Brasilia from space:
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| By NASA/Paolo Nespoli - Flickr, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31770196 |
Most cities just grow. By the time anyone tries to get them under control, they have already sussed out the local water supply, the arable land situation, the likely places for defensive structures, ports, markets, etc.
Most cities just grow, and the process has an indomitable nature to it.
Since the mid-19th century, when Paris was redrawn by Baron Haussmann under the direction of Napolean III, various notions of urban planning have inspired the efforts of municipal leaders to make their cities "better."
Since the mid-19th century, when Paris was redrawn by Baron Haussmann under the direction of Napolean III, various notions of urban planning have inspired the efforts of municipal leaders to make their cities "better."
How is that going? I become curious about the careers of planned cities, intentional communities, simulated cities on a scale of the real.
Brasilia was a made-from-scratch capital city for a new government in Brasil, back in the sixties. It was conceived by a priest in a dream, in 1830, and took 130 more years to come true. Dubai is world famous for its Burj tower, and 100 years ago it was a sleepy backwater in the middle of the desert, relying on a ton of support daily to keep from reverting to a barren hot sandbox..
Cities are fascinating because the are massive expressions of the conscious and unconscious meeting; developing, unfolding into a space you can stroll through. While all cities need water and a region which supplies them with the daily food needs, almost every other aspect is negotiable.
What about governance? Does governance emerge through the same mysterious process as language and organ differentiation in the human body, or is it a reactive function which occurs in the presence of threat, and then tends to stick around indefinitely?
In Lagos, Nigeria, we can find a close approximation of a self-designing "emergent" city. The example is skewed by the fact that the location and population are determined by exclusion from the monied, propertied population of Lagos proper. Instead, the self-defining city in Lagos is a pariah community that nevertheless has power, ordering principles, enforcment of written and unrwritten rules. It falls under the category of "agglommeration" which I like better than "emergent."
Do agglomeration cities work better than planned cities, or cities forced into calculated constraints that work against the sensibility of the immediate location?
In Lagos, Nigeria, we can find a close approximation of a self-designing "emergent" city. The example is skewed by the fact that the location and population are determined by exclusion from the monied, propertied population of Lagos proper. Instead, the self-defining city in Lagos is a pariah community that nevertheless has power, ordering principles, enforcment of written and unrwritten rules. It falls under the category of "agglommeration" which I like better than "emergent."
Do agglomeration cities work better than planned cities, or cities forced into calculated constraints that work against the sensibility of the immediate location?
This question is the axis around which the rest of this blog will spin.
And the growth of cities is a dance between the conscious intention of the leadership of a region, and the spontaneous, urgent needs of those drawn to, or born in, the city. This encounter and collision and seduction is unpredictable.
But we love to sit in outdoor cafes and watch it happen.
I am making reservations for the first outdoor cafe in outer space.
I am making reservations for the first outdoor cafe in outer space.
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