Are cities like organisms?
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Date: 2019-09-12
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Comments and reviews: 10
David Cole
Mankind is more than just an economic agent. He/she is a creative individual that is trying to establish a meaningful legacy for the self and their offspring before he/she dies. The individual forms the smallest institutional unit (the family. Cities develop as corporation and government institutions are formed to efficiently serve each other, rather than the individual. As such, the family institution plays second fiddle to the corporation and the government institution. Le Corbusier's vision of the perfect city is a nigthmarish example of this corporate/government co-dependence where the individual has been reduced to living in a rabbit hutch and reliant on artificial dopamine pleasures in order to adapt to this environment. Thank God, the French government did not take him up on the notion to raze 1/3 of Paris to realize his vision. Unfortunately, Iron curtain Europe swallowed his ideas hook, line, and sinker. Large cities do have their place, but not without the small town alternative. It needs to be remembered, that many of the greatest inventions were produced outside of the big city. I do enjoy your research, but the needs of small towns need to be addressed. This is why we have Trump, Brexit, and the Yellow vest movement.
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Mankind is more than just an economic agent. He/she is a creative individual that is trying to establish a meaningful legacy for the self and their offspring before he/she dies. The individual forms the smallest institutional unit (the family. Cities develop as corporation and government institutions are formed to efficiently serve each other, rather than the individual. As such, the family institution plays second fiddle to the corporation and the government institution. Le Corbusier's vision of the perfect city is a nigthmarish example of this corporate/government co-dependence where the individual has been reduced to living in a rabbit hutch and reliant on artificial dopamine pleasures in order to adapt to this environment. Thank God, the French government did not take him up on the notion to raze 1/3 of Paris to realize his vision. Unfortunately, Iron curtain Europe swallowed his ideas hook, line, and sinker. Large cities do have their place, but not without the small town alternative. It needs to be remembered, that many of the greatest inventions were produced outside of the big city. I do enjoy your research, but the needs of small towns need to be addressed. This is why we have Trump, Brexit, and the Yellow vest movement.
reply
Joseph Lombardo
Just because you don't have a 1-to-1 match of systems between cities and vertebrates doesn't mean that the metaphor doesn't hold. Cities are an organism unlike any other organism that exists. Some multicellular organisms don't have circulatory systems (jellyfish. Some organisms have a distributed brain (octopuses. Some organisms can have multiple centers or no clear boundary (funguses. The similarity between cities and organisms is that they have similar problems to solve - the demands of obtaining and distributing resources, growing, eliminating waste, etc. Those problems can be solved in all kinds of different ways depending on the needs and history of the organism, and the unique demands of a city leads to unique solutions to those problems.
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Just because you don't have a 1-to-1 match of systems between cities and vertebrates doesn't mean that the metaphor doesn't hold. Cities are an organism unlike any other organism that exists. Some multicellular organisms don't have circulatory systems (jellyfish. Some organisms have a distributed brain (octopuses. Some organisms can have multiple centers or no clear boundary (funguses. The similarity between cities and organisms is that they have similar problems to solve - the demands of obtaining and distributing resources, growing, eliminating waste, etc. Those problems can be solved in all kinds of different ways depending on the needs and history of the organism, and the unique demands of a city leads to unique solutions to those problems.
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Thatyou GoOn
Organisms don't really have an equivalent of a grid system. 5: 16 that is utterly incorrect. The cytoskeleton is what you're looking for. It is not so hard to see how cities are alive, although differently alive. They must combat the same laws of nature and will come up with similar efficient solutions. Cities are an kind of evolutionary transition for humans, just as single-celled organism became multicellular. There are major differences, but we're talking about different length scales, which requires different solutions.
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Organisms don't really have an equivalent of a grid system. 5: 16 that is utterly incorrect. The cytoskeleton is what you're looking for. It is not so hard to see how cities are alive, although differently alive. They must combat the same laws of nature and will come up with similar efficient solutions. Cities are an kind of evolutionary transition for humans, just as single-celled organism became multicellular. There are major differences, but we're talking about different length scales, which requires different solutions.
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Tristan Laing
The city as organism metaphor is dubious - social system as natural is at the basis of liberal and neo-liberal economic perspectives (also physiocratic, but that's less relevant. Also, seeing groups of people as an organism is at the basis of fascist race theory. The machine metaphor is more attuned to utopian thinking. I'm sure organic metaphors are useful in certain situations. If we are going to think of the city as an organism, a permaculture approach might be the best approach to tending it.
