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Agents of Transformation and the "Death" of Urbanism Preeminence of the Decorated Shed Staging Uncertainty |
[1M2] ENTERPRISE ZONE.
Today, the spirit of the Cité Industrielle appears in the unlikely manifestation of the post-industrial enterprise zone. For better or worse, the enterprise zone represents the most likely model for tomorrow’s city. Conceptually, it is a sophisticated interchange comprised of a variety of transportation infrastructures, home to the branch offices and factories of powerful corporations, and characterized by particular economic and political trade freedoms. It is likely to be located outside of traditional city centers, where land costs are low and the planning of large developments is relatively unrestricted. Such high volumes of international trade are now conducted in enterprise zones that they are the focus of logistics, a young school of business concerned with distribution analysis and scheduling.
18Frampton, Kenneth, Modern Architecture: A Critical History (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980) p. 102 19Castells, Manuel and Hall, Peter, Technopoles of the World: The Making of 21st Century Industrial Complexes (London: Routledge Press, 1993) p. 1 20Ibid., p. 1 Images: 1. Tony Garnier, Cité Industrielle (1904-17), 2. Alliance Development Corporation, 3. Map of Alliance Development
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Early visions of today’s city are manifest in Tony
Garnier’s Cité Industrielle, first exhibited in 1904, which clearly described
the fundamental technical and economic precepts for establishing and organizing the modern
city. In what many consider to be the first act of tabula rasa, Modern master
planning, Garnier designed a self-sufficient settlement for 35,000 based on industry, with
various functions zoned in discreet areas, connected by multiple infrastructural systems;
a railway, a canal, roads, and an airport. The renderings of Garnier’s project
foreshadowed a new, sprawling urban scale defined by the practical zoning requirements of
the latest industrial and transportation technologies. Garnier’s Cité made a strong
influence on Le Corbusier, whom he met in Lyons in 1908, and anticipated the zoning
principles implemented in the CIAM Athens Charter of 1933.18
Enterprise
zones are typically connected to airports which handle large quantities of freight cargo.
Alliance Airport (1988), located north of Fort Worth, is a private facility owned and
operated by Ross Perot, Jr. which feeds a 12,000 acre complex of private research and
development companies, distribution operations, residential communities, and various
amenities. The heart of the Alliance development is the Intermodal Transportation Center,
located at the confluence of the Santa Fe railway and NAFTA corridor (Highway 35W),
adjacent to the airport. Of particular significance is the free trade zone status of the
ITC, which allows tax immunity on merchandize exchanged within its gates. The free port
tax exemption makes the site attractive economically to product development corporations
as well as shipping companies, who are eager to reduce freight costs. With help from the
City of Fort Worth, Alliance Corporation develops all of the required infrastructure on
site, and maintains a speculative warehouse and building
program for companies who decide to move there. These companies can feed from the
plentiful labor pool and other resources offered by Fort Worth, while conducting less
restricted business outside of the city. In many aspects, Alliance is a leech on the city;
in other aspects, Alliance is the new city.
The
technopole is one form of enterprise zone, described by Manuel Castells and Peter Hall to
be the mine and foundry of the informational economy.19
As in the case of Alliance, technopoles are generally planned developments. Some are pure
private sector real-estate endeavors, but most are the products of cooperation between the
public and private sectors. Technopoles are characterized by the partnership of research
institutions and companies with the common goal of generating "the basic materials of
the informational economy."20 Some examples include Silicon Valley; Tsukuba Science City,
outside of Tokyo; Cartuja, Seville; Hsinchu, in Taiwan; Tunisia Technology Center, Tunis;
and Izmir Environmental Technology Park, Izmir, Turkey. Technopoles are all strangely
similar despite their existence outside of virtually every city in the world, and in
affecting powerful socioeconomic transformations, have begun to redefine the course of
urban development.
A Master's Thesis in Architecture at Rice University by Blaine Brownell. Copyright © 1998 by Blaine Brownell. All rights reserved. |
