Ricky Burdett (ed.) Towards an urban age

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Original citation: Burdett, Ricky, ed. (2006) Towards an urban age Urban Age.

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Available in LSE Research Online: May 2013

© 2006 Urban Age

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Urban Age is a worldwide series of conferences investigating the future of cities NEW YORK/FEBRUARY 2005 TOWARDS SHANGHAI/JULY 2005 LONDON/NOVEMBER 2005 MEXICO CITY/FEBRUARY 2006 AN URBAN AGE JOHANNESBURG/JULY 2006 BERLIN/NOVEMBER 2006 WWW.URBAN-AGE.NET

URBAN AGE CONTACT Berlin Summit Contact T +49 (0) 30 3407 3527 Cities Programme The London School of Economics and Political Science Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE United Kingdom T +44 (0)20 7955 7706 [email protected] Alfred Herrhausen Society Deutsche Bank Unter den Linden 13/15 10117 Berlin Germany T +49 (0)30 3407 4201 [email protected] www.alfred-herrhausen-gesellschaft.de ISBN 07530 2045 9 This publication is the seventh and final the shared faith that the pioneer architectural nects the map makers, who parcel up pack- edition in the series of Urban Age newspapers modernists had when they chartered a liner to ages of swamp land to sell to gullible pur- designed to coincide with a two-year cycle LISTENING TO THE CITY cruise the Mediterranean in agreeable com- chasers, and the ‘show’apartment builders of conferences in cities around the world. fort, and draw up their vision of what the who sell off plan, to investors in Shanghai Organised by the London School of modern city must be, the charter of Athens. who are banking on a rising market making Economics and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred They divided it into functional zones, them a paper profit before they have even had Herrhausen Society, the Urban Age confer- he city is a subject that is appar- olive. I knew that Johannesburg was a city shaped by sunlight angles. That was a genera- to make good on their deposits. ences are an international and interdiscipli- ently about everything. It is shaped by Apartheid, but I hadn’t understood tion that was freed from the luxury of self- There are visions of cities as machines for nary investigation into the connections about climate change and racial what it would mean to try not just to deal with doubt.We are not, and that is why we struggle making money, if not for turning the poor between urban form and urban society. tolerance, social justice and eco- inequalities, but to operate against a back- now when we try to find a renewed sense of into the not so poor, which is what attracts the Conferences have taken place in New York, nomic development, culture ground of a Soweto that was deliberately built purpose about what cities should be.We are ambitious and the desperate to them in the Shanghai, London, Mexico City and and personal memory, national to exclude the possibilities of urban life. I full of doubt, or at least we certainly should first place. Johannesburg, as well as the German city identity and civil liberty. But could not have imagined what it is like for the be.We are the witnesses to soured urban But there are other less tangible kinds of of Halle. This first cycle of urban research T without some sort of focus, or city’s transport officials to work with a subur- utopias that were invented by some of the visions too that no city can do without for will conclude with the Urban Age Summit some framework applied to the ways in which ban rail system which saw dozens of its architects on that liner, and propagated by a long. In the end it is the vision of what a city in Berlin on 10-11 November 2006.A book we think about it, the city as a subject that is so employees murdered last year – until I met political system that measured success in the is that gives it a shared sense of itself.A city summarising the Urban Age findings will all-embracing can end up being about every- one of those officials.And until I had seen number of new buildings that it could deliver is an à la carte menu, that is what makes it be published by Phaidon in summer 2007. thing and so, in the end, about nothing. white South African planners use the word each month. different from a village which offers so much Berlin, an atypical western European city, © Philipp Rode, The author in Shanghai, Urban Age Further information on all Urban Age that, unlike the other places that the Urban A city is an à la carte activities can be found at www.urban-age.net Age caravan has examined in the last two years, is attempting to accommodate shrink- menu, that is what ing expectations, rather than expansion on an explosive scale. Here our ambition is to pro- makes it different vide that framework, to move beyond the col- lection of data, and to put some of our cards from a village which on the table. To help us we have the statistical lessons offers so much less in that we have tried to absorb over the journey the way of choice charted by the LSE and the Alfred Herrhausen Society.We also have the impressionistic ones comrade to describe the black ANC council- we have acquired that can be as important. lors whom they worked for in the way that Personally, I will take with me the view of their London equivalents might use the word Johannesburg from the 50th floor of the Mr, I did not really appreciate the nature of Carlton Centre, a perfect specimen of an politics in that city. Probably I still don’t. SOM (Skidmore, Owings and Merrill) Before I went to Mexico City earlier this designed tower of the early 1970s, adjusting to year, I had not grasped that it was no longer the new realities of South Africa. I will the untameable monster that the world has remember the non meeting of minds of Rem always assumed. Nor had I considered the Koolhaas and Peter Eisenman, in New York, significance of the networks linking its where they demonstrated the difficulty that street traders with the factories in China architects can have in communicating with a supplying them. wider audience. I will not forget the sudden In Mexico, it was Benjamino Gonzales’bril- silence that spread over a terrace on the Bund liant presentation on the Faro community in Shanghai when the news of multiple back- arts project that stays in my memory most Politicians love cranes; they need solutions less in the way of choice.A positive vision of pack bombs being detonated on the London vividly. It was flagged up as being a talk about within the time frame of elections. The result urbanity