The Great Urban Crime (“CONFESSIONS OF A CRIMINAL”)

The Great Urban Crime that We Permit By Law

There are many such crimes. here author put light on two of them by which author convinced to create the most serious problems for everyone and which are responsible for the gravest injustices suffered by :

weaker citizen, permitting the affluent and powerful to profit at all expense of all others.

these crimes are:

1.the exploitation of urban land and the immense profits obtained from inflated land values.

2.these profits are by no means equal for  all landowner, despite that the majority of constitutions proclaim EQUAL RIGHT FOR ALL CITIZEN.

3.The exploitation of urban space by a minority who build high-rise buildings for their own financial gain.

● As a statement entitled, “confession of a criminal” author accused himself as his profession’s contribution to these and related crimes. .

The obvious conclusion is that every citizen should profit from the use of all urban land and urban space.This is not true in practice, and conditions which allow a small number of land owners to benefits from total human effort made by all citizens result in the greatest of urban crimes.

First crime is the exploitation of land for the benefits of the few. a number of reason why this happening few of them are given :

1.land prices increase much more sharply in areas selected for city’s expansion.

2. The cost of land is much higher in areas designated for urgently needed highways, roads, water, and power networks, etc.

3.Since growing cities need consistent remodeling, land values are higher in areas destined for publicly financed urban renewal schemes.

High-rise buildings create the following major problems:

1.They work against Nature, or in modem terms, the environment. They destroy the scale of the landscape and obstruct normal air circulation, so causing automotive and industrial discharges to collect in pockets of severe pollution which cannot easily be dispersed. The most successful cities of the past have been those where Man and his constructions were in a certain balance with Nature.

2.High-rise buildings work against Man, himself, because they isolate him from others, and this isolation is an important factor in the rising crime-rate. Children suffer even more because they lose their direct contacts with Nature and other children.

4.High-rise buildings work against Society because they prevent the units of social importance -the family, the extended family, the neighborhood, etc.- from functioning as naturally and as normally as before.

5.High-rise buildings destroy the urban landscape by eliminating all values which existed in the past. Human symbols such as churches, mosques, temples of ail kinds,city-halls, which once rose above the city, are now below the skyscrapers.

We may not agree that God or Government should rise above Man, but are we ready to agree that symbols of capital gain should rise above everything else?

Similarly, we are beginning to obliterate many traditional villages and cities with the soaring hotels we build for those who come to see and admire them.

Does this make any sense? Another danger stressed by some experts should not be overlooked: earthquakes may cause unforeseen problems both for the skyscrapers and their surroundings.

üThese problems are ecological, humanistic, social, technological, and cultural. Experts from all disciplines have met in Greece to discuss them and to suggest

possible solutions. 

The Causes of the Crimes :

It is very probable that cannibalism may have been quite prevalent in many parts of the world some 200 to 500 thousand years ago when the species of homo erectus known as Peking Man (Pithecanthropus pekinensis) inhabited the earth. One might well contend, therefore, that cannibalism was not a crime until Man recognized it as such. But this contention does not change

the substance of our subject.

Cannibalism was and still is a crime, no matter when Man became aware of it as such and started punishing it. Similarly, the construction of high-rise buildings for the benefit of the few is definitely a crime, and it is time that we realize it.

Is it really the first incidence of this crime in history? Taken to such an enormous scale in terms of height and volume, it certainly is the first manifestation.

In human cities property owners always had equal rights.

Buildings rose to a certain height, varying from one story to four or five stories in walled cities where greater density was necessary. This "normal" height was exceeded only by the edifices of the church or government or by fortresses, which were for the protection of all citizens. This is true both of ancient and medieval cities.

Why :

Then, for the first time in history, have we become criminals in our cities? Because it is only in modern times that cities have experienced such rapid growth, are so vast, require so much space, and have an income and technology which permit any type of construction.

Only now do cities have populations exceeding one million, which until 1800 A.D. was the limit. Only in our age are there so many cars that each citizen needs more and more space.

Even if the high-rise is considered the best solution for the city as a whole (this may happen in rare instances), we are still faced with one serious problem:

 why should only one property gain all the profit?

The Need for a New Urban Land Policy:

In the new city each citizen would receive a farm as well as a piece of land and one room so that life could start normally. There are many other instances of this kind of solution and the lesson is clear: when a change is necessary, all citizens must be given equal rights and no individual should be allowed to exploit the others.

§The time has come to understand that every individual is following new trends established by mankind's evolution.

Nobody should have to pay for these universal trends; the few who own land in the path of the developing urban system should not be allowed to profit. A new policy is needed and this should be the following:

§Those who come from the villages should be given (and be helped to acquire) basic facilities such as water, electricity, and one room.

§If we do not do this, we create a wide gap between those who have and those who have not, and thus allow a grave injustice to continue unchecked. This policy is imperative,

but how can any government implement it?

•Here we must come to the realization that we are all victims of a great misunderstanding: a misunderstanding of the meaning  landownership.

•When Man defines his own territories, first as a hunter and then as a cattle-breeder and farmer, there was no problem at all; every group, family, or individual, had their own territory. When Man started building villages and cities, legislation became necessary entitling every landowner to ownership of the whole space above and below his property. Each landowner possesses a cone that begins at the center of our planet, passes through the boundaries of his property and extends into outer space.

In modern times this traditional concept of ownership is losing its initial significance and is becoming an impracticable theory. The reasons for this are:

1. Ownership of land down to the center of the earth has not been possible in practice since the advent of the first underground railways. Landowners can really penetrate down only a few stories.

2. The concept of ownership reaching into outer space has also been impracticable from the time the first balloons flew over everybody's properties, and especially now that airplanes fly everywhere.

3. Now that many stories of offices or apartments are built and sold to different individuals, even landowners themselves admit that the notion of landownership has changed.

In all these and other respects the traditional concept of landownership is no longer valid and the following changes have occurred:

1. There are now limits to the height and depth of landownership.

2. The notion of landownership has really become that of space ownership.

•The implementation of this policy will not only prevent many crimes in the urban space. It will also bring all profits from the use of urban space to the city as a whole.

•Then the city will have the funds to implement a policy by which urban land would be given to those who have not.

•A new policy for control of urban space is thus of prime importance, because it also leads to the solution of the problem of urban land ownership.

What I propose is merely an adjustment of the changes in urban development to Man's real desires.

 It dedicate it to the continent of Africa for two reasons:

1. As the continent which has suffered least harm from air and space pollution, it can be the first to avoid these urban crimes and thus conserve many of its traditional values.

2. By doing this successfully, it can set an example and influence other nations, and thus do a lot of good for Man on the earth.