Читать книгу The Climate City - Группа авторов - Страница 35

Martin Powell

From the dawn of time, well since 4500 BCE, people have been telling stories from great cities – from Uruk and Mesopotamia, to Athens and Rome, to London, Hong Kong, and New York – each city having formed an identity based on events through time attributed to their name. Cities are places where people go to, to live, to work, and to raise families. Cities are unique; they have a singular identity and an individual story. Jerusalem, the only city to exist twice, on Earth and in heaven; Venice, a road surface made of water; New York, the city that never sleeps. These identities were forged from inhabitants and visitors, reinforced through time, and ultimately immortalized in their name. The significance of this will become apparent as we navigate through the city archetypes, the governance structures, and the megatrends that are driving an unprecedented change in the natural course of city development – a change that only cities are truly equipped to handle.

In Italy, the “piazza” is the “city”, its symbolic centre where people “descend” to celebrate or protest. It is the soul of local pride, a concept that is close to “campanilisimo” – the affection for one’s own bell tower – and depending on the level of desire to contribute to local society is how much of a “campanilista” I am – how attached I am to my local bell tower. The significance of this place in all cities has defined the great cities across the world. It is a safe place to have a voice, to be heard, to be told, and most importantly for the citizens to transact with the government over the direction of the city.

The magnitude of the problems over which opinions are voiced in the “Piazza” has not changed over time. In Florence in 1784, the local archives¹ talk of a council gathering to discuss the construction of 50 new homes in the grand plan of the 500 needed. The population of Florence then, according to local records, was 78,537. A similar discussion held by the London Assembly, in 2020, spoke of the need to build 50,000 homes in a city of 8 million people – exactly the same magnitude of problem, proportionate to the scale of the city: the same constraints; the same concerns over affordability, access to transport, and access to green spaces; and the same people with divergent interests inhibiting progress. To say we have not learned how to do it would be wrong because cities today are underachieving against these targets to the exact same scale as they did in 1784. It’s never fast enough, good enough, or just plain “enough”, but it does get done to a point. The risk of trying to meet the demand required when we need it is that we get it so wrong we end up failing completely, and in an urban environment this is unforgivable.

We can show our greatest innovation when the need exists. In Cities in Civilizatio², Sir Peter Hall gives an optimistic account of urban history since Athens. Peter was a planner and distinguished academic who refutes predecessors, such as Lewis Mumford, with their dire prophecies that the modern metropolis is doomed. Mumford was clear that cities were “organic” entities that could not exceed their natural limits without terrible consequences. Cities were on a self-defeating quest for increasing size and power, leading to environmental degradation, social dis-cohesion, and cultural barbarism. He cites cities such as Rome and New York. Peter acknowledges that these cities were lawless, overcrowded, and unhealthy, but argues that cities are central to civilization because their sheer size and complexity make them the natural place for “the innovative milieu”. Bringing together the critical mass of creative people takes a “great city”, because the city enables this network of innovators that ultimately enables society to progress. It is clear the cultural centrality of cities will continue to intensify even in a connected world where virtual networks seem to nullify the need for this city co-location of talent.

Peter observes that past histories of success were attributed to the city being a cultural incubator – Athens and Florence – or a technological innovator – Detroit or Silicon Valley – but now that civilization has embarked on “a marriage of art and technology”, a synthesis of these two forms of innovation will create a new culture. The synthesis will take place in large, diverse cities and attract a huge range of skills. It is because of this he believes the city is on the verge of a “golden age”.

In the post-war era, the capitalist urban economy showed real resilience, strength, and agility as the entrepreneurial, individualistic, unplanned, marginal, and chaotic nature of cities shone through to define the great cities.

The artistic networks that grew Elizabethan theatre are analogous to the innovative networks that have created Silicon Valley. These networks are the lifeblood of creative urbanism. The specialism of cities is not just the collection of stories told about them but an act of leadership to be known for a specialism driven by the need to employ citizens and keep the ecosystem in balance. Cotton spinners in Manchester were the origins of the Industrial Revolution, ship builders in Glasgow were the centre of global shipbuilding, electrical workers in Berlin, and car makers in Detroit – all defined these cities. None of these cities were perfect, and the average citizen complained about crime, pollution, and a myriad of other displeasures, but they were thriving, on balance, for most citizens were happy to accept the dis-benefits for the wider opportunities the city offered.

It is at this juncture that the power of urban planning and reform would allow the innovative use of resources to improve the lives of those enjoying the booming city opportunities – perhaps it was simply cleaning up the mess of what historically cities have been for centuries – wasteful. The diversity of which cities have chosen to embrace different forms of urbanism is a direct result of the very people these cities attracted to live and work there.

The synthesis of art and technology needs to overcome the issues created by contemporary urbanism; traffic congestion, toxic air pollution, unprecedented rates of urbanization, and the widening wealth gap and inequalities that exist are the wicked problems of our time, perceivably unsolvable issues that we have come to simply accept, or at least try to manage and accept. Cities will find innovative solutions to these problems because they contain the talent and governance to do so, and they are agile enough to make changes that deliver incremental improvement to the lives of all citizens. Cities are embracing the business community through private–public partnerships which now entwine urban planning with the uncertainty of politics, the economy, and business cycles. They are embracing these new ways of operating in order to maintain control over the cities’ finely balanced ecosystem as new businesses come and disrupt traditional operations, offering new benefits to citizens but worsening other aspects of urban life in the process. How does the city account for these negative externalities? It builds a new ecosystem of partners and welcomes them to their city!

Why does this give us cause for hope in the fight against climate change? The answer is simple. The impacts are real and are making changes today that are upsetting the finely balanced ecosystem. Cities are having to react through the same innovative and creative approaches they have achieved for centuries – that bring the partners, finance, technology, and new ways of operating together into solutions that work. We must scale these solutions and provide them with context to allow dissemination, replication, and implementation across the planet.

As Jane Jacobs³ said, the success of cities is security and safety; it is identifiable specialism and it is continual reinvention. With those in mind, I have selected a collection of cities and events through time – a set of cities, each with a lesson to share. It is these lessons that have shaped the modern city. The examples are Uruk, Mesopotamia, Memphis (Ancient Egypt), Rome, Venice, 1665 London, Jerusalem, modern-day London, the “eco-cities”, and Christchurch, New Zealand.