Biourbanism for creating comfortable cities for people, free society, and healthy environment

The basis for this submission is our recent publication: Modonesi, C., Serafini, S. & Giuliani, A. (2024) Neither ecosystems nor machine: The city as a cultural organ­ism. Journal of Biourbanism, 10(1-2), pp. 139-151. Please refer to it for bibliography and further study of the submission.

Our submission highlights the fundamental comparability of urban and biological systems. Real cities and real organisms (as opposed to modern urban projects and robots that are linear simulations of complex human societies and living beings, respectively) develop due to the interaction between a certain set of internal response patterns and the environment. As in case of an organism devel­opment, interaction between a complex system and the environment defines its structure and functions. Modern major cities no longer interact with their natural environment, and they are “dematerialized” to such an extent that they became fully dependent on global sources of food, energy, even thought and government unrelated to their location. In fact, they are similar to organisms, whose life activity is maintained by external devices. In view of all this, it is offered to recover the vital link between cities and rural and natural environment that paves the way towards the future urban civilization.

Cities are complex systems with their own specific characteristics and needs, thus, they require continuous bilateral contact with the environment.

The works of Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine contributed to wide acknowledge­ment of the fact that ecosystems are complex nonlinear systems, the metastable nature of which (i. е. ability to fluctuate between different configurations) con­stitutes their normal condition. It is no coincidence that what is meant here are systems at the edge of chaos, which means a special type of dynamic equilibrium balancing between the order and randomness. Such an approach allows us to see the biodynamic contact plane as a place where interaction between the system and the environment occurs with time.

The systemic paradigm implies that while randomness and instability are in the realm of chance, the order and negentropy are the properties required to allow the system to maintain its individuality. It is the balance of these two components that allows the system to survive by adapting to the changing demands of its envi­ronment. Within the framework of this scenario there appears the vector of time. There appears a direction that depends on the free energy model applicable to ecosystems. In fact, thermodynamic equilibrium, which means reaching a certain configuration (energy minimum), is only possible in case of ideal closed systems. On the contrary, real systems, such as lakes, savannas, forests, etc., are open sys­tems and they are maintained in the state of imbalance by the flow of external energy passing through them. In such cases stability is impossible, and what is meant here is stationary (more precisely, quasi-stationary) systems that disperse the energy flow passing through them in the optimal way (minimum entropy production). It is here that system complexity comes into play and launches the processes leading to ordered structures that ensure the existence of ordered con­figurations.

In our model, a city is a rather special case of a complex system: a cultural organism, which corresponds to the paradigm of biodynamic interface. According to this paradigm, trajectory of cities’ development results fr om constant interac­tion between the urban organism and its environment. At the same time, complex systems cannot interact directly and require common “interface”, even if partially autonomous, featuring special dynamic character (let us remember biological membranes that regulate exchanges between cells and their microenvironment). In a city, such interface is the border between densely built-up urban areas and sur­rounding rural area. Blurring of this border (and, thus, uncertainty of this interface location) is the major challenge of our time.

In Italian cities of late Middle Ages, centers of social aggregation and eco­nomic activity, as well as connection to the rural environment, were of great importance. “City” and “village” were clearly separated, but at the same time dynamically connected. What is more important, areas outside the city walls had the same “cultural” value as urban spaces. Cities ensured multilevel inter­action between all urban institutions and various social classes, as well as con­tinuous bilateral flow of information from rural area and back through city walls and gates that were the biodynamic interface between the city and the envi­ronment.

The situation in modern large cities is totally different. Here “village” and “city” are no longer at the same level. The border between city and village is get­ting blurred: rural area is subjected to metastatic invasion of the city that happens simultaneously with internal destruction of mediation levels and geometric con­nections within the city. As cities grow, encroaching on the rural area, vast land lots get built-up under the model of low-density development.

Countryside spaces for various purposes, such as residential houses, shop­ping malls, places of recreation, and public parks are separated from each other due to the restrictions imposed by local governments and zoning regulations. In such cases, construction of new infrastructure for suburbanites is required. As a result, significant portion of transport, in particular, to provide essential items, is represented by cars. New suburbs are always rather boring and uniform as com­pared to the diversity of traditional cities, wh ere the urban landscape is definitely more welcoming. Besides, most of the suburbs suffer fr om lack and/or low quality of services.

