooperatives, decentralized schools, hotels, design centers, markets, monorail and aerotor (helicopter) stations, an aquarium, motels, clinics, the county seat, orchards, a zoo, an arboretum, a community church, a sanatorium and an airport. All of these elements were to be neatly woven together by a grid of wide traffic arteries that would allow for unfettered private vehicular access and egress. These traffic routes would link Broadacre City to a larger super highway, connected presumably to other Broadacre Cities" (Zellner). The effect of Wright's Broadacre City is seen today in modern subdivisions. The lots are close to one acre in size and the entire subdivision can house a set number of families.
Three years later, in the spring of 1935, Wright unveiled his proposal for Broadacre City. This was his utopian proposal for a semi-rural city of about 4,000 people. Broadacre was Wright's idea of a highly decentralized, technological, semi-autonomous and agrarian community spread thin over four square miles. Broadacre City was not located anywhere in particular, but it was seen as a large community that would cover the entire United States (Usonia in Wright's mind): the city becoming the entire country. Broadacre was originally met with enthusiasm, but was eventually ridiculed. In 1966, Norris Kelly Smith stated:
Judged by the pragmatic standards of the workaday world, it is so irrelevant that it has been
ignored- for the realization of Broadacre City would require the abrogation of the Constitution
of the United States, the elimination of thousands of government bodies from the make-up
of the state, the confiscation of all lands by right of eminent domain but without compensation,
the demolition of all cities and therewith the obliteration of every evidence of the country's history,
the rehousing of the entire population, the retraining of millions of persons so as to enable
themselves to be self-sustaining farmers, and other difficulties too numerous to mention.
Also, according to Robert C. Twombly, Broadacre "was farther reaching than the New Deal's Green belt towns which posited the continuation of the central city, of land-tenure systems, of restrictive zoning, and of traditional patterns of social organization. Broadacres assumed a completely new social fabric, a radical reordering of life-styles and priorities based on a rural-urban synthesis following a massive retreat from the city" (Zellner). Wright's utopia was not a supported idea.
Each city was a four square mile lot that was divided into one-acre lots. The city could house 1,400 families. "Standard elements in the Broadacre City proposal included: non-polluting factories, farm cooperatives, decentralized schools, hotels, design centers, markets, monorail and aerotor (helicopter) stations, an aquarium, motels, clinics, the county seat, orchards, a zoo, an arboretum, a community church, a sanatorium and an airport. All of these elements were to be neatly woven together by a grid of wide traffic arteries that would allow for unfettered private vehicular access and egress. These traffic routes would link Broadacre City to a larger super highway, connected presumably to other Broadacre Cities" (Zellner). The effect of Wright's Broadacre City is seen today in modern subdivisions. The lots are close to one acre in size and the entire subdivision can house a set number of families.