{"id":1535,"date":"2019-04-28T19:13:11","date_gmt":"2019-04-28T19:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/2bgreener.com\/?p=1535"},"modified":"2019-05-19T16:42:14","modified_gmt":"2019-05-19T16:42:14","slug":"the-fault-in-utopia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2bgreener.com\/?p=1535","title":{"rendered":"The Fault in Utopia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Really, what is appealing about Utopia?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m reading last month’s NatGeo, which is assessing cities all over the world and illustrating which of these is vibrant and what\u2019s being done right. An additional piece of this issue on Cities<\/a> is a depiction of the perfect future city: a city based on a variety of biophilic concepts such as making the city a sponge to get rainwater back into a proper cycle instead of truncating it with piping and treatment plants, offering a variety of transit and mobility options, growing and producing food nearby, and embracing the fact that we are part of nature and are healthier in connection with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Great. Wonderful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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National Geographic, April 2019. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Except this vision does nothing to acknowledged all that we currently have in our greatest cities, good and bad, and does not assess those constraints to inform that new vision. We do not have a clean slate to work upon, in fact, we have a tremendous amount of invested embodied carbon to work with and the worst thing we could do is bulldoze it all down and pretend that Utopia can be created on the rubble. An overlay imposed upon human existence is inhumane as well as unnatural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Downtown view of NYC from “Top of the Rock”.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What is Utopia if it is undefined by process and people? Such a planned perfection would be false and rife with failure. Nature and systems evolve based on need. We can do a lot to predict that need, but we cannot predict it absolutely or envision all the aspects that would need to be included, and would be foolish to think we can. I remember in college that our campus was doing a lot of redevelopment. The joke at the time was that the RPI 2000 plan was for a hole in the ground with a fence around it. They planned new walkways across the campus based on their predictions of how people moved. Within months there were new paths etched in the grass, crossing at places they never imagined, totally changing the patterns and ignoring the investment in paved walk surfaces. The next time they built a new building or open space, they placed a few key sidewalks near buildings and then waited for the activity of students and staff to mark where walking would occur. Then they knew where to place pathways  and plantings. This was a fairly successful approach. What would have been even more dynamic would have been including the stakeholders in the intentionality of the work, so they could see the framework of the plan, see their actions were part of that plan, and be proud and engaged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A pristine, planned overlay imposed upon human existence is inhumane as well as unnatural.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Can we create a Utopic city by ignoring what already exists? I think not, for a few reasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, we have created cities, the most vibrant and sustained cities, in places that people have chosen to be.<\/strong> The reasons are varied and, yes, times have changed some of those reasons. Yet some of them sustain. I think of the cities I am most familiar with, such as Boston, New York City, Hartford, Providence, Albany. All of these cities are at transit hubs, tied to water and over time they have grown to be linked to other hubs. And this network is vast, complex, and evolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, we have a huge amount of investment in these cities.<\/strong> We are foolish to think we can create the new by wasting the resources embedded in the old. This would be a \u201ccarbon bloom\u201d of immense proportion, adding inputs into climate shifts and putting unregulated toxins into uncontrolled disposal situations (and where the hell would we put it all?!). Some of the already existing investment should be abandoned, such as pipelines for fossil fuel. Some need to be reimagined, such as transit infrastructure, to be moved to more efficient means, electric fuel, and possibly more people-centric by including nature and more supportive access. Some cannot be dismissed or reimagined in their systemic complexities, but should be the core information feeding any plan for the \u201ccity of the future\u201d.  The changes will have to incorporate what exists, such as skyscrapers and brownstones, iconic landmarks, preserved land areas, and networks of connection to other cities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The valuable textures of our existing city.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Third, the biggest issue with uninformed utopic cities is they make it look like our only chance for a better future is to destroy all that we know and love (and a lot that we hate) and start over.<\/strong> Even setting the money, time, and environmental issues totally aside, there is nothing in envisioning this perfect future city that invites us to work for it!  That is not the way to go at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So our approach to achieving the city of our future must change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n