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The city as organism metaphor is dubious - social system as natural is at the basis of liberal and neo-liberal economic perspectives (also physiocratic, but that's less relevant. Also, seeing groups of people as an organism is at the basis of fascist race theory. The machine metaphor is more attuned to utopian thinking. I'm sure organic metaphors are useful in certain situations. If we are going to think of the city as an organism, a permaculture approach might be the best approach to tending it.
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Marc Rugani
The idea of the body politic goes back both in oriental and occidental culture for millennia. Oh, Plato. As you point out, the metaphor is imperfect, esp. regarding the rigors of civil engineering. This, however can be a thought experiment to get outside the box using natural models from evolved biological efficiencies we see in organisms to suggest new models for urban planning. I don't like having to take DC's red line from NW to the heart of the city to get to NE.
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The idea of the body politic goes back both in oriental and occidental culture for millennia. Oh, Plato. As you point out, the metaphor is imperfect, esp. regarding the rigors of civil engineering. This, however can be a thought experiment to get outside the box using natural models from evolved biological efficiencies we see in organisms to suggest new models for urban planning. I don't like having to take DC's red line from NW to the heart of the city to get to NE.
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Anton Swifton
Are you planning to make a video on homelessness? In particular, why there are so many homeless people on the west coast. There is a lot of videos that show how bad the situation is, but don't go into causes. And all their comment sections are filled with people who say westerners keep voting for liberals who will ruin the civilization, which is a perfectly acceptable opinion, but it would be much more interesting to hear an expert's view on this.
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Are you planning to make a video on homelessness? In particular, why there are so many homeless people on the west coast. There is a lot of videos that show how bad the situation is, but don't go into causes. And all their comment sections are filled with people who say westerners keep voting for liberals who will ruin the civilization, which is a perfectly acceptable opinion, but it would be much more interesting to hear an expert's view on this.
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kailomonkey
Although roads, pipes and communication lines don't hook up to a central poit for distribution, this is because stuff generally isn't coming in one way in a city and there's no central distribution point. It might be closer to look at a city as an inside out circulatory system? Or digestive system? Where there aren't any giant hands feeding everything into a central organised system but the system has to do it itself more like a tree with roots.
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Although roads, pipes and communication lines don't hook up to a central poit for distribution, this is because stuff generally isn't coming in one way in a city and there's no central distribution point. It might be closer to look at a city as an inside out circulatory system? Or digestive system? Where there aren't any giant hands feeding everything into a central organised system but the system has to do it itself more like a tree with roots.
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Vincent Soule
Regional planner here that was originally educated in biology ( I also double minored in chemistry and mathematics. I view communities like organisms but not like a circulatory system or nervous system - those systems are restricted to a certain type of function overall. Each city has its node and the people/communities communicate with each other in a manner that reminds me of quorum sensing or antibody-antigen reactions.
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Regional planner here that was originally educated in biology ( I also double minored in chemistry and mathematics. I view communities like organisms but not like a circulatory system or nervous system - those systems are restricted to a certain type of function overall. Each city has its node and the people/communities communicate with each other in a manner that reminds me of quorum sensing or antibody-antigen reactions.
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Tristan Möller
Cities also used to be dirty, ugly and unpleasant places to live in during the industrial revolution. Many things they had in common with those old machines. Nowadays since cities are clean and almost) everyone wants to live in one, we can create metaphors as pleasant as organisms. That metaphor also implies we should take good care of our cities, while you can let most old machines rust in the dust.
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Cities also used to be dirty, ugly and unpleasant places to live in during the industrial revolution. Many things they had in common with those old machines. Nowadays since cities are clean and almost) everyone wants to live in one, we can create metaphors as pleasant as organisms. That metaphor also implies we should take good care of our cities, while you can let most old machines rust in the dust.
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Alfredo Reinaldo Lobo das Neves
I think that it does differ between cities and the way they grow too. Remember that many biological forms have radiated from a common ancestor, only to have many go extinct and successful organisms remain. I think there is something to be considered with geometry, biology and maths can be applied to both organisms and cities.
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I think that it does differ between cities and the way they grow too. Remember that many biological forms have radiated from a common ancestor, only to have many go extinct and successful organisms remain. I think there is something to be considered with geometry, biology and maths can be applied to both organisms and cities.
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