Urbanisation: A brief episode in history

Abstract

This paper paints an altogether broader canvas building upon earlier debates in City concerning the decline of cities over the coming decades and the changed states of mind and understanding of what life is about that can be expected to unfold under these circumstances. There is already considerable preliminary experience of this, analysed in the paper, that has resulted from ‘economic shocks' over the past two decades and, on the positive side, the experience of the Transition Movement and of well over 1000 mature intentional communities scattered across the Occidental world. Taking the long view, the paper analyses the growth and fall of civilisations and their cities as centres of the accumulation of power. The discussion then moves on to discuss how modern civilisation came about, arriving in a state of ‘Possessive Individualism’ and through three centuries of social conflict culminating in our technology-dominated, consumerist world of megacities. The role played in this by the exploitation of fossil fuels is analysed and the way in which this could never have been sustained for long is made clear. The second half of the paper then presents scenarios of the coming decades, providing some detail of possible steps from our urbanised, globalised world to a return to considerably more localised economies organised as networks of villages and towns as was the case almost everywhere in the world until well into the 20th century. Agriculture and the use of local resources may be expected once again to characterise the way in which societies function. This will also mean a return to local communities as the centres of most lives and the paper discusses how this might unfold both logistically and in terms of the consciousness and outlook of the people. Models of Utopia are presented as a way to conceptualise how today's younger generation might come to terms with this changed world.

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