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In modern times, people have no issue with such an essential and clearly understood notion as a city. However, there was a period when the entire idea of living conditions in the rapidly developing world was heavily disputed. According to Steiner and Van Dyke, modern cities were getting unfit for regular people to live in. There was a rising issue with harmony between humans, the machines they have built, and the planet itself. This essay focuses on the fundamental ideas and questions posed by the documentary “The City” by Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke.
In one of the options produced by the authors, the overall image of a city that was shown in the documentary seemed chaotic and unsustainable. The authors of this documentary were conveying a simple, clear, yet vital statement for the future of the United States. Throughout this documentary, Steiner and Van Dyke highlight the fact that people need to find a way to live in harmony with nature and with themselves in order to prosper. Steiner and Van Dyke state that “We [people] never let our cities grow too big for us to manage.” Their position is clear: industrialization has its complications, and it is not the type of prosperity that the average citizen strives to see.
The second part of the documentary, however, depicts another take on city life. The primary thought that the authors put in their message is that people must find a way to create a sustainable approach to achieve progress without sacrificing the quality of human lives. In my opinion, humanity has achieved success for a significant part of the world in terms of improving the lives of people who live in urban areas. The harmonious ideals of a city that integrates technology and nature have been attained in several cities of the United States and across the globe.
After watching this film, I could not help but agree with the vision of the authors. Out of complexity, we created a tangled mess of human lives that were forced into a tight space together. People in cities became the faceless crowd, and they were depicted as less caring, more nervous. Moreover, the fragility of human life in the age of machines made people desensitized to the tragedy of others. The rules that should manage this flaw were still in the making, not fully formed yet. I fully agree with the author’s position that cooperation should always be in the first place. This documentary provides an in-depth look into a crucial part of revolutionizing ideas that were brought into the modern world and shaped human society.
In conclusion, city planning must first and foremost take into consideration the quality of life of its inhabitants, instead of focusing solely on efficiency and productivity. The idea of creating a sustainable community that lies in the core of a city is heavily developed up to today. The authors of the documentary argue that it is “a choice and willingness to take action” that drive the progress and create an actual difference. Nowadays, there are multiple projects that aim to raise the quality of human lives and the ecosystem around them. Komninos et al. describe several “well-known cases of smart city strategy: Singapore Intelligent Nation, Amsterdam Smart City”. New infrastructures in cities further increase citizens’ safety and satisfaction by implementing the latest technologies, such as the Internet of Things, into people’s daily lives. This effort shows how much humanity has achieved after choosing the right approach between two courses of action that were presented in the documentary.
References
Komninos, N., Kakderi C., Pansori, A. and Tsarchopoulos, P. “Smart City Planning from an Evolutionary Perspective.” Journal of Urban Technology, 26, no. 2 (2019): 3-20.
Steiner, Ralph and Willard Van Dyke, The City, Documentary film, directed by Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke (New York, NY: The American Documentary Film inc., 1939), Vimeo.
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