Sustainability and the City

The Service Approach

Adi Wolfson

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781947441910
• eBook ISBN: 9781947441927
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Industria dei servizi
• Index: Business

Cities are without a doubt one of the miracles of human creation and the embodiment of the human environment. Insofar as they are large and densely populated human settlements with defined legal and political boundaries that comprise clusters of buildings, open spaces, public facilities and infrastructure, cities are mainly spaces of services that are exchanged between a wide variety of stakeholders-namely, residents, traders, visitors, and the city authorities. Moreover, the provision of cities' services has profound effect on the local and global sustainability. Thus, municipal services should comprise environmental, social, and economic values, which are designed, produced, and delivered in concert. Over the years, a variety of new urban models and concepts have been designed and proposed as viable means to reestablish the bond between the human and the natural environments, to increase the quality of life within cities and to reduce the impacts that cities have on the social and natural environments (e.g., sustainable city, smart city, or resilient city). Herein, a new model of the service city is presented, including architecture and several pertinent examples, which considers it as a platform that manages and integrates the services and systems currently provided by the city while offering additional supporting services to increase the effectiveness of the value and to achieve the goal of sustainability.

CHAPTER 1

The City Revolution

Today, more than 50 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, compared to just 3 percent in 1800 and 30 percent in 1950, and that proportion is expected to increase to 66 percent by 2050 (The World Population Prospects 2015). Moreover, populations of the 20 most populated cities in the world increased by 64 percent from 1990 to 2014. Reflecting a similar trend, there were only 83 cities with populations exceeding one million in 1950, and by 2007, this number had risen to 468 (City population Retrieved 2010). In addition, more than 70 percent of the populations of North America and Europe reside in urban areas (Gibson 2007).

But what is a city? The concept of city is very difficult to define. From a social sciences perspective, the simplest and most straightforward definition of a city is a large, often densely populated human settlement that is managed by a distinct local authority that is separate from national authorities (Pile 1999). It is thus also an administrative zone defined according to legal or political boundaries. Furthermore, from architectural and civil engineering perspectives, a city is a space of physical artifacts comprising clusters of buildings, open spaces, public facilities, and infrastructure that are defined within rigid, physical boundaries. In addition, the city is a concentration of public institutions, and it offers trading, health, educational, cultural, and myriad other activities (Larice and Macdonald 2013). As such, it can also be defined as a space of services that are exchanged between a wide variety of stakeholders—namely, residents, traders, visitors, and the city authorities (Frug 1998; Miguel, Tavares, and Araújo 2012). Furthermore, a city is also an active community of continuously interacting people and organizations, and as such, it is defined by economic, social, and cultural boundaries. Finally, it is also an environmental zone that is defined by more dynamic and flexible geographic boundaries, for instance, of climate.

The Origin of Cities

What is the origin of cities, how did they come into existence, and what purposes and functions do they serve? From the dawn of humanity, people were hunter-gatherers, which dictated a nomadic way of life and a reliance on nature’s cycles and services, from food, water, and shelter, which are connected to the sowing and ripening cycles and animal migrations, to climate regulation and disease control (i.e., ecosystem services, which include provisioning, regulatory, supportive, and cultural services) (Gretchen 1997). Practiced by relatively small groups of people, this lifestyle demanded that group members function together to maintain life. To that end, hunter-gatherers conducted their lives in harmony with the natural environment, which is today defined as all the natural (vs. human-made) biotic and abiotic components (i.e., living and nonliving things) that interact in ecosystems. Thus, people of that era focused their energy mainly on maintaining their lives and ensuring the continuity of human life. Similar to humans today, hunter-gatherers had to fulfill their physiological needs for food, water, and air as well as for reproduction and their psychological needs for safety, health, and company. Maslow later defined these requirements as “basic needs” in his hierarchy or pyramid of needs (Maslow 1943).

The beginning of human settlements, attributed mainly to the Neolithic Revolution or the first Agricultural Revolution, began around 12,000 years ago with the domestication of plants and animals (Barker 2009). Insofar as it changed people’s role from solely that of food consumers to also include that of food producers, the first Neolithic Revolution facilitated three major changes in the lifestyle of humans that allowed and even required them to establish permanent settlements: (1) land possession and cultivation; (2) surplus food production, which effectively eliminated the need to wander and to forage for food, but which also required the development of mechanisms of food storage and protection as well as sales and trading services; and (3) population growth engendered by increases in the quantity and availability of food, which also led to increase in the population density in certain regions. These changes led to the establishment of villages that, due to technical limitations, contained at most only a few hundred inhabitants each (Childe 1950). Finally, in addition to driving the shift from a nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle to that based on permanent settlement, the Neolithic Revolution marked the first time not only that people assumed ownership of natural resources (e.g., ground, water, plants, and animals), but also that they interfered with natural systems (e.g., water diversion and accumulation and animal and plant domestication). Moreover, the beginning of permanent settlement also changed the social life and culture of people.

At their most basic level, settlements supplied their inhabitants with a variety of services, from housing and goods provision and storage to protection and trading. They also helped sow the seeds of the human environment, which can be defined as an artifact generated by the interactions between human social systems and ecosystems. Nevertheless, several thousand more years were needed to develop the advanced technologies and services, such as water supply and sewage removal systems and governance and cultural services, which characterize cities.

Among the oldest cities on Earth, which—Babylon or Jericho, Athens or Sidon—can be identified as the first official city? Answering this question requires that clearly defined and agreed upon criteria be used to distinguish between a small settlement, a village, and a city. Gordon Childe, who coined the term Urban Revolution in 1930, used concepts and theories from the social sciences to interpret archaeological finds. From that perspective, he presented 10 points that characterize the urban revolution and that can be used to define cities (Childe 1936 and 1950).