has to be based on ensuring that underground filtered through from half a urban spaces. But in reality it was about some- is a constant cycle of urban demolition and more and more customers can afford to make world away. I will remember the splendour of thing more important: self-organising urban- reconstruction that is seen as the substitute the choice. the room in Mexico City in which the confer- ity. Then there is that mysterious quality of for thinking about how to address the deeper Those who seek to understand the contem- ence met, built at the turn of the 20th century citiness that the Urban Age conference has issues. Engels and Ruskin reeled in horror at porary city have a lot to learn from novelists, to house the boardroom of the ministry of been in pursuit of ever since it first met in the impact of urbanisation in 19thcentury and film makers.Architects and city planners public building and works with a grandeur New York two years ago. Manchester (a fraction of the scale of that in are story tellers too, coming up with a narra- that signalled the ambitions and dreams of a The most salutary lesson from the privilege the 21st century Pearl River Delta). The great tive long before they ever build anything. new republic, and now a museum piece. of being able to plug into the networks that German architect, Karl Friederich Schinkel, They offer a story, or more often, a myth, of It is chastening, but valuable for a critic to shape a different metropolis every four went there to learn the secrets of industrial community, or of greenness: an image of be confronted with how little they really months, is the understanding that no matter building: you can now see huge areas that modernity, or of tradition. It is the literary know. I hadn’t, before the Urban Age confer- how much the world’s cities operate as part of were originally built up in the 1880s and view of the city from Dickens and Zola ence in Shanghai, understood that of its 18 a single global system, acquiring the same demolished in the 1930s, and built up and onwards that allows us to understand its million or so people, fully a quarter were ille- kind of landmarks, museums, airports, free- demolished again twice since then. nuances of light and shade. They help us gal migrants, or that the city had levels of ways, and subject to the same quack remedies Visions for cities tend to be the creation of understand the flawed but rich nature of city inequality of an order close to Manhattan’s. of tax incentives and marketing programmes, the boasters. City builders have always had to life that does not survive the conventional Impressive, or a depressing change for the just how different and distinct they remain. be pathological optimists, if not out-and-out response to urban reality, which is to try to country that Mao clothed in monotonous We do not belong to a generation that has fantasists. They belong to a tradition that con- sweep the dark underbelly of the city away.

This image and cover © Armin Linke, Mexico City, exhibited at the 2006 Venice Biennale To sweep away the darkness is to risk the col- lateral damage that will destroy the very quali- ties that make a city work. It is to turn a city into a village, which is no place for the dis- possessed and the ambitious, desperate to escape from poverty. In London the Urban Age discussed the a worldwide series of conferences investigating area known as the King’s Cross railway lands, the future of cities a gash in the urban fabric that has never organised by the Cities Programme at the healed since the canals and railways tore into London School of Economics and Political Science it at the start of the 19th century. It reflects the and the Alfred Herrhausen Society, the International Forum of Deutsche Bank reality of city life in the most brutal and extreme form. Hookers and addicts share the pavements with the commuters, skirting the vast swathe of canals and sheds, trapped between the Euston Road, and the residential streets of Camden Town. It is undergoing a paroxysm of development that irresistibly recalls the feverish transformation of this very piece of land portrayed by Charles Dickens in Dombey and Son. Dickens captured the surre- alistic dislocation of houses left stranded by railway embankments, and roads that lead

URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 © Guy Tillim, Johannesburg, exhibited at the 2006 Venice Biennale and spaces for the common good. More inclu- ture of various imaginations, voices, expert- sive cities are the solution. ise, trust and political will which link space IS THE CONCEPT Solutions are complex and must be and agency. Public space is in those cases tailor-made for each city (sometimes the (almost) synonymous with tranquillity. negotiations over ‘turf’ownership are strenu- Invisible or more visible alchemists have acted OF PUBLIC SPACE ous and costly), but they do exist. Teams to give each (resident, user, commuter, of innovative architects, planners, scholars, investor) the sense of his or her belonging in a mayors and community representatives shared urban space. VANISHING? expressing various residents’aspirations have To summarise: cities have good news to learned how to weave back the social fabric tell, relative to ongoing mutations and to the and interplay into space and agency. It takes ways they can thrive, working differently. time, patience, imagination, skills and oes the gradual disappearance of public roads should still be barred from pub- resources to bring failing neighbourhoods Sophie Body-Gendrot, Director and Professor of public space have an impact on lic access and that so many private guards back to recovery. Political Science and American Studies, Center our concept of the city? (four to one public policeman – the second- Success exists and examples that should for Urban Studies, Sorbonne, Paris Public space is a complex highest proportion in the world) should turn be publicly brought forward and shared – notion. New York and London, neighbourhoods into fortresses, without any Urban Age’s purpose – abound. Sometimes in their voluntary endeavours to real public debate on the issue.We are aware high-tech firms settle in an unlikely place, and revitalise former derelict spaces, that many changes are on their way and that subsequently public transportation improves Dhave progressively defined the reformed country is only twelve years old. and critical masses of affordable homes for which users they envision will use future But, it seems that insufficient support and the middle classes transform the identity of embellished spaces that look public but in fact resources allocated to reforms slow the space. Sometimes an art institution in Mexico are subject to control; either from private process of change. City, or a university and research centre pro- security guards (ie waterfronts, commercial That urban violence is used as an excuse viding top-quality expertise, or a new Court malls), or from publicly hired security to refuse to live together and that enclosures of Justice including social services in a poorer employees (semi-public parks), or by regular reinforce segregation cannot be ignored. Such neighbourhood in New York, have a similar police officers. The problem does not arise attitudes are lethal to cities.An anti-urban effect. Each of these ‘solutions’reveals a mix-

