Revisiting Engles' "The Great Towns"
I am, admittedly, one of so many designers who come from a rural, conservative background who entered university staunchly protecting the right-leaning ideologies that were passed down to me from my father who had a real crisis of identity when I began to read and learn independently. Once I put the ideologies of the rural capitalist against the learned communist, I have certainly shifted my views to align much more closely with the latter over the last six years. This is one of the reasons that when being handed some Engels to read on day one of a community planning class, I knew right away that I was going to align right along with the ideologies of the class, and became excited to see what could come out of this framing every week. It is hard to learn about the communities that we will design for and still tout the ideologies of "rugged individualism" and "capitalism above all else". These ideologies do little to serve the average man, woman, and child in this co...