1. Population number and density. Subsequent researchers proposed that a city is also characterized by the number and density of its residents’ houses (Chandler 1987).

2. Characterization and diversity of labor. Though most of the citizens of ancient cities were farmers, other residents adopted new professions, becoming, for example, merchants and guards.

3. Production of capital from taxes that allowed the foundation of authorities.

4. Building of monumental public buildings that symbolized the city, its wealth, and the government.

5. Formation of a ruling class that was in charge of administrative systems.

6. Development of writing systems that enabled the city systems to be recorded and controlled.

7. Development of the sciences and the scientific profession, which facilitated a greater understanding of the world. More importantly, that increase in knowledge enabled people to better predict things and helped accelerate the development of new technologies.

8. Development of the arts and the artistic professions, whose members worked to glorify the wealth and beauty of the city.

9. Development of trade, especially long-distance trade. Most cities settled along established trading routes and became trade centers.

10. Establishment of economic and political communities and more complex social organization.

On the basis of the characteristics stated above, the first cities that conformed to the definition of a “city” were in the region of Mesopotamia, between 4500 and 3100 BCE. Thus the city of Uruk, first settled in circa 4500 BCE, is today considered to have been the first city in the world, followed by Eridu, which was founded in circa 5000 BCE but had grown into a city by circa 2900 BCE.

Evolution of the City

Throughout history, cities have been founded near rivers in fertile areas that were often situated at the intersections of transportation and trade routes, and they served as centers of storage, trade, and manufacturing. Evolutionary analyses of cities distinguish between two main models of city development: (1) cities that grew “naturally” from aggregations of villages and (2) cities that were planned from scratch. In addition, in terms of their physical structure, all cities contained three main elements: (1) buildings, from private housing to municipal structures; (2) networks, such as streets and water supply and sewage systems; and (3) open spaces, some for public activities (e.g., markets) and others merely situated between residential houses and other city facilities to promote the welfare of the citizens (Tertius 1987). Furthermore, for several thousand years, most planned cities adopted a similar plan that comprised a surrounding wall, streets arranged in a grid pattern, and, situated in the city center, a citadel—a structure that, in addition to providing the city’s residents with an added level of protection against external threats, was used for a variety of other city functions.

From their origin, cities also supplied many services that can be characterized as nonphysical values or systems; for example, marketplaces, tax systems, and other governance services. Cities also supplied physical security, social order, and continuity (e.g., defense and protection for citizens). Another important aspect of ancient cities comprised the religion services they provided and especially the corresponding establishment of temples. Furthermore, although throughout history cities rose and fell in parallel with empires, their social and economic roles as shelters and administrative zones did not change for hundreds of years.

The populations of ancient cities varied from several thousand at the dawn of cities to 10,000 and even up to 100,000 or more at their pinnacle. In contrast to villages, cities comprised a combination of infrastructures that satisfied their citizens’ basic needs, including food and security, services (e.g., trade, health, entertainment), and a community that shared in the social life and culture. These activities correspond to higher levels on Maslow’s pyramid (i.e., belonging that is based on friendship and society). In addition, all these needs and functions have constantly shaped and designed the human environment that cities offered, an environment that was constructed mainly from synthetic materials, which effectively erected a barrier between people and nature. In distancing people from nature, this synthetic barrier even effected a disconnection between the two. Eventually, the human environment created by cities and the intensive levels of human activities that took place in and around the cities also altered the natural environment on both local and global scales through unbalanced natural resource utilization and the discharge of human-made materials.

With the start of the Industrial Revolution at the end of the 18th century (Lucas 2002), cities grew and changed tremendously. The emergence of new technologies at that time partially replaced tedious hand labor with machine-based employment, enabling agricultural areas to prosper with fewer workers and leading to the establishment of industry in nonagricultural areas. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, factories were situated outside the cities, mainly near water sources that were required for the factory machinery. The development of steam power, however, allowed these manufacturing processes to be moved closer to the city centers, in the process spawning massive migrations of people from rural areas to cities. As a result, the bulk of economic, cultural, and governmental systems and facilities became concentrated in cities. Moreover, city architectural design was also revised, and factories, warehouses, and offices were added alongside houses and municipal buildings. In addition, technological innovations that emerged with the Industrial Revolution, from automobile and rail transportation to electricity and telecommunication, changed not only the city landscape but also the lifestyle of people in the cities and the way that cities were operated. Finally, the Industrial Revolution also witnessed the creation of new social classes (e.g., the proletariat, or working class, and the bourgeoisie).

The technological advances that allowed manufacturing processes to be moved within the boundaries of cities were hailed as an advance for civilization, but little thought was devoted to considering the consequences of bringing industrial development closer to the city center. The heavy industrialization that occurred in the cities caused high emissions of pollution, from the release of harmful and toxic gases into the air to the discharge of effluents and solid wastes to the city environment. The reliance on combustion processes in industrial areas in the proximity of city residents eventually created a significant burden on public health. Mainly the result of the air pollution associated with the smoke emanating from factory exhaust pipes, it led to calls for the design of new standards and laws regardin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Quotes
• Preface
• Chapter 1 The City Revolution
• Chapter 2 Sustainability and Service
• Chapter 3 What, Who, and How to Measure
• Chapter 4 Cyclicality in the City
• Chapter 5 The Service-City Model
• Chapter 6 Service-City Examples
• Chapter 7 Virtual Environment
• Chapter 8 What Next?
• References
• Index
• Backcover