from the transgression of laws, which would © Gabriele Basilico, New York, exhibited at the 2006 Venice Biennale © Ryan Pyle, Shanghai, Urban Age lead to sanctions, but from the very identity To summarise: cities of people who are considered to fit the ‘unde- sirable’category, and whose presence may have good news to generate a stop and search, or even a ban of spatial use. tell, relative to ongoing Such a process can be observed in Shanghai, where obvious public spaces like mutations and to the the Bund along the river or the public gar- dens, are inviting many kinds of flâneurs to ways they can thrive, stroll, among a pleasant diversity and density working differently of people. However, although perhaps less apparent, control is nevertheless present, discourse linking cities, fear and violence emanating from two sources: from under- should be resisted. The answer to urban fear is cover policemen in charge of order who mix not to exit the city, buy a gun and get shelter in with the crowds, and from society’s internal a gated community. In Venice, Norman Foster social control system; which emerges when courageously suggested that those who nowhere.Almost the same thing is happening so many urban visions have done, with an those who do not ‘belong’are spotted by other choose to get away from the rest of the world again. The huge glass and white steel box Visions for cities tend attempt to deal with the pathology of the city: citizens. Freedom yes, but under surveillance. and contribute to the sprawl phenomenon tacked onto the back of Victorian St Pancras modernism after all was probably as much What about the two other large should pay very high taxes.When the happy Station, designed to handle the high speed rail to be the creation of about notions of hygiene as anything else. megapolises of the South that are part of the few require roads and power stations in order link to Paris and Brussels is nearing comple- the boasters. City The city is a complex interaction of issues Urban Age selection? to live on the edge, they indeed detour tion. It represents a construction project that and ambitions that are shaped by the everyday In Mexico City, more than one million resources and energies that should be allocat- matches those of the Victorians, in its scale if builders have always choices of its citizens as much as by their residents each gave one peso to bring reality ed to the improvement of collective services not in its confidence or architectural ambi- political leaders, and their officials. The devel- to one of those numerous utopian visions of tion. Negotiating the area, you thread your had to be pathological opment of a city involves oil companies and parks, meant to coalesce a great variety of way through new viaducts that erupt from the car builders, as much as the financial institu- visitors at the same time and in the same mud, past tower cranes, and ancient ware- optimists, if not out- tions that make house building possible. It space. The park designers aimed for a social houses and gasometers. The landscape is by involves the law, and investment regimes, as cohesion, transcending class divisions and turns pastoral, and derelict.As it is now, and-out fantasists well as such apparently simple ideas as being they relied on universal needs for peace, King’s Cross is a mud-splattered, anarchic forms, or art works, that seemed to be trying able to take a breath of air without worrying entertainment and recreation within cities. mess that reveals the shifting tectonic plates of to tell us something important about how about the harm it’s going to do us, or our chil- Micro control systems are however at work; urban life. The new King’s Cross will be a space works, how space can be brittle and dren.A city is a vision as well as a mechanism, guards make sure that smooth processes, polite, comfortable place for commuters to fibrous, complex and multilayered. They in the sense that Bogatá’s bus lanes represent organising movements, will be respected. drink café latte on their way from the train to looked almost like the circuit boards for easy movement for the masses, as opposed to They act invisibly, they interpret situations, the office. But it is unlikely to be a city in the Mexico City, the machine code revealed a regulatory system to force through change they make sense of them, and they suggest sense that Dickens or Zola would understand. beneath the pixels on the surface. The nervous on private car drivers. But given the costs and alternatives to CCTVs and other high-tech Urban space is something that Mexico City system underneath the skin. obligations that come with the privileges of surveillance methods. makes you aware of in some provocative and It wasn’t quite the same kind of space as urban life, a city is also a test of the limits of The most problematic case is probably unexpected ways. The sheer size of the Zocalo, that explored by Hermann Knoflacher with the power of persuasion, as opposed to com- Johannesburg, where so little public space is reminding us of the Aztecs who laid it out, his provocative pedestrian walking machine, pulsion.And in the end, a genuine city can allocated to density and diversity, unlike Rio and its mismatch with the colonial architec- and its wry demonstration of the destructive only be about the persuasion and not the (Copacabana) or São Paulo (Avenida ture that forms its rim catches you by sur- capacity of the car; or the layer upon layer compulsion. Paulista). It is indeed strange that, despite the prise. It makes you think about Mexico’s orig- of bus circuits and parking lots for the efforts deployed by the city council, so many inal builders, and their continuing, if some- National