http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/stewart_brand_on_squatter_cities.html
Stewart Brand predicts that squatter cities will diffuse the population bomb that has been ticking for the past 150 years world wide.
It sounds ridiculous, but I have been thinking the same thing. One-sixth of the world lives in squatter settlements according to Mr. Brand.
These folks are leaving the countryside while bringing the ingenuity of country living. A country shack is charming at the density of 1 per acre. Once you have 50 to 200 per acre, you have a "slum".
Slums are what Chicago and NYC were before the great depression and the first zoning laws.
However, city dwellers are recognized for democratizing gender roles, and increasing education.
What does this mean for "country values"?
I propose that this will rely upon how individual cities resolve their commons, their public realm.
Rises energy prices will force less reluctant cities to open up the commons to provide for more residents at once.
The crux is to create a commons that pluralistically includes country and traditional values alongside the ambitious cosmopolitan culture and habits.
Nothing is easy. But this is what we must create as the inheritors of the most explosive human legacy in recorded history.
(Part of this will look like both more centralized transportation, and the disconnection of many suburbs from their parent cities).
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
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