Melvin M. Webber (

Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The city, located in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County, had a population of 121,054 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ce ...

, May 6, 1920 – Berkeley, November 25, 2006) was an

urban design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes based on geographical location. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, city, ...

er and theorist associated for most of his career with the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

but whose work was internationally important. He was a director of the university's Transportation Center, an author of classic theoretical papers and of major consulting reports, and an active contributor to debates on transportation policy, regional development and planning theory. His most important work was in the 1960s & 1970s when he pioneered thinking about cities of the future, adapted for the age of telecommunications and mass automotive mobility. These would not be concentric clusters as in the past but urban-associational areas. Webber's 1964 paper ''Urban Place and the Non-Place Urban Realm'' set the terms for much of his later work and introduced the idea of 'community without

propinquity In social psychology, propinquity (; from Latin ''propinquitas'', "nearness") is one of the main factors leading to interpersonal attraction. It refers to the physical or psychological proximity between people. Propinquity can mean physical proxi ...

': cities that were clusters of settlements with the urban realm of its occupants being determined by social links and economic networks in a 'Non-Place Urban Realm'. His 1974 article ''Permissive Planning'' developed the idea that urbanists should be enablers not designers or controllers, using an engineering approach to solving urban planning issues. In that paper he criticised urban designers for internalising 'the concepts and methods of design from civil engineering and architecture'. Webber was also well known for his collaboration with Berkeley colleague,

Horst Rittel Horst Wilhelm Johannes Rittel (14 July 1930 – 9 July 1990) was a design theorist and university professor. He is best known for popularizing the concept of ''wicked problem'', but his influence on design theory and practice was much wider. ...

in their seminal paper in 1973 on

wicked problem In planning and policy, a wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. It refers to an idea or problem that cannot be fix ...

s, ones that defied ready solution by the straightforward application of scientific rationality. He was later involved in the development of public transport, apparently regretting the car-focussed implications of his early work, though his theories are as applicable to transport planning as a car based approach to urbanism. One of the most developed examples of his ideas is the design for

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of Milton Keynes urban area, its urban area was 264,349. The River Great Ouse forms t ...

, a new city in England, built on a devolved and radical grid plan from 1967, where the Chief Architect Derek Walker described Webber as "the father of the city".''The Architecture and Planning of Milton Keynes'', Walker, D, The Architectural Press, London, 1982

Publications

* Rittel, H.W.J. & M.M. Webber. 1973. "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning." Policy Sciences 4(2):155–169

References

External links

Obituary
from

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Webber, Melvin M 1920 births 2006 deaths American urban planners History of Milton Keynes University of California, Berkeley people Urban designers

Publications

See also

References

External links