Autonomous University. Diagrams Deyan Sudjic, Director, Design Museum, times submerged presence in the colonial that tell us why a University city is not yet a London That urban violence period.When you come to think about it, the city, precisely because it is too easy to map its Zocalo is a public space defined as much by movement patterns. is used as an excuse to absence as presence. The Zocalo’s continuing The diagrams are all telling us something uses are also political. Demonstrators form up important about the city, and how it moves. refuse to live together outside the offices of the federal district And of course public space without the possi- administration, their banners fixed, under the bility of movement in it is like a dead butterfly and that enclosures shadows of that enormous national flag, in a specimen case. Because movement means reinforce segregation demanding to be heard. access, which is the real issue about space.And You could see another kind of public space as the Zocalo tells us, in Mexico or London, cannot be ignored. in Mexico presented in some of the diagrams Berlin, Shanghai, Johannesburg or New York, seen in our sessions on mobility and trans- space is as much about the symbolic and the Such attitudes are port. Professor Bernardo Navarro Benitez’s theatrical as it is to do with the technical. uncanny diagrams looked like organic crystal There are other kinds of vision that start, as lethal to cities

URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 and the homogenising effect, no matter how much of this architectural environment is Expanded informal economies are people from all over the world intersect in distinguished the architecture. The key closer to inhabited infrastructure – inhabited emerging as part of these advanced urban The urban footprint ways they do not anywhere else. In these com- CITIES AT THE becomes understanding what inhabits this by specialised functions and actors. economies, evident in all our Urban Age cities, plex cities, diversity can be experienced homogenised state of the art urban landscape whether in the global North or South. It is easy of the global through the routines of daily life, workplaces, that recurs in city after city.We will find far MAKING NEW URBAN HISTORIES to think of informalisation as anomalous, as corporate economy public transport and urban events such as INTERSECTION more diversity and distinct specialisations These conditions themselves have produced a belonging to an older order. But in my reading demonstrations or festivals. Further, insofar across these cities than the newly built urban variety of responses, from renewed passions it is part of advanced capitalism. Informality keeps expanding; as powerful global actors are making increas- landscapes suggest. The global economy for aestheticising the city, preserving the city assumes a whole range of new meanings.At ing demands on urban space and thereby dis- OF NEW HISTORIES requires a standardised global infrastructure, and ensuring the public-space aspect of cities. the most abstract level it can be seen as multi- we can measure this placing less powerful users, urban space with global cities the most complex of these The massive scale of today’s urban systems plying the range of practices – economic, becomes politicised in the process of rebuild- infrastructures. But the actual economic has brought with it a revaluing of terrain artistic, professional – possible in these cities. expansion in ing itself. This is politics embedded in the operations, especially their organisational vagues and of modest spaces – where the prac- Complex cities allow for this multiplication physicality of the city. The emergent global y the mid-20th century, many of global cities; this network includes all the side, thrive on specialised differentiation. tices of people can contribute to the making and diversifying in a way that neat suburbs do kilometres and in movement for the rights to the city is one our great cities were in physical Urban Age cities. These global cities need to Thus, as the global economy expands and of public space, beyond the monumentalised not.While at one end of the scale informality emblematic instance of this struggle. In decay, losing population, eco- be distinguished from the hundreds of cities includes a growing diversity of national public spaces of state and crown. Micro- is a form of injustice and powerlessness, at the growing densities urbanising rights it makes them concrete: the nomic activity, key roles in the which are located on often just a few global economies, it is largely in the global cities of architectural interventions and informal other end it enables actors to ‘make’new tems, such as public transport and public sur- right to public space, to public transport, to national economy, and share of circuits: while these cities are articulated with each of these that the work of capturing the architectures can bring built complexity into economies – and is a form of survival but also veillance, is an often invisible layer in a grow- good neighbourhoods. national wealth.As we move the global economy, they lack the mix of specialised advantage of a national economy standardised spaces. This type of built com- of creativity. Many immigrant entrepreneurs ing number of cities. Such embedded software One question is whether a new type of into the 21st century, cities have resources to manage and service the global gets done. To do this work requires state-of- plexity can in turn engage the temporary start informally, because it allows a more is guided by logics that are not necessarily part politics is being shaped through these con- B re-emerged as strategic places operations of firms and markets. The reason the-art office districts and all the require- publics that take shape in cities in particular experimental form of business we might say. of the social repertory through which we flicts, a politics that might also make the vari- for a wide range of projects and dynamics. for this new strategic role can be captured in ments of luxury living. In that sense then, spaces at specific times of the day or night. Many Silicon Valley tycoons started informal- understand those systems.As the use of ety of inter-city networks into platforms for The Urban Age project allowed us to establish the following microcosm: the more globalised ly in garages. But we also saw informal archi- embedded software expands to more and global governance. Most of today’s major this directly for a set of very