Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed

formal order of a geometrically regular urban space is just that: formal order

pedestrian in the middle of this grid cannot instantly perceive the larger design of the city

order in question is most evident, not at street level, but rather from above and from outside

-eye view of central Chicago in the late nineteenth century (William Penn’s Philadelphia or New Haven would do equally well) serves as an example of the grid city

For an outsider—or a policeman—finding an address is a comparatively simple matter; no local guides are required. The knowledge of local citizens is not especially privileged vis-a-vis that of outsiders

Illegibility, then, has been and remains a reliable resource for political autonomy

Aesthetic considerations frequently won out over the existing social structure and the mundane functioning of the city. “Long before the invention of bulldozers,” Mumford adds, “the Italian military engineer developed, through his professional specialization in destruction, a bulldozing habit of mind

Aesthetic considerations frequently won out over the existing social structure and the mundane functioning of the city. “Long before the invention of bulldozers,” Mumford adds, “the Italian military engineer developed, through his professional specialization in destruction, a bulldozing habit of mind: one that sought to clear the ground of encumbrances, so as to make a clear beginning on its own inflexible mathematical lines

functioned spatially in much the same way a difficult or unintelligible dialect would function linguistically

cityscape of Bruges in 1500 could be said to privilege local knowledge over outside knowledge, including that of external political authorities