| Eco-Cities: Rebuilding Civilisation, Restoring Nature Richard Register Excerpt from the book Futures by Design (Doug Aberley (ed.), New Society Publishers, Philadelphia, 1994) Few people seem to understand the importance of this proposition. Environmentalists call for efficient recycling -- without calling for a city structure that makes it possible. Then they drive around town with ten pounds of paper in a 2,000-pound car. Some architects call for healthy buildings -- without placing the building into a city layout that could make the building function in its town in a healthy way. Then people go on consuming gasoline and paving paradise between `healthy buildings'. Some gardeners and naturalists promote planting trees, grass and shrubs in the suburbs -- without recognising the larger infrastructure and natural systems the suburbs are part of. Then, in drier climates, the watering of the trees, grass, and shrubs depletes the rivers, causing salt intrusion into estuaries, impoverishing water and marsh environments for fish, waterfowl, and humans who need or enjoy them, creating excess siltation which requires more dredging for shipping, and so on. Everywhere the environmentalist, conscientious architect, and caring citizen come up against apparent contradictions. But if we look at the structure of cities, towns, and villages, and realise that they can be built upon ecological principles, the contradictions are explained and we can proceed to build in a healthy manner. That insight, though -- that the structure of the built habitat is at the foundation of environmental and social success or failure -- is almost totally missing from the current debate. It is the foundation for all that I will present. I call it the ecological city insight, or most simply, the eco-city insight. |
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updated 1995 |