diverse cities. a firm’s operations and the more digitised its © Philipp Rode, Mexico City, Urban Age tectural practices in all our Urban Age cities – more infrastructures for daily life, we will social, political and economic challenges are product, the more complex its central head- from Mexico to Berlin. increasingly be interacting with the artefacts present in cities, often in both their most MAKING NEW ECONOMIC HISTORIES quarter functions become and hence the The growing inequality and the massive of technology. Technical artefacts become acute and their most promising form: the Critical, and partly underlying all the other more their execution benefits from dense, concentrations of power now evident in maj- increasingly actors in the networks through sharpest juxtapositions of the rich and the dimensions, is the new economic role of cities resource-rich urban environments. or complex cities form a basic context within which we move. Buildings are today dense poor, but also struggles for housing; anti- in an increasingly globalised world. The for- As a result, the interaction of centrality which some of these trends need to be situat- sites for these types of interactions. These immigrant politics, but also multiple forms of mation of inter-city geographies is contribut- and density takes on a whole new strategic ed. Cities have long had inequality, but what acute concentrations of embedded software integration and mixtures; the most powerful ing a critical infrastructure for a new global meaning in global cities. The urban footprint we see today alongside older forms is a new and of connectivity infrastructures for digi- and globalised economies, but also a prolifer- political economy, new cultural spaces, and of the global corporate economy keeps type of inequality. Homelessness has long tised space make the city less penetrable for ation of informal economies; the most power- new types of politics. Some of these inter-city expanding; we can measure this expansion been part of cities. But where it once concern- the ordinary citizen. ful real estate developers, but also the biggest geographies are thick and highly visible – the in kilometres and in growing densities. The ed a single man – the hobo – now it is family group of builders in the world today – people flows of professionals, tourists, artists and five Urban Age cities we have worked with homelessness, with children the largest group RE-INVENTING THE POLITICAL making shanty dwellings. How can we not ask migrants among specific groups of cities. thus far all show expansion and multiplica- of homeless in large cities. These social and The city is also potentially the site where all whether networks of cities can become plat- Others are thin and barely visible – the highly tion of central spaces along with physical den- spatial inequalities probably assume their these systems can become visible, a potential forms for new types of global governance? specialised financial trading networks that sity. This is the urban form hosting an sharpest and most visible form in global cities. further strengthened by the multiple globali- connect particular cities, depending on the increasingly complex set of activities for the There are also new technical histories in ties, from economic to cultural to subjective, Saskia Sassen, Centennial Visiting Professor, type of instrument involved, or the global management, servicing, designing, imple- the making. The city is one moment in often that localise partly in cities. This in turn brings LSE and Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology, commodity chains for diverse products that menting and coordinating of the global oper- complex processes that are partly electronic, up political challenges: at various points in University of Chicago run from exporting hubs to importing hubs. ations of firms and markets.Architecture, such as electronic markets, or part of hidden history cities have functioned as spaces that These circuits are multidirectional and urban planning and civil engineering have infrastructures, such as fibre optic cables. politicised society. This is, again, one of those criss-cross the world, feeding into inter-city played a critical role in building the new Embedded software for handling mass sys- periods. Today’s cities are the terrain where geographies with both expected and unex- expanded urban settings for this organisa- pected strategic nodes. For instance, New tional side of the global economy. This is © Philipp Rode, Mexico City, Urban Age © John Tran, London, Urban Age © Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Johannesburg, exhibited at the 2006 Venice Biennale York is the leading global market to trade architecture as inhabited infrastructure. financial instruments on coffee, even though The much talked about homogenising it does not grow a single bean. But a far less of the urban landscape in these cities powerful financial centre, Buenos Aires, is the responds to two different conditions. One leading global market to trade financial is the consumer world, with homogenising instruments on sunflower seeds. Cities locat- tropes that help in expanding and standardis- ed on global circuits, whether few or many, ing markets to the point where they can become part of distinct, often highly spe- become global markets. But this is to be dis- cialised inter-city geographies. Thus if I were tinguished from the homogenising involved to track the global circuits of gold as a finan- in the organisational side of the global econo- cial instrument, it is London, New York, my – state-of-the-art office districts, airports, Chicago and Zürich that dominate. But if I hotels, services, and residential complexes for track the direct trading in the metal, the strategic workforces. Johannesburg, Mumbai, Dubai and Sydney all This reshaping responds to the needs appear on the map. The number of cities that associated with housing these new get drawn into these inter-city geographies is economies, and the cultures and politics they growing fast. For instance, the top 100 global entail. I would say that this homogenised service firms together have affiliates in 315 cities worldwide. Looking at globalisation The formation of through the lens of these specificities allows us to recover the particular and diverse roles inter-city geographies of cities in the global economy. While many of these global circuits have is contributing a long existed, what began to change in the critical infrastructure 1980s was their proliferation