City Planning: Why it Works in Europe

As the official magazine of Rotary International, The Rotarian covers a broad range ofcontemporary topics from travel and culture, to community service and the environment. This issue features several articles concerning urban design and the way in which a city's infrastructure affects it's inhabitants. In the article'City Planning: Why it Works in Europe,' architect Martin Zimmerman offers a view of cities in Finland, Sweden and Holland and suggests several reasons for the success of urban planning in Western Europe.

“For reasons that might elude the casual observer, city planning is happening on an unprecedented scale not only in North America, but in the phoenix that is modern Western Europe…. It is evident to architects and city planners, as well as to alert lay people, that city planning in Europe is indeed accepting the challenge of the 'metropolitan explosion.' …Curiously, they are not endowed with more wealth, resources, or talent than can be found in the urban centers of the U.S.A. What, then, are the reasons for their success?”