Mega, City?
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Cities are problems in "organized complexity," stated Jane Jacobs in 1961. The most difficult challenge facing megacites is to discover the character of the "organized complexity". This is the interaction between the hard and soft infrastructure that sustains the urban area, including the full array of global and planetary systems engaged by cities. One obvious example was the Icelandic Volcano, a planetary event that dramatically impacted the global system of air traffic, and related activities.
Looking at the movement in and out of people, freight, energy, ideas, services or waste it is obvious that Tokyo, New York, Shanghai, Mumbay, Sao Paulo or Lagos represent unique examples of "organized complexity." They are driven by both internal and external forces that are poorly understood in isolation, let alone in their interaction.
That is why "best practice" and a "better city" fail to offer strategic conceptions of equity or ecology. Such concerns are relegated to "themes" such as inclusion or sustainability. This perspective suggests that the fate of a city is only amenable to minimal, fragmented change. The approach fails to address the organization of complexity and instead, settles for gains for the few, often at the expense of the many.
Megacities must resolve how they will position themselves in contradictions such as rural vs. urban development; local vs. global flows; global footprint vs. local autonomy. Cities have to discover the most humanizing and ecological scale at which basic services – food, energy, transportation, education, health, safety – should be provided. Is it a unit of 50,000? 500,000?
Thus, more is needed than a "better city." We must redefine what is equitable and ecological for cities of every scale. This requires that we redesign the systems of production, consumption and distribution that fuel the megacities. We must rediscover the humanizing qualities of cities before they became supersized.
Barry Weisberg, JD, PhD (ABD) is the weekly Global Cities Commentator for Worldview, Chicago Public Radio. He is covering the Shanghai World Expo. Contact: barryweisberg@att.net.
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