Utopian Cities - Part 1
First Installment of My 'Building Better Futures' Series
Why cities?!
Envisioning possible futures is incredibly important. For me, that means imagining the end of capitalism and realizing both how possible it is, AND how awesome it could be!
For the first installment of this series, I want to start with cities.
I’ve always enjoyed the idea of cities growing up, especially going between Atlanta, New York, and occasionally Miami. I was always amazed at the differences between these cities. How expansive NYC was, how vibrant Miami seemed to be, and how small but nonetheless influential my hometown was. At the same time, I was always frustrated with how similarly boring all three of these cities could be for those who don’t have the means or knowledge on how to actually explore each of them.
The experience of driving through many other cities and towns up and down the east coast also made me think a lot about makes a city ‘great’.
A large part of this interest was due to my dream of inventing hovercars and imagining what cities would be like if flying vehicles were a thing.
I realized that we’d need to invent ‘skyways’ (ie highways in the sky) that could double/quadruple as freight lines (via maglev trains and pneumatic tubes), power generation (via wind, solar, and friction), as well as infrastructure (housing piping for water, power, and even waste recycling). These multi-use skyways would be massive feats of engineering that linked together cities across the coast and beyond. Maybe even going across the ocean! They’d be the backbone and scaffold of futuristic floating cities that eradicated poverty and ensured people and resources could always get where they needed to go.
Another thing that contributed to these ideas was my obsession with Legos. I would imagine how much easier and cooler it would be to create structures with modular building blocks rather than all this messy scaffolding. This would allow far more creativity in architecture, but also more repairability and adaptability. People could actually build their own houses and buildings, as well as make repairs piece by piece, rather than having to live in rundown, drab places (like I used to live in myself).
I would stare at buildings and imagine them being covered by solar cells linked together in flexible, elegant structures that blossomed like leaves and flowers to follow the sun. They’d store power and produce clean air like a plant stores sugar via photosynthesis.
Our vehicles would be as diverse as a medley of animals and insects rushing across these skyways and even up and down buildings. I’d imagine huge spheres that housed smaller cycler-spheres allowing people of all ages to bike across large distances while still being able to stay safe, be communal if they wish, and see the sights.
Or they could be customizable, DIY cars that could look like sharks or stingrays or ladybugs or ants or whatever… where you could paint them with all sorts of cool colors and designs as easily as you’d paint a wall. Or giant centipede-like trains that allowed people to get up and down tall buildings and weave through dense traffic if need be. Traffic that itself would always be moving ever so fluidly in three dimensions rather than sitting bumper-to-bumper on the ground.
Yeah, a lot of that was probably just the daydreams of a precocious kid. But honestly…. the more I learned about urban planning and civil engineering and the huge pollution/economic problems with modern-day construction and car-dependency… the more I realized that some of my dreams might actually be real solutions.
Let me explain why.
A Brief History
Since the dawn of ‘civilization’ cities have been inherently unsustainable. Much has been said about how the rise of agriculture and settling down into permanent living has brought with it everything from increased malnutrition, disease, and warfare to inequalities in resources, power, and
Another aspect of cities that I’ve found interesting is the neolithic period, the thousands of years where people were building various types of ‘proto-cities’… places where they may have lived only for a period of weeks or even years before disbanding.
This may have included the likes of Göbekli Tepe and its predecessors which are some of the earliest large-scale structures we know of. Dating back roughly 10-15,000 years. I remember reading somewhere that it may have been used, if not built, for the purposes of gathering together foragers from around the region to engage in large-scale religious rituals as well as gift-giving ceremonies. These people apparently still foraged while there, but also employed minor horticultural practices like using fast-growing cereals and such. They would disband once they noticed the area becoming too depleted to support their revelry.
Unfortunately, I can’t find the source for this specificity.
Regardless, the idea of people building cities (or city-like structures) with deep intentionality of both the social benefits, and the ecological pressures, is not unheard of. Proof of this is seen throughout history from the (in)famous Rome, to the meticulous Chengzhou in China, to the rebellious Teotihuacan and so much more.
But of course, these were exceptions that prove the general rule of cities.
Many cities were created with little to no planning… most were matters of circumstance growing around centers of trade, production, war, or just fancy.
Since the beginning of permanent cities, it became evident early on that it was not possible to fully sustain the city for a long period of time through just local farming and foraging. Not only was it necessary to exploit resources from afar, but it was often easier to pillage, colonize, enslave, and/or trade than it was to produce everything themselves.
Furthermore, many disasters that struck cities, from famine to war even to some natural disasters like flooding was often a result of over-exploitation of the land.
Famines were often a result of soil exhaustion or monocrops being taken out by some kind of bug or germ.
Floods and such were often a result of deforestation, damning, and building in flood-prone areas.
Even the so-called ‘plague’ of roving migrants and ‘barbarians’ you often hear about in the stories of old were often a result of wars and man-made disasters pushing people out of their home lands.