In fact, modern cities have lost their autonomy and essence: they no longer define their own destiny, as resources and decisions defining their life activity come from outside. Indeed, urban life functions “broke out” beyond previously existing city boundaries and turned into a dematerialized landscape known as the global world. Cities no longer import food, materials, energy, and services from their surroundings. They are now dependent on foreign and distant sources. Thus, the link between a city and its environment is violated and turns into mere relation between spaces deprived of any special sense. Inhabitants of ancient cities cared about the health of their agricultural lands, as they provided the cit­izens with food. They maintained security and order in community themselves. In short, inhabitants of a city were its citizens in the full sense of that word, and their ethics and habitat were truly “civil”. On the contrary, relations of the inhab­itants or, rather, temporary residents of modern global cities with the “urban system” are exclusively of consumer and aesthetic nature. Modern temporary residents of a city have no connection with the “life of the city”, as similarly to “tourists” they do not participate in its construction and maintenance, but just use it. More and more often people live in fragmented urban districts described by poverty, instability, and social conflicts. The neoliberal turn of the new mil­lennium has placed class power in the hands of the richest elites of global capi­talism. Within few decades, new super billionaires emerged in many parts of the world, including regions that are still considered to be “poor” or “developing.” Results of such situation are indelibly imprinted in the spaces of our concrete and high-tech cities having no connection to the natural environment and more and more transforming into fortified cells, gated communities, and privatized public spaces: in other words, into cities controlled by cameras, fences, and restricted access areas. In many countries, cities are declining aesthetically and socially. At the same time, physically and socially isolated areas are being cre­ated, which increases the distressing sense of the existence of many indepen­dent “microstates”.

Crisis of modern urban environment gets largely aggravated by the proba­ble approach of the world to a turning point, as majority of people live in cities and megacities or their suburbs. At present, over 50% out of 8 billion people populating the world live in highly urbanized areas: it is expected that by the middle of this century this percentage will increase up to 70%. It shall be men­tioned that in total the urbanized surface of the planet is 3% of the overall area of the Earth’s surface. This means that enormous amount of people occupies an extremely limited part of the globe with all the ensuing consequences. Such an impressive concentration of people entails critical management and organiza­tional challenges, as well as unpredictable amount of energy related, social, and medical challenges.

Deteriorated condition of the environment typical for many cities of the West­ern world is often associated with high expenses on public healthcare, especially for those who are not responsible for deterioration of the environment. Increased impact of hazardous and/or carcinogenic substances at home, at work or while traveling around the city causes increased morbidity among the most vulnerable groups of the population. The fight against cancer and other degenerative diseases cannot be left to the medical sector alone. Central and regional authorities shall fight diseases with the use of state measures aimed at primary prevention, i. e. by way of elimination and reduction of the causes of diseases. Urban policy shall ensure reduced socio-economic gap between citizens and abandonment of deci­sions in favor of market pressure and to the detriment of public health and social justice. Urban planning must take into account the issues of public healthcare and combine theoretical and pragmatic aspects of systems theory, ecology, geography, biology, philosophy, and social sciences.

One of the most promising ways to overcome current local and global urban challenges should be efficient interaction of cities with rural and natural envi­ronment. This offer is rather simple and compliant with the need to focus urban planning on what is important for people. It is necessary for us to fulfill basic human needs without distorting the ecological and social context in which com­munities are living. “Vision” of the territory based on the understanding of “urban space” is required. This concept shall be freed from the dominance of excessive construction, private speculations that are contrary to common interests, focus on road transport, and generally the idea that there cannot be a strong and trust­ing relationship between the city and the natural environment. In short, these are small and medium size cities with clear borders surrounded by associated landscape wh ere enough food and energy are produced for the residents, and population of which enables deliberative democracy based on ecological and civil dialogue. Such cities could independently define their own destiny, as their vital functions (“organs”) would not be external: they would also have a real local economy, and their citizens could develop ecological and civil relations based on agriculture and related professions, including the service sector. Common ecological and civil language develops in the area of civil activity, politics, eco­nomics, and architecture, as evidenced not only by 2000 years of Mediterranean urbanism, but also the forms of relation arising in squats and slums around the world. Failure in usage of this language causes disasters at the urban, social, and environmental levels. Ecological and civil language is the main property of a real and living bio-urbanized city.