Aleksandar Dekic

Compare New York and Brooklyn Urban Growth and Planning.

 

New York, or more specifically Manhattan, and Brooklyn goes a great way from being the unsettled area covered with forest and grass, full of many hills and valleys to become one of the biggest cities in the world.

Urban development of Manhattan and Brooklyn could not be possible without Dutch. Their purchase of Manhattan island and Brooklyn from the Native Americans set the cornerstone of today city. At first, it was set as a trading post. Manhattan developed faster than Brooklyn because the docks and the port were established in Manhattan for several reasons, the terrain is better and easier to develop, and it was easier to defend it. Dutch set the city in order to have easier access to the water, everything is turned toward that. At that time the best way of transportation and the easiest was by the boat.

With the British taking over the city, it came the new name that we use today, New York. They live peacefully with Dutch settlers and continue to develop the city outside the borders of first Dutch settlement. At first, their houses and properties were turned toward water and they try to organize the city to have public spaces, like parks, and to have access to the freshwater. In the same time, Brooklyn started to develop as a separate city with the smaller port but still remain without any planning.

It was John Randal Jr. that set the rectilinear grid of streets at Manhattan that we can see until today. There were few houses that were already built in the middle of the streets, but the city was determined to follow this plan. On the other side, Brooklyn starts late with urban planning, the settlement was already established, and the roads were dictated with the terrain. All this made Brooklyn struggle with several urban planning issues until this day.

With the construction of the bridges, first Brooklyn bridge and then the other bridges, these two separate cities merge to become one. Now when we talk about future urban growth and planning, we need to consider both sides of the East River in order to make a plan for further sustainable development, otherwise, everything else will bring us to the edge of collapse.