Thinking About Regional Planning Based on the Studies of Ebenezer Howard, Patrick Geddes and Milton Santos

Abstract

Urbanism, as an intellectual movement, born from the confrontation of the urban problems that have gained visibility from the Industrial Revolution, has had as main object models development, theories and solutions that would make conceptions of planned cities. In specific moments of this trajectory, certain characters plan not only to plan a city, but rather a set of cities, i.e., the region. The works of the planners Ebenezer Howard, Patrick Geddes and Le Corbusier, along with the 1933 Athens Charter have established theoretical and conceptual bases for regional planning. Otherwise, in the epistemology of Milton Santos there is the basis of the contemporary geography with a rich reflection on the space, the region and man's interaction with his environment. This article briefly aims to establish a link between these timeless works and contribute to the discussion on the future of regional planning.

Inventing critical development: A Brazilian geographer and his Northern networks

“…Santos’ archives confirm that he was a reader of Kropotkin, and that in his notes he addressed Kropotkin's urban writings, noting: “Will the capitalist city survive? The Engels’ despair and the Kropotkin's hope.” Brazilian scholarship suggests that there were similarities between Santos’ ideas and the works of authors sharing many of Reclus's and Kropotkin's views on urban matters, such as Patrick Geddes and Ebenezer Howard, especially around the notion of solidarity, “not based on the moral aspect, but on the coexistence [of social groups in space] by necessity of mutual protection” (Pozzer, Leite, Albuquerque, Argollo Ferrão, & Fuad Gattaz, , p. 59). If this recalls Kropotkin's concept of mutual aid, Kropotkin's books, including Mutual aid , fields factories and workshops and selected works in Spanish and Portuguese, were part of Santos’ personal library, also including Reclus's classics such as L'Homme et la Terre…”