Tale of Two Cities

The social imagining of cities and society has been paralleled by the development of social institutions and the role of government in society. In reading Anderson and Scott this week we see the progression of mapping tools as metaphors for the progress of institutions. Early societies grew organically and the cities followed along. City centers in European and other developing regions grew in rings as villages gave way to towns and towns gave way to cities. Life was a glorious interwoven mess of class and function. Technology was distributed and did not require any more infrastructure than access to natural resources. Roads and pathways between city developments were haphazard and followed natural geographic formations. As cities grew and expanded leaders and potentates began to impose new technologies on top of these existing systems to create key infrastructures.

Roman aqueducts and French sewers are the obvious formations, but as we reach the tipping points of the formation of the great nation states and begin to see industrial societies form the well laid out metropolitan areas of current cities, Scott points out the shortcomings of this approach. The well laid out city grids creates pockets of industry, residential and other functionally segregated areas. As Descartes pointed out, this is similar to the industrialized forestry of the 18th century Europeans. As we reduce diversity in the cityscape, the trees can suffer from lack. Current urban blight and decaying industrial centers are like the failed single crop tree systems of the outdated forestry methods. The new technology of current life requires more infrastructure for water, power, and transportation and is more highly reliant on the efficient movement of those services, so we build our cities and neighborhoods around them and try to integrate society on top of the reality. This has resulted in mixed success of course as suburban isolation tries to simulate the diversity of village life or even American Main Street life from just a few decades ago.

The ability of the state to plan on these levels and create the system it desires. I traveled to Italy last year, and noted one of these disparities. In Rome we visited the Vatican and saw the impact of St. Peter’s Square and the view of the Basilica as you approach from the river. It’s breathtaking. I also learned that the reason the view is so nice is that Mussolini had the surrounding neighborhood cleared to make the area more congenial to visitors. The neighborhood before had been one of those organic growths with real life happening all around. Now it looks great, but serves mostly to get tourists in and out efficiently. We also visited Florence and the great Duomo there. Also a truly magnificent structure, with an historic impact that holds up even against the Vatican. But the city grew around it in the organic manner of all early cities, and you can’t get a view of the building as you walk up it to it. The view is constricted by turning roads and the surrounding life. It is a very pedestrian friendly place and you have to walk to get there. And I had a very un-Italian thought then, maybe Mussolini should have cleared out a little of Florence there as well. I kept that thought to myself.