The Urban Organic: Ecocities in Global Perspective
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document in English
international relations
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published 03/06/2008
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Summary
At every turn, the global city is faced with a set of challenges. How to compete cooperatively, how to expand stably, how to modernize peacefully—these and other contradictions check the unbridled enthusiasm of neoliberal planners, who have transformed Saskia Sassen’s global city model from critique into blueprint. Yet, apart from the global city model, other ways of thinking about and creating cities exist. In particular, the ecocity model has emerged out environmental, architectural, and urban movements to offer an alternative paradigm of city life.
Ecocities do not, however, constitute a monolithic, reactionary critique of the global city by any means. Different activists and planners with divergent philosophies have developed ecocity visions which interrupt the global city (and the city in general) in particular ways. How does the ecocity engage the global city? At times reactionary, disruptive, complicit, or orthogonal, these frameworks generate a productive friction in their encounter. I use five keywords to organize my inquiry into the visions and praxes of ecocities: modernity, flexibility, globality, density, and governmentality.
Ecocities do not, however, constitute a monolithic, reactionary critique of the global city by any means. Different activists and planners with divergent philosophies have developed ecocity visions which interrupt the global city (and the city in general) in particular ways. How does the ecocity engage the global city? At times reactionary, disruptive, complicit, or orthogonal, these frameworks generate a productive friction in their encounter. I use five keywords to organize my inquiry into the visions and praxes of ecocities: modernity, flexibility, globality, density, and governmentality.
Table of Contents
- Modernity.
- The town counsellor of the French city of Bordeaux outlines her plan that gives priority to social activity.
- For people living within that ghost town, urban circumstances sometimes give rise to a problematic strain of ahistorical modernity.
- Flexibility.
- Some of the models that laid claim to the term 'ecocity' appear suspiciously similar to neoliberal restructuring and gentrification.
- The flexibility afforded by social networks and technologies enabled the suburban expansion that ecocity planners lamented in many workshops.
- Not only do ecocities operate on scales smaller than the neoliberal global, but ecocity activists also keep their movement small-scale.
- Density per se is always mediated by institutions.
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