What Are the Limits of Urbanization?

Moderator: Jiří Musil

Panelists: Richard Burdett, Willem Jan Neutelings, Lieven De Cauter, Deyan Sudjic, Elia Zenghelis

 

 

 

Jiří Musil opened the panel noting “urbanization brings complete change in almost every part of our lives. It brings a lot of joys and hopes, and also a lot of despairs and fears.” He discussed how civilizations reaching the urban stage are prone to collapse but recognized that “this is not the final knowledge of urban civilization.”

 

Richard Burdett presented his observations on urbanization in the contexts of cities such as London, Caracas, Johannesburg, and Bogotá. He emphasized the idea of “the endless city,” which has no limits as the world becomes more urban. He discussed the spatial, social, economic, and cultural impacts of urbanization, as well as the emergence of slums and unsustainable consumption. He ended by stating: “we can create cities which are more socially cohesive, more environmentally responsible, and more democratically governed.”

 

According to Willem Jan Neutelings, “the limits of urbanization will be reached very soon” as a result of urban growth combined with increasing demand for personal space. He cautioned against the tendency of architects and urban planners to “increase the quantity of space, but at the same time decrease quality of life.” He further emphasized the need to examine the issue of population growth, and mentioned the difficulty of maintaining living standards for a world population that could reach 10 billion in the coming decades. He concluded his speech by paraphrasing Bill Clinton: “It’s the demography, stupid.”

 

Lieven De Cauter, professor of Philosophy of Culture at the Catholic University in Leuven, focused on five major themes: first, an era of “permanent global catastrophe” as humanity exhausts the resources of the ecosystem; second, the “loss of place” and creation of “a simulation of places,” or the theme park effect, as a result of delocalization; third, an “epidemic of identity politics” engendered by globalization and migration; fourth, fragmentation and “spatial disorder,” manifesting as “connected enclaves and disconnected ghettos”; and fifth, “unseen and massive exclusion” of groups at the fringes of cities from human interaction and the law.

 

In contrast to some of the other panelists’ views, Dejan Sudjic characterized cities as “mankind’s most precious creation,” and said that they offered the best hope for most of the world’s rural poor. He emphasized the individual narrative of city life, and warned against “looking at the world from the view of an aircraft.” He observed that successful cities are a “more organic” form of social organization than nation states, “allow people a chance to be what they want.”

 

Elia Zenghelis viewed urbanization and urban sprawl as “the instrument for dismantling the city,” and cautioned against “abandoning the public realm into a world of privatization.” He stressed the idea of the city as a common space, and as a tool to “transform the genetic condition of the city into connectivity.” His remarks also touched on various dichotomies emerging from urbanization: urban versus rural, public versus private, and working versus living. He proposed the creation of a “common architectural language” born from the condition of urbanization to address the future of the city.

 

Moderator Jiří Musil allowed the panelists to respond to each other and to questions posed by audience members. Acknowledging the differing views among the panelists, Professor Richard Burdett recognized their common opinion: “What we don’t want is to create more cities with the mono-dimensional aspect of city walls.”

 

Following the panel, President Václav Havel closed the conference with a few remarks on the 14^th Forum 2000. He applauded the democratic nature of this year’s Forum, and found the number of young participants encouraging. Turning to the content of the panels, he noted “the importance of reflection on human settlement, urbanization, and architecture,” and underlined the importance of human rights as forming the “social structures on which all other structures are based.”