Global urbanization is acutely disrupting our ways of life and our ways of understanding the world. We are experiencing an ontological crisis and remain clueless when we try to reflect upon it and to conceptualize it, seeking for answers but also for solutions to its challenges. It seems clear to all that there is no one absolute truth anymore and that we can only apprehend this phenomenon in fragments, by asking questions of professionals in each and every possible disciplinary field. Many initiatives proceed in that way, gathering and comparing the points of view of thinkers and researchers. In light of the research carried out by the Institut Palladio—one of the think tanks that is re-examining contemporary urban planning—, Gilbert Emont analyzes the factors of change that are bringing about a “society of urbanites”, a new condition at the junction of four material transformations: the increase in life expectancy, the urbanization of the planet, the importance of sustainable development, and the widespread use of digital technologies. In this new world organized around human activity, he describes the challenges which cities of tomorrow will face, up to and including continuous innovation, physical adaptability and flexibility of use.
Gilbert Emont is an economist and researcher at the Institut de l’Épargne Immobilière et Foncière (IEIF). He is the director of the Institut Palladio des Hautes Études sur l’Immobilier et la Cité.
The Fondation Palladio has sought to play a founding role by establishing an institute and inviting those involved in urban planning to come and discuss real estate and city planning issues. To this end, it organized a conference at the Senate at the end of 2010 that brought together over two hundred participants, including many leaders from companies in the fields most related to the conference’s theme. Michel Serres was invited to give the keynote speech and to put the debates in perspective.
Before a captivated audience, and with his inimitable talent, Serres laid out a potential area of focus. Cunningly placing the end of the Neolithic age in the middle of the 1970s, he made us realize that we should be focusing our attention on the emergence of a “Société des Urbains” (“Society of the Urban”), an expression of a new civilization dominated by urbanization, manifested by the creation of new types of virtualized spaces (“PaLoBru” for example, the large triangle that is Paris, London, and Brussels), whose urbanism must be reinvented.
Since then, the Fondation Palladio has dedicated its various annual events to the question of the future of this “Society of the Urban” in order to better understand nature, territories, and people, as well as customs and values that give society meaning and a collective dimension.
As Jean Viard pointed out, our descendants in the twenty-fourth century will look on the first fifty years of this century as a turning point in the history of the Earth. In fact, four revolutions will converge, causing a major shock that will impose a new world order different from the one we inherited.
First and foremost, longer life spans have changed the face of global demographics. While the demographic transition has meant that almost all countries are now seeing a declining birth rate, and, more importantly, a lower fertility rate, the decline in the mortality rate has allowed, in developed countries, four generations to share the same territory. Global population growth is now more due to this phenomenon than any issues relating to the birthrate, which has led to the emergence of a large population of seniors relative to that of young people who, in turn, face a revolution in the conditions according to which they replace their elders.
The second major focus relates to the urbanization of the planet, which will lead to a predicted population growth over the next fifty years equivalent to the level of predicted population growth in urban areas. This phenomenon is due both to the inability of rural civilization to absorb such growth, and conversely, to the ability of cities to create economic development and activity on the basis of the exchange and accumulation of knowledge. Pierre Veltz posits a post-industrial economy of proficiency and exchange which establishes the urban phenomenon as the engine of economic development to meet the forthcoming demographic challenge.
This is also why the third revolution that we face during this period is that of sustainable and responsible development. The global growth that is linked to higher life expectancy (notwithstanding major disasters) must be combined with a concentration in urban areas. The confrontation with natural resources, the mastery of an “urban metabolism” that is at risk of major destabilization, the optimized management of collective resources are all urgent issues along with a serious examination of the reckless and wasteful practices in relation to public goods. A more responsible development path is needed if we want to prevent urban growth from leading to catastrophe and chaos. Yet an urban solution, due to its density, is also perhaps the only answer to controlling global growth.
