Reconceiving urban planning strategies and cities after the big oil crisis of the 1970s: New challenges and the new mobility and ecology turn

In 1973, after the big oil crisis both general public and experts were shocked after the decision taken by the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) to increase oil price. Within this context, the expression “end of civilization” was used to refer to the idea of an unlimited growth. In 1972, a report entitled “The Limits to Growth” signed by a rather mysterious “Club of Rome” expressed some concerns about the exponential economic and population growth in front of a finite supply of resources. The aforementioned report was the outcome of a study that was based on a computer simulation, which was produced at MIT and aimed to examine the consequences of the interactions between earth and the human systems. A decade earlier, in the 1960s, Jane Jacobs, in The Death and Life of Great American Cities published in 1961 analysed urban sprawl and contemporary displacement from central to suburban areas. During the 1970s, after a first phase of disorientation if not even panic, there was a phase of a more reflective kind of reaction expressed through the declaration of a necessity to revise that model by limiting growth, in a large spectrum of sectors, running from national economies to urban settlements. In the meanwhile, the debates about urban planning had been affected by a new sensitiveness for built-up heritage and natural environment. The debates about urban planning during the 1970s were dominated by a tension between those who criticized strategies that characterised the post-war period, such as the strategies that supported “urban renewal” and “slum clearance”, and those who believed in “ecology” and the intention to achieve a balance in the interaction between humans and their natural environment. More recently, the notion of “new mobility” has acquitted an important place. The interest in this notion goes hand in hand with the intention to explore urban planning strategies that aim to contribute to a significant reduction in the use of individual car, and to an increase of the use of public ...