and their increasingly complex organisational and for a new global financial framings. It has been the new challenge of coordinating, managing, and political economy, new servicing these increasingly complex, spe- cialised and vast economic circuits that has cultural spaces, and made cities strategic. new types of politics MAKING NEW SPATIAL HISTORIES environment for the most complex and It is perhaps one of the great ironies of our globalised functions is more akin to an infra- global digital age that it has produced not structure, even though not in the convention- only massive dispersal but also extreme con- al sense of that term. It is not simply a visual centrations of top-level resources in a limited code that aims at signalling a high stage of number of places. Indeed, the organisational development, as is so often posited in much side of today’s global economy is located, and of the commentary on the matter, and is the continuously reinvented, in what has become belief of many developers. a network of about 40 major and not so major We need to go beyond the visual tropes

URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 Apart from these trends, the status quo in Similar decisions were taken in Mexico City. © Dante Busquets, Mexico City, exhibited at the 2006 Venice Biennale these three mature Urban Age cities is still one Here, around 50,000 minibuses and If cities in the future MOVING PEOPLE, of dominating car use at the metropolitan microbuses are handling the majority of the level, despite an extensive public transport trips while 40% of the city’s transport budget will have to rely on system. The overall rising energy consump- between 2000 and 2006 has been spent on its sustainable transport, MAKING CITY tion for transport is best illustrated by a steep Segundo Piso, an elevated highway built increase of Sports Utility Vehicles even within exclusively for private cars and used by not then we need to move the city’s boundaries. even 1% of residents. On the other hand, developments in the Johannesburg’s public space has been rapidly towards o society can exist without the its genuine character. The advantage of rapidly expanding cities investigated by taken over by traffic, shockingly illustrated movement of people, goods and reduced commuting and less money spent on Urban Age – Shanghai, Mexico City and by its accident statistics of 56 fatalities per understanding the information, and it is generally travelling is as critical in the developing world Johannesburg – follow a distinctively differ- 100,000 inhabitants per annum compared regarded as a means for evolu- as are the benefits associated with urban liv- ent pattern.A vast majority of the population to 3 in London and 7 in Mexico City. The city forces which promote tion, be it the facilitation of ing for the more individualistic and atomised has long been and still is dependent on walk- seems to have surrendered to the safe and trade or most importantly for society in the global North. Both require a ing, cycling and public transport, the latter private environments of shopping malls. traditional car use human interaction. Modern compact city at a human scale that allows for mainly organised by the informal sector. Marginalisation and containment planned with its vast need for Ntransport is what collapses the extensive interaction, complexity and public Access to private cars is still the preserve of a under Apartheid has been perpetuated in the distances between two points and as such, it life. The initial question about the right trans- small minority. Historically these three cities post-Apartheid period. The percentage of space, particularly needs to be available to all equally. But trans- port solutions bounced back as one about the have been different in many aspects. Shanghai stranded people who walk to work for more port is also deeply intrinsic and is often as city and its form, which ultimately is the ques- invested heavily in its cycling infrastructure than 30 minutes, often under dangerous cir- through parking much of an end in itself. It offers the most tion about how we want to live together. This until the mid-1980s and it was only with the cumstances and unable to afford any form direct emotional experience of technical new consensus looks at land use and rehabili- opening of China’s economy that major of public transport, has increased. 46% of progress; it is a lifestyle marker, the physical tates the concept of dense urban environ- changes of government policy were brought households are spending more than 10% representation of great political achievements ments with public transport as their back- about. The central government in Beijing of their income on daily commuting. The and the raison d’être for the world’s leading bone. It acknowledges that there is a threshold declaring car production as pillar industry is main public transport provision, the city’s industrial sector. The consequences are obvi- level of car use beyond which cities are seri- critical to understanding city level transport mini bus taxis, receives no operating subsidy ous: transport is one of the most contested ously at risk; it puts pedestrian-friendly envi- strategies that produce elevated highways, while the provincial government is planning development areas, and while offering an ronments at the top of the agenda and regards satellite towns and mono-functional districts to invest €2.1 billion ($2.7 billion) in a rapid endless number of solutions remains walking and cycling as serious contributions while putting human scale transport infra- rail project. extremely controversial. to urban mobility. structure on the back burner. Shanghai is Clearly, car-based mobility solutions dis- Cities initially promised high levels of The older, mature cities investigated by successful in attracting more car use which proportionately dominate transport agendas ideas and product exchange by creating the Urban Age programme – New York, doubled between 1995 and 2004 leading to and investments in the three rapidly expand- greater proximities. In doing so, they became London and Berlin – include many examples increased average commuting distances ing cities, mocking statements, intentions and a transport solution themselves, one based on of this paradigm shift. London is currently which also doubled. During the same period, policy goals on sustainability, resource man- the principle of avoiding transport or at least implementing its 100 public space pro- the city’s official policy to reduce cycling led agement and social inclusion. If put forward, of reducing its necessity. Economic, geo- gramme, the number of cyclists has doubled to a drop from almost 40% to 25% of all trips. sustainable transport concepts are centred

