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Article: Search for utopia: planners are constantly looking for ways to design our cities that will banish their social evils.
- Article from:
- Canada and the World Backgrounder
- Article date:
- March 1, 1996
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Canada & the World. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Social engineers are people who try to solve society's problems through the use of technology. They don't like the haphazard and sometimes messy way in which Nature organizes things. Social engineers were put on this Earth to design cities.
Archeologists poking about in the ruins of ancient cities find evidence of early social engineering. Housing is often arranged in regular, rectangular patterns. Religious and government buildings are put in prominent positions along main roads.
The first name that crops up in this field is Hippodamus of Miletus, known as the father of town planning. Three thousand years ago he emphasized geometry in his designs. The Romans ...