Tearing up Paris of course would have been an unmitigated disaster. But all the same its important to realize how visionary this (and the slightly earlier Ville

Tearing up Paris of course would have been an unmitigated disaster. But all the same its important to realize how visionary this (and the slightly earlier Ville Contemporaine) was in the 1920s. Corbusier saw the city of the future far before others - cars as the dominant mode of transport giving people freedom to travel far, simply constructed skyscrapers with standardised apartment types but also with sanitation and services for all (a huge issue in Paris of that era). Of course along with this he didn't see the big issues we know now through bitter experience - car dominance destroying street life, lack of human scale and beauty in mass-produced buildings, poor safety/security, bleak open spaces, etc. Some perhaps are unfair to blame on him as they are in our mind as a result of poor/cheap implementation in other schemes. But we should at least marvel at what Corbusier did understand for his time and how clearly he was able to express it.