Synthesis of the Problems of the City Centres

Abstract

One of the major problems confronting the important European city centres is the tremendous physical expansion which has occurred and which, in the centres, has produced scores of new office buildings as a by-product of the growth of the office function in our time, and as an expression of our need for an increase in physical work space. While growth per se of the office sector is not a negative event, the fact that it has occurred in a small, concentrated area in an already crowded environment in the city centre has created specific negative repercussions. One of these is the large increase in daily workers who are concentrated now in the centre, who must arrive and depart from the centre at the same time and who seek the necessary urban services within a district whose function has changed. The multi-dimensional character and function of the centre has been and continues to be replaced by a mono-typical building - the office block - and a monotypical function - office work. The physical image of our centres is no longer the same; we face the threat of a changed skyline, a changed street frontage, a loss of the special quality which we have in the past associated with the diversity found in our cities.