City as it relates to Nature
A series of metaphors of a city
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- Created by: emily
- Created on: 15-06-12 13:59
Analogies of Cities
- Because of a city's large physical inertia, they are long lasting.
- Subject to many different metaphors throughout its history
- Changing metaphors due to due to:
- Cultural change (even if the city remains the same)
- City change (even if the culture remains the same)
- Geographically there is a large variation in perceptions of cities across the globe at any time
- Cities exist on many scales
- List of 7 metaphors
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1. Cities as Sanctuaries
- Ancient Pagan cities were seen as homes and gifts of the gods
- Early Christian perception of the earthly city as the counterpart of the cosmic city...Heaven
- Seen as part of a bigger scheme
- Dark Ages perception one of spiritual and secular refuge from wilderness, pestilence, banditiry
- Civilisation within the city walls
- Cities seen as civilising forces
- Centres of creation
- Revitalised in the European Reformation, Renaissance and Enlightenment
- Development of sciences
- Revitalised in the European Reformation, Renaissance and Enlightenment
- Centres of creation
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2. Cities as Organisms
- Associated with the development of biology
- Cities appeared to have a life of their own
- They were born, grew, matured and died
- Terms of sustainability finite
- They were born, grew, matured and died
- Their functions were analogous to bodily functions
- Breathing, eating, excreting, reproduction etc
- Heavy dependence on nature noted
- Viewed as a part of - rather than apart from - nature
- Resurgent as a metaphor during times of morbidity and mortality
- Later part of the Industrial Revolution
- During times of heightened disillusion with technology and modernism
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3. Cities as Ecosystems
An advance of the organic view - Allows for visions of sustianability. Cities wil keep operation as long as they are in balance.
- Focuses on the internal structures (organs)
- Reflecting developments in Ecology from the late 19th Century.
- Greater emphasis placed on the interaction between the city and its environment
- Sociological input in the mid-20th Century and systematic ecological input during the late 20th Century contributed to urban ecology
- Today's most influential approach to urban analysis and management
- Popular notion of 'Back to Nature' entwined with ecological metaphor.
- Cities were seen as out of balance and un-natural
- Proper environmental management might be able to 'restore the balance.'
- Cities were seen as out of balance and un-natural
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Cities as Ecosystems - Bioregionalism
A universal concept that combines:
- System analysis
- Notion of natual bioregions
- The focus is on identifying the biophysical opportunties and constraints in each landscape
- Ensuring we don't exceed the the environmental limits
- Each city should adjust their ecological footprint to fit the limits of the bioregion within which it is sited
- Every scale could be more sustainable when aware of limits and opportunities
- Practical limitations of this are enourmous
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4. Cities as Machines
- Seen as mechanistic
- Products of human ingenuity, especially during the Industrial Revolution.
- Seen as the physical embodiment of power
- Integrated and powered the various discrete but interdependent components.
- Technocratic management would ensure the progress of cities
- Traditional organic or cultural views of a city were associated with rural folk and cultures
- Dismissed as Backward
- Traditional organic or cultural views of a city were associated with rural folk and cultures
- Became a powerful icon of modernisation and Man's ability and wish to conquer Nature
- Gender differences. Female organics and masculine machines.
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5. Cities as Deserts
- Cities began to be percieved as forsaken by life/God
- In part from organic and ecological movements
- Compare to Sanctuary
- Seen as morally and legally corrupt. Unsustainable and Irredeemable
- Mankind as the agent of spiritual and environmental desertification
- Civilisation, urbanisation and humans seen as destructive, not creative forces
- Based on the assumption that only wild areas were sufficiently remote to be untouched by humanity. And should be left that way.
- As centres of human activity, cities are the places most alienated by Nature
- Wilderness became iconically good, not bad (as it had been in other metaphors)
- Environmental management seen as destructive.
- Unbridgeable gap (duality) between Man and Nature
- Old idea in the west, but foreign to other cultures
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6. Cities as Vortices - Black Holes
- Developed during the Space Race (expanding public interest in astronomy) and is also part of the cities as ecosystems view
- Emphasised cities as all-consuming Black Holes
- Deserts are inert and spatially isolated
- Unless involved in expansion through a process of desertification
- Destructive nature of cities evidenced by ecological footprints and Life-Cycle Analysis
- Through their hinterlands, cities consume vast amounts of energy, material, labour, capital and ideas
- Spoil huge areas with their waste
- Emphasised by radical development theory in the 70's and 80's
- This view offers little hope for redemption or sustainability of cities
- Why should we bother with sustainability efforts?
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7. Cities as New Nature
- An alternative and more recent idea.
- A challenge to the idea that cities lack biodiversity
- Rejection of the old ideas and binaries (Man vs. Nature)
- Rediscovery of the natural history of cities
Cities:
- Are biodiverse due to habitat diversity
- Have abundant and healthy flora and fauna because of reliable resources and less predators
- Protect some rare and endangered species.
- Contain species long adapted to humans
- Offer great opportunity for conservation
- Offer the largest engagement with nature
- Are ecologically dynamic
- Are subject to natural or near natural environment processes
- Need environmental management
- Misleadingly seen as the only site of human disturbance
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Mixed Metaphors
- Today western perceptions are influenced by all of the potentially compteting metaphors
- The conflict between the desert and new nature views poses fundamental challenges for environmental management and notions of sustainability
- If a city is a bastion of nature then doesn't it reduce the value of wilderness for nature conservation and human engagement with nature?
- The conflict stems from the differences between nature of nature, nature of knowledge and the nature of truth
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Conclusion
- If a city remains a biological desert or a vortex, and continues to exploit nature
- Possibilities of it being environmentally sustainable are low
- The machine analogy is more contradictory
- Promises progress or decline depending on your view of technology.
- Machines are not inherently sustainable (linear systems
- Technology viewed by some critics as inappropropriate
- Alternatively, the dualism between city and nature may be entirely misleading.
- The prospects for sustainability may be greater than we currently imagine.
- Something entirely different?
- The prospects for sustainability may be greater than we currently imagine.
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