Lastly, the digital revolution, and in particular the dematerialization of the number of exchanges that it makes possible, has led to an accelerated disruption of individuals’ relationships to the physical and spatial dimension of their existence, but also in terms of the distance and therefore the time that is necessary for the exercise of their activities. The understanding of these new technologies and the importance of innovations that arise from them will transform the notion of “limits” and “territories” based on which previous generations were required to confine their exchanges. The redefinition of space-time, mobility, and the speed of exchanges, has exploded the notion of the city, which is physically defined due to its role as a place of exchange. It does not, however, generate a city “above ground,” but demands instead the redefinition of public space, of physical exchange, of a collective identity, and of a new urbanism.
As Michel Lussault has pointed out, in this context it is urban development that acts as a structuring element. It will define how well our developing global civilization functions, as well as the socio-economic dimensions that depend on it.
FROM THE CITY TO THE URBAN AREA : A CONTINUOUS ADAPTATION
The shift to the urban area from our ancestors’ cities is therefore based on the propensity of the former to offer inhabitants a maximum number of services, and a continual improvement of the means of access (mobility) and the ability to prevent exclusion due to spatial or financial limitations.
It is therefore based on principles :
To conclude this brief introduction on the subject, it is apparent that the city of tomorrow does not respond to a simple, spatially-restricted pattern of organization in order to house residents, to facilitate their relationship first to their work, then to public services, and, finally, to the central places of commerce.
The new ways to measure time have obliterated those of space, and the diversity of expected uses of the city may impose a proliferation of locations, making the dialogue more difficult with nature in territories where town and country are intertwined. This will lead to a need for the management of a complex and elusive universe. The choice of habitat becomes key in the consideration of a household whose aim is to control a multidimensional system where no one element is predominant (work, family life, leisure, consumption of public and private services, cultural events, for a start). In this constantly evolving universe, the temptation to control by standards and regulations is becoming more and more futile.
The urbanism of tomorrow must rely more on the regulation and management of the contiguity of its spaces, as advocated by François Jullien, and the permanent adaptability of the city to its own development. It must imagine, almost in real time, those solutions warranted by new technologies to meet the challenge of a generalized urbanism in a territory where urbanization cannot yet be seen.
(This article was published in Stream 03 in 2014.)
explore
Justine Emard is a visual artist. Her installations use AI to understand the living, exploring the boundaries between organic life and artificial intelligence. Bee swarms, encephalographic recordings and prehistoric paintings become learning supports for algorithms that, contrary to dystopian imaginations, generate new supra-hyper-organisms.
AI is a new form of intelligence whose development is stirring up concerns and dystopian fables. Far from replacing human intelligence, AIs are emerging as new tools to be trained, controlled and shaped to achieve the desired result. For the artist, photographer, architect, film-maker, musician or illustrator, AIs become an agent with which to collaborate, resulting in co-creation. Inaugural lecture of the “AI and Creation” series at the Stream Innovation Center.
Eric Mangion has been director since 2006, after managing the Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur from 1993 to 2005. His research has long been focused on the artistic gesture of disappearance – in all its forms, from the alteration of the work to the disappearance of the artist. At the Villa Arson, he develops a program around ephemeral practices. He develops here the link between his research topics – the disappearance, the ephemeral, in the art and more generally, in the culture – and the evolution of the architecture.
Theoretical experiments around the concept of the “metabolic-city” place living organisms at the heart of a new paradigm, encouraging a systemic approach. In urban and architectural practice, what tools are available to measure metabolism? Pauline Detavernier, Doctor in Architecture and Research and Development Project Manager at PCA-STREAM, examines existing measures of the life cycle and urban metabolism to outline a methodology.
Using scientific facts as artistic material, Dutch artist Thijs Biersterker seeks to emotionally connect the public to global questions, to inspire a desire to take action. He uses technology, in particular AI, as a medium. His immersive installations highlight the intelligence and communication systems of plants: thus creating a bridge between living beings.
Never once has Sissel Tolaas, Norwegian artist, chemist, linguist and researcher, uttered the word “perfume”. For the past twenty-five years, she has been collecting, inventing and breathing new life into smells, refusing to be part of the world’s aseptisation. Through her olfactory installations, she invites us to sense reality, its geography and its temporality. Most recently, she has recreated the smell of Pompeii, between sensory experience and memory of the past.