It is incredibly important to understand this fact about cities, because that allows us to see the problems that we have to solve with cities today and going forward.
One could make the argument that perhaps cities shouldn’t exist… that they cant exist sustainably. And perhaps that’s true…. but people love cities. For better and for worse.
Plus, humans have and will continue to create things that don’t seem possible… so why not try to fix the issues with cities? Why not try and figure out how cities Could be sustainable?
Luckily, there are a few examples of sustainable cities throughout history, such as the Harrapan cities of the Indus Valley Civilizations in India, Caral in Peru ( both dating back 5,000 years!), as well as Great Zimbabwe and Djenné of the Mali Empire (home of scholar city Timbuktu and Mansa Musa!) in Africa.
Not to mention those in the present who are actively making their cities more sustainable such as Singapore and Copenhagen.
Either way, cities are great because they are a melting pot of culture. They can expose people to new ideas and perspectives, thus they can facilitate all kinds of innovation. They allow for a great concentration of conveniences as well as opportunities for connection and creation.
Furthermore, they offer a lot of space for people to really flex their ego… which can be a good and bad thing. In the best case, it can allow for higher levels of self expression and empower people to reach more of their potential through collaboration with other motivated people.
In the worst case… it can be a way for elitist individuals to have far more power and influence on a larger scale than they’d otherwise be able to impose in a rural setting.
The biggest issue with cities is the environmental impact. The concentration of so many people in one area fulfilling their consumption needs and desires means they quickly overburden the local ecology.
This problem is exacerbated by the fact that most cities need to be supported through vast supply chains, thus exploiting environments even beyond their local area.
So how can we overcome this?
I think there are a few core concepts we can use to figure this out.
They all revolve around ensuring a city is self-sustainable. That does not mean it can be sustained by some nebulous ‘economy’, but that it literally HAS to be sustained ONLY through its own production.
Here’s how we may be able to do that:
Ecological Awareness
Cities must learn to become one with the local ecology. Instead of treating the local flora and fauna as mere resources to be consumed or just things to be disposed of and paved over, they must instead treat them as parts of the city. Just as important as the people themselves and treated with just as much, if not more, care and thought than the built environment.
Cities should be champions of indigeneity, stewards of regenerative practices, and participants in the life cycle.
This means they should always seek to support and protect all native species to the area, ensure any exploited resources are replenished regularly, and become a part of the life and death cycle rather than just cancerous growth or urban deserts.
We should employ not just green belts, but build cities such that they mold around important/delicate natural habitats rather than paving over them.
We should build under and above the ground instead of just on the ground if necessary.
We should be building ecosystems into our rooftops and lawns and parking lots and so on.
We should be maintaining game trails, creeks, and migration patterns instead of replacing them with roadkill highways.
We should be giving a shit about the nature that we all come from, live in, and depend upon instead of treating it like trash. And even our trash should be handled with a degree of respect and intentionality, such that it can feed back into the ecosystem rather than choking it to death.
Regional Scale
To aid this, cities should double down on being regional. Instead of creating an economy of imports and exports, they should attempt to be more insular when it comes to their ‘resources’… while at the same time being borderless. Much of the natural world does not necessarily have borders, at least not ones that aren’t themselves ecosystems between regions. People (and life) should be free to move around, but resources should generally stay where they are sourced.
People should want to come to a city to explore and experience a lifestyle that doesn’t and possibly cant exist anywhere else in the world due to its unique ecology. Any exports should only be considered after the city has ensured everything being produced/extracted from the local environment is still below the area’s regenerative rate.
Even currencies, if used at all, should be unique to the communities in that city. They should be able to facilitate a feeling of communalism, inter-connectedness, and reputation. It should not be a matter of debts, interest, or speculation because those just abstract away from the grounded relationships between people in the community.
This creates a world that feels magical and exciting to explore. It ensures there are vibrant cultures everywhere you look rather than the saturation of monotony making everything seem boring and uninspired.
If people actually care about the uniqueness of their region, they will be far more likely to protect and value their differences rather than attack and colonize others because they are different. And yes, said differences include ecological ‘resources’!
Another banger by Dustin Jacobus! Before and After of a city around a river. Size/Resource Conscious
If we are serious about ensuring our cities are self-sustainable, we have to be very strict about the size of the city. This does NOT mean population control, far from it. So long as people in the city ask the right questions and consider the wider picture, the population should not really matter.
Here’s a few of those questions and considerations people should formulate into a threshold measuring tool:How many people want to live in an area? How much nutrients and what kind do they need? How much does the area produce? What is available in the area? Is that enough for both human needs, other animal needs, and the health of the ecosystem?
What resources is needed to produce the things people want? What is necessary to acquire them? How will the acquisition impact the environment? How can that impact be avoided or minimized? How long will it take to recover and replenish? What can be done to aid in that recovery? How can the production, distribution, and disposal process all aid the environment rather than harm it?
