Cities and Conurbations
Posted: Sun Jan 12, 2020 8:51 am
Cities and Conurbations
A Sunday programme on the radio has a sort of philosophical viewpoint, and is good at showing how random facts can justify almost anything. A discussion about Cities brought the usual confusion, and those who appeared to see virtue in natural growth at the last had to propose the need for future planning.
The essential confusion was in confusing the City with Conurbations, and for that matter centres of power.
In the not so distant past when our technology was minimal, and we had to live under the rule of Nature, it was natural enough for people to be grouped in small villages, centred on market and cultural town centres, with the whole centred on regional cities. The iron rule of nature has been squashed and we are now subject to human foibles to define and control the society we live in.
Conurbations are the product of anarchism in which the ‘city’ is merely an aggregate of individuals and social groups with no common purpose other than survival.
Cities are, as they were until the 19th century, cultural centres. Today they are centres for altruistic democracy. There is one essential feature and that is there must be a social consensus about how they are planned and employed, and there must be a basis for controlling anarchic growth. The city and its region needs to be treated holistically with its satellites, the countryside, nature and the environment.
Cities as centres of economic and/or state power, is the third alternative.
It must be stated that such a city as London today, is the inevitable dangerous confusion of purpose.
A Sunday programme on the radio has a sort of philosophical viewpoint, and is good at showing how random facts can justify almost anything. A discussion about Cities brought the usual confusion, and those who appeared to see virtue in natural growth at the last had to propose the need for future planning.
The essential confusion was in confusing the City with Conurbations, and for that matter centres of power.
In the not so distant past when our technology was minimal, and we had to live under the rule of Nature, it was natural enough for people to be grouped in small villages, centred on market and cultural town centres, with the whole centred on regional cities. The iron rule of nature has been squashed and we are now subject to human foibles to define and control the society we live in.
Conurbations are the product of anarchism in which the ‘city’ is merely an aggregate of individuals and social groups with no common purpose other than survival.
Cities are, as they were until the 19th century, cultural centres. Today they are centres for altruistic democracy. There is one essential feature and that is there must be a social consensus about how they are planned and employed, and there must be a basis for controlling anarchic growth. The city and its region needs to be treated holistically with its satellites, the countryside, nature and the environment.
Cities as centres of economic and/or state power, is the third alternative.
It must be stated that such a city as London today, is the inevitable dangerous confusion of purpose.