Broadacre City Analysis

Scattered among the small farms of the community would be all the institutions of advanced society, including factories, schools, stores, professional buildings, and cultural centers. These are all small scale and located in such a way as to ensure that there is no central point around which people and power can cluster. Local hospital, clinics, office buildings, churches, and gasoline stations would be located in the midst of farmland and forest, all linked by an extensive network of road and highways. A single freeway and railroad system would provide access to other Broadacre cities (Nelson, 1995).
Using the modern rule of thumb for a family - oriented household size of three, the present population base of Broadacre city would be about
Until 1934, its existence only in writing; in 1934, almost three years after his original verbal presentations, the Broadacre vision was rendered in physical detail. In that year, Wright undertook the construction of a twelve-by-twelve foot model of a hypothetical four square mile section of Broadacre city (Dehaene, 2002). In the Broadacre Model, Wright gave us a preview of his vision of the city of the future, not as a readily consumable image but rather, in a way similar to the art of landscape painting, as the suggestion of a possible viewpoint, or better, a fusion of multiple viewpoints into a contemplative viewpoint. It was from this point of view that the city of Broadacres appeared on the horizon as a future oriented ideal (Dehaene,
Broadacre city is thus a large degree, condemned to dependency upon urban centers for many vital functions. It follows that Broadacre city must be planned and designed to play a definitive role in the urban region while serving its principal function of an exurban neighborhood (Nelson, 1995).
Perhaps many of the functional limitations of Broadacre city can be overcome by allowing for a larger population base but holding to the central planning and design scheme (Nelson, 1995). One way to overcome remaining limitations is to plan for a network of Broadacre cities within region(Nelson, 1995).
Wright claimed that Broadacre city could not be built piecemeal, but could exist only as the product of the whole nations' conversion to its physical and social principles. In fact, Wright stated, "Broadacre city is to be everywhere or nowhere. It is the country itself come alive as a truly great city." He envisioned a steady shrinking of cities by the migration of "runaways" or "individuals whose flight from urban life would create the conditions for Broadacre city in three or four generations (Nelson,