By creating a formula of some sort around these types of variables, people can then create and manage cities far more intentionally and conscientiously. Cities should thus create targeted techniques, technologies, systems, traditions, beliefs, and cultures to reinforce true sustainability.
By measuring things that actually matter to the direct health of the people and the environment, it can empower the people to live and thrive in that environment without fear (or apathy) of destroying the planet that gave them life.
‘Over-population’ isn’t really a problem.. its a symptom. The true problem is rarely ever how many people are in an area, moreso how much they are consuming and how fast or destructive is their impact.In my mind, the goal should not be to control where people go or how many can live in a place, but to instead empower those people, wherever they are, to thrive in that area alongside the natural environment.
Walkability
If anything, the true determining factor for the size of a city should be its walkability. How easy is it to get from point A to point B by foot? Can you get from one place in a city to any other place in that same city within a 5-20 minute walk at the max?
This is the true challenge, but also the biggest key to figuring out the sweet spot for utopic cities. If a city is too big for your grandma or your kid or even your cat to safely walk from their house to the store or school or a park or wherever, than it should be split up and condensed.
Instead of growing and sprawling ad-infinitum, cities should fracture and fractalize. This way, a metropolitan area would actually be a series of smaller walkable micro cities all connected together while at the same time not excluding or destroying the natural ecosystem it is inhabiting.
If people don’t want to move, or if they can’t for whatever reason, then they will have to seriously re-double their efforts to find more innovative ways to meet their needs in a sustainable way. Perhaps using more surface area to grow food via aquaponics, aeroponics, vertical farming, etc… Figuring out space elevators and space industry, underground or floating structures, and more… (More on these in the next section).
Regardless of the size of a city, everything should be accessible without the need of a car… meaning everything should be human-sized and built for people (as well as other animals). We should not be catering our cities to vehicles and other large machines, nor to factories, warehouses, and corporate buildings. These things are not living in our cities… they are parasitizing off them… taking up valuable space and resources… and polluting the place at our expense.
Cities should be built FOR people, or even better yet, for LIVING BEINGS of all types to flourish.
Every home within a city should have access to daily needs within a 5 min walk:Grocers and convenience stores, restaurants and eateries, parks and recs, infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage, internet, and transit), community centers and libraries, pubs and clubs, trails and waterfronts, crafting and manufacturing, etc.
All of these things should be so easy to reach that people won’t want to be sitting in their house all the time. People will actually want and be able to get out and explore the beautiful and lively environment! It should be nigh effortless to socialize, work, have fun, learn, build, eat, exchange, and do whatever else in a city!
Of course, various types of rail and other mass transit systems can augment this walkability as well. As they allow people to walk from one place to another while still being fairly grounded in their community. Furthermore, they don’t require individuals to be laden with expensive liabilities. Sure, people might still have cars for specific jobs, roadtrips, or even pleasure (imagine safe and legal street races!)… but the goal is to craft cities where the vast majority of people don’t NEED a car to get around.
Thus, the city does not have to be designed specifically for cars and making things suck for everyone. Who really enjoys traffic, parking lots/fees, and having to drive just to pick up something from the store?!
Perhaps this is tall order… but so what? So was going to the moon, and the global internet, and smart phones, and modern day infrastructure that allows people to get fresh water or power at anytime from almost anywhere… We just have to put our minds to it.
So let’s do that. Let’s actually imagine what some of these cities would be like!
…
(Continued in Part 2!)
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An Addendum:
Quite honestly… I probably should have done some sort of meta-analysis on all the most sustainable and least sustainable cities from the neolithic period all the way to today… but unfortunately that idea only occurred to me after I was pretty much done with this and I didn’t want to rewrite like 10K+ words and 3 months of work… not to mention that amount of research would just result in even more procrastination than I already struggle with. But I think I’ll probably do something like that in the coming weeks and years. As much as I want to base my ideas in rigorous research, the truth is that I simply do not have the time, resources, or inclination because of the vast amount of topics that I want to cover. I’d never get much of anything out if I did as much research as I probably could do on every topic I want to cover (as shown in Episode 0). I’ll leave that for others…
This series is meant to both help me express my ideas, as well as to inspire other people to actually WANT to do this sort of work… to want to do that research themselves, to want to build towards these better futures…
And yes, part of me even saying this is to self-soothe… to tell myself that its okay that I won’t/can’t make the best possible ‘perfect’ piece of literature on this topic. I am trying to live out my own principles, that better is better than perfect. That Utopia means simply doing better than you were before, rather than trying to actually achieve some idealistic ‘perfection’ that itself loses the very momentum of what makes a better world: people doing things, learning things, and improving things together with respect to the knowledge that they may never achieve everything they seek, but that they can at least fix the problems around them.