Hayden’s article on place commences with an insight into what it means to say architecture as opposed to  what is vernacular, and further, how a neighborhood is defined.  Presenting a he-said she-said contrast allowed easy insight to the two sides of the debate, as well as clear logic that a happy equilibrium of both in terms of perspective, and preservation is necessary.  By that, I mean that architecture chosen as representative of their time and place should not only be indicative of the time through it’s historical impact (such as the vernacular, working class buildings with cultural significance) but also preserve the beauty of the architecture, such as those many buildings by McKim, Mead, and White.  It is so important to have places that show the “essence” of a city through its society (the people) and the politics, which should, if being preserved, have some significance and meaning, and message, that makes them worth keeping around.  Purely-for-beauty preservation, well funds can be better allocated, especially if the public wouldn’t even have access to these luxurious sites.

In his discussion over the many aspects of design that goes into considering the built environment of an urban landscape, Hayden touches on an important theme when referring to the ideas of Lefebvre.  Lefebvre argues that “the production of space is essential to the inner workings of the political economy,” thus illustrating the inherent tie between capitalism and the architecture of a city.  It becomes evident in tract houses, malls, the identical suites in skyscrapers, all loose a sense of identity, history, and meaning  in their repetitious modularity.  Comparing this back to last weeks class, it becomes painfully obvious that so much of the built environment is not influenced by the social factor (when in reality, this should be the most important – buildings and cities are for people), but rather they are designed with profit in mind.  This incentive not only pushes for appeal to the upper class inhabitants, but also for the cheapest possible production, which means laying out one design and repeating it to meet quota.  Architecture, a field encompassing of so many aspects of living, strives to design for the user most efficient to their way of life, and when presented with problems, will strive for solutions.  I find it disheartening how much design is compromised for cost, and thus people and their ways of living become dependent on the market.

Thus, when Hayden argues that architecture as a discipline “has not seriously considered social or political issues,” I find it works poetically when he goes further to say that society develops without consideration of space and design, but I think this is false.  Design of space completely affects the way societies develop, and further on in the article, his examples of analysis of areas with radical political systems, such as communist cities, only furthers the point that design and social/political issues are not mutually exclusive.  They are fundamentally related.  In looking into the future design, architecture of course needs to understand the social implications of its time and space, as well as how the grander layout will affect a city and its people politically.  We see this so easily in retrospect, such as in the tenement houses that not only tell of a time when code wasn’t enforced, when immigrants worked hard for little pay to support families, and when a corrupt city struggled to make important advances in the lifestyles of its citizens.  Tenements, however negative in light, tell us so much about the culture of the time, the society, and the politics.  There is so much to learn from them moving forward with housing, and relatively, so much to learn about design implementation based on what worked and what didn’t in our past.  Hayden suggests this; urban planning can be influenced by digging into the past, recongnizing the “social diversity of the cities as well as communal uses of space,” and creating a heightened sense of “place.”

Question: Will design always have to be compromised for cost, or can a new system where designing is made priority and profit secondary be implemented to better society?