What software architecture can learn from city planning?
I read a book about architecture once. It was a book about the architecture of cities and city planning. I found it fascinating and the whole topic to be surprisingly similar to software architecture. City architects look at the city as a single system with many conflicting purposes, each evolving through time, and try to build the best possible solution that can scale and be fault-tolerant. Sounds familiar? It is similar, but at the same time so much more difficult. Think about it — you can’t change the architecture of the city that easily after it was implemented. However, history knows examples of that as well; more on this later. We don’t realize how much the architecture of the cities we live in affects our lives and our thinking. Prominent architects of the past shaped the landscape of the whole country, from the USA to all USSR countries.
For example, I was born and lived in Russia for a long time, and every Russian knows the signature bleak and gray style of a provincial USSR or Western European city. And most Russians don’t ever ask the question of where did this come from and why. Turns out, we can thank a Frenchman for this style. That’s right, Le Corbusier, a famous French architect, came up with this style and promoted it around the world. Not every country bought it, but bits and pieces can be found almost anywhere. For example, MIT’s Studen Center. Just look at it; this shape is well-known to all who lived in post Soviet Union countries. He even proposed to demolish half of Paris and replace it with this new architecture. Thankfully, this plan was never adopted, but India allowed Corbusier to build the whole city — Chandigarh. To be fair, this architectural design was quite modern and forward-thinking at his time. It is very functional and a lot of its elements are still used in modern cities. In Soviet Russia, unfortunately, this approach was adopted in its ugliest form and shaped the environment of millions of people for many years.
But on the other hand, why are American cities the way they are? They are quite unlike towns in Europe or Asia. I would say prominent features of most American cities are distinct Downtown with high-rises, which become like a ghost town after 5 pm, a strip with all the bars and entertainment, and endless suburbs where most people live. Also, asphalt roads, are everywhere, so you can conveniently drive anywhere — to the atm, park, through a park, to Yellowstone right to the place where bison roam, to the university campus, and the ballot. All roads will be in excellent condition and will lead straight to the destination. God forbid if someone has to walk an additional 100 feet.
Again, why is it the way it is? Surprisingly it has to do with Henry Ford and Walt Disney. The invention of the car and car affordability shaped the thinking of architects at that time, and the first Disney World was actually the attempt of Walt Disney to build his dream Garden City and not an entertainment park. The attempt failed, and Walt Disney's heirs converted it into the park we know, but again, certain elements were adopted in modern city planning. For example, the city of Reston is built based on a similar plan. You can read more about that here: Reston.
There are many experimental cities in the US, including Santa Barbara, and cities built as gated communities with particular features. But general American city architecture is based on two main architects’ works: Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan. Wright shaped the idea of the American dream, where everyone should have their own home with a small white fence and proximity to the park. His ideas on architecture were quite interesting. Specifically, he saw the city ideal as a pastoral paradise layered in a certain way, so business, manufacturing, retail, and living areas do not mix but are still easily accessible through a network of roads. Living areas were supposed to be green and, well, pastoral. That’s why suburbs are so widespread in the US. This approach has a lot of drawbacks as well and has drawn a lot of criticism. Some architects even call it ‘Suburbian cancer’ because suburbs tend to grow uncontrollably and take up more and more space. Indeed, this approach is very decentralized and doesn’t allow for the efficiencies of concentrated cities typical in Western Europe or Asia. It is a somewhat similar problem to the software centralized vs. distributed dilemma, and architects were thinking about similar issues when solving it.
This is a very long topic, though, so I’m going to stop here for now. I think tech can learn a lot from the works of city architects. They understood the write-only nature of their work and put a lot of thinking into this problem.
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