graphic and cultural factors drove the evolu- within the last 5 years, and the city’s conges- © Ryan Pyle, Shanghai, Urban Age tion of cities over time, but it was not until the tion charge has reduced car use in central widespread use of the private motorcar that London by 15% while subsidising the 40% the most basic concept of the city, that of increase in bus use since 2001. New York City physical proximity and coexistence, was seri- has made an enormous effort to upgrade its ously challenged. Suburban sprawl – driven public transport system by investing more by the desire for more personal living space than €32 billion ($40 billion) since 1982 and with direct car access, combined with elevated has seen a 13% decline in car ownership levels motorways, decentralised business parks, between 1990 and 2003. In Berlin, 32% of all shopping malls and vast car parks – was trips are done on foot or by bicycle, and since indeed a radical shift in spatial development. 1990 its public transport infrastructure has It was the overall unconvincing outcome of been upgraded to cater for a potential extra 1 the latter model and its enormous social and million inhabitants with its S-Bahn, tram and environmental cost that has, over the last 30 regional rail network. The city has also been years, introduced the return to normative active in promoting car sharing and multi- questions about the use of urban space in modal transport. Regarding these trends it time.Why cities, why proximity and what are needs to be emphasised that innovation was the right transport solutions? led by smaller cities mainly in continental This debate has made enormous progress Europe. Barcelona, Copenhagen and Vienna around capital intensive systems like heavy the process of moving towards more sustain- with the fact that its subject is more about and has resulted in extensive urban regenera- informed public space strategies in London; rail which may not have an extensive catch- able urban structures, where movement is politics than about economics, engineering or tion efforts in cities around the world. In Zürich and Karlsruhe were highly influential ment area, yet require enormous funding based on public transport and non-motorised any other scientific discipline. The second addition, and differing from initial predic- for the rehabilitation of tram lines as surface streams. Transport modes used by the mobility, has been rather slow. If cities in the challenge results from focusing only on tions, the latest transport revolution based on public transport in Berlin and around the majority of people in these cities, mainly future will have to rely on sustainable trans- organising movement where, at least in the communication and information technology world; while Amsterdam and Freiburg gener- walking, cycling and microbuses, receive far port, then we need to move rapidly towards case of the city, it needs to organise movement has turned out to be supporting the city with ally pushed the agenda for urban cycling. less attention. understanding the forces that promote tradi- and space. Still, it has been the professional

© Richard Learoyd, London, exhibited at the 2006 Venice Biennale Fortunately, land-use patterns in relation tional car use with its vast need for space, par- community around the world that has advo- to transport are being looked at with increas- ticularly through parking. The consumption cated the most innovative urban transport ing interest. In Mexico City, asentamientos of cars is still on the national agenda for eco- solutions for more than 30 years before they irregulars [informal settlements] such as nomic growth in five of the six countries to were finally implemented as a result of strong Ciudad Neza have been upgraded with public which the Urban Age cities belong, and only political leadership. Bogotá’s rapid bus system funding, transforming the traditional squat- the UK’s economy is largely independent and cycle network, London’s congestion ter settlement into a vibrant city of 1.5 million from the production of automobiles.All six charge and Berlin’s multi-modal transport people. There is a healthy mix of housing and cities certainly face strong pressure from indi- approach are just three examples. Ultimately, work places, and a large number of businesses vidual desires for motorisation and have only the future focus has to be the integration of have been integrated providing nearly 65% of been successful in resisting these pressures land-use and transport strategies as well as jobs to local residents.Aiming for more inner when putting forward a widely accepted agen- the relationship between connecting places city housing, Mexico City has also imple- da prioritising quality of life in cities. while at the same time creating locations. mented its bando dos policy which requires We need to work out the governance Once again, this needs to be understood on a higher residential density levels while restrict- structures and technology by which public political level before it will begin to happen. ing new housing in the outer districts. In transport can save rapidly expanding cities Johannesburg, the debate about transport from simply adopting Western mobility Hermann Knoflacher, Professor of Transport and accessibility focuses increasingly on the cycles.We need to understand what forces are Planning, Vienna University of Technology problems arising from the deliberately low required to break the path dependencies in density levels of the Apartheid city; this has the mature Urban Age cities to move towards Philipp Rode, Project Manager, Urban Age and led to first attempts for densification in town- sustainable mobility in the near future. Associate, Cities Programme, LSE ships like Soweto. The professional crisis of transport plan- Over the last decade there have been seri- ning differs greatly to that of urbanism, which Geetam Tiwari, Chair & Associate Professor, ous efforts in all six cities to bring land-use was humiliated by a complete loss of control TRIPP,Civil Engineering Department, Indian and transport strategies closer together. during the last 30 years. The transport plan- Institute of Technology, Delhi However despite investments and expertise, ning profession instead struggles first of all

URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 ties, by schools and hospitals built as isolated The Brittle City is a symptom. It repre- vate; out of such conditions comes the unex- © Paolo Rosselli, London, exhibited at the 2006 Venice Biennale campuses. The proliferation of zoning regula- sents a view of society itself as a closed system. pected encounter, the chance discovery, the THE OPEN CITY tions in the 20th century is unprecedented in The closed system is a conception that dogged innovation. Her view, reflected in the bon mot the history of urban design, and this prolifer- state socialism throughout the 20th century as of William Empson, was that ‘the arts result ation of rules and bureaucratic regulations much as it shaped bureaucratic capitalism. from over-crowding’. has disabled local innovation and growth, This view of society has two essential attrib- Jacobs sought to define particular strate- HE CLOSED SYSTEM: THE BRITTLE CITY ment possible, have been subordinated to a frozen the city in time. utes: equilibrium and integration. gies for urban development, once a city is The cities everyone wants to live regime of power that wants order and control. The result of over-determination is what The closed system ruled by equilibrium freed from the constraints of either equilibri- in should be clean and safe, pos- Urbanists, globally, anticipated the ‘control could be called the Brittle City. Modern urban derives from a pre-Keynesian idea of how um or integration. These include encouraging sess efficient public services, be freakery’of New Labour by a good half-centu- environments decay much more quickly than markets work. It supposes something like a quirky, jerry-built adaptations or additions to supported by a dynamic econo- ry; in the grip of rigid images, precise delin- urban fabric inherited from the past.As uses bottom line in which income and expenses existing buildings; encouraging uses of public my, provide cultural stimulation, eations, the urban imagination lost vitality. change, buildings are now destroyed rather balance. In state planning, information feed- spaces which don’t fit neatly together, such as and also do their best to heal In particular, what’s missing in modern than adapted; indeed, the over-specification back loops and internal markets are meant to putting an AIDS hospice square in the middle T society’s divisions of race, urbanism is a sense of time – not time looking of form and function makes the modern ensure that programmes do not ‘over-com- of a shopping street. In her view, big capital- class, and ethnicity. These are not the cities backwards nostalgically but forward-looking urban environment peculiarly susceptible mit’,do not ‘suck resources into a black hole’– ism and powerful developers tend to favour we live in. time, the city understood as process, its to decay. The average lifespan of new public such is the language of recent reforms of the homogeneity: determinate, predictable, and Cities fail on all these counts due to gov- imagery changing through use, an urban housing in Britain is now 40 years; the health service, familiar again to urban plan- balanced in form. The role of the radical plan- ernment policy, irreparable social ills, and imagination image formed by anticipation, average lifespan of new skyscrapers in New ners in the ways infrastructure resources for ner therefore is to champion dissonance. In economic forces beyond local control. The friendly to surprise. York is 35 years. transport get allocated. The limits on doing her famous declaration:‘if density and diver- city is not its own master. Still, something has A portent of the freezing of the imagina- It might seem that the Brittle City would any one thing really well are set by the fear of gone wrong, radically wrong, in our concep- tion of cities appeared in Le Corbusier’s ‘Plan in fact stimulate urban growth, the new now neglecting other tasks. In a closed system, a tion of what a city should be.We need to Voisin’for Paris in the mid-1920s. The archi- more rapidly sweeping away the old, but again little bit of everything happens all at once. The result of over- imagine just what a clean, safe, efficient, tect conceived of replacing a large swath of the the facts argue against this view. In the United Second, a closed system is meant to be an determination is what dynamic, stimulating, just city would look historic centre of Paris with uniform, X- States, people flee decaying suburbs rather integrated system. Ideally, every part of the like concretely – we need those images to con- shaped buildings; public life on the ground than re-invest in them: in Britain and on the system has a place in an overall design; the could be called the front critically our masters with what they plane of the street would be eliminated; the European continent, as in America,‘renewing’ consequence of that ideal is to reject, to eject, should be doing – and it is exactly this critical use of all buildings would be coordinated by a the inner city most often means displacing the experiences that stick out because they con- Brittle City. Modern imagination of the city which is weak. single master-plan. Not only is Le Corbusier’s people who have lived there thus far.‘Growth’ test or are disorienting; things that ‘don’t fit’ This weakness is a particularly modern architecture a kind of industrial manufacture in an urban environment is a more compli- are diminished in value. The emphasis on urban environments problem: the art of designing cities declined of buildings, he has in the ‘Plan Voisin’tried to cated phenomenon than simple replacement integration puts an obvious bar on experi- drastically in the middle of the 20th century. In destroy just those social elements of the city of what existed before; growth requires a dia- ment; as the inventor of the computer icon, decay much more saying this, I am propounding a paradox, for which produce change in time, by eliminating logue between past and present, it is a matter John Seely Brown, once remarked: every tech- today’s planner has an arsenal of technologi- unregulated life on the ground plane; people of evolution rather than erasure. nological advance poses at the moment of its quickly than urban cal tools – from lighting to bridging and tun- live and work, in isolation, higher up. This principle is as true socially as it is birth a threat of disruption and dysfunction fabric inherited from nelling to materials for buildings – which This dystopia became reality in various architecturally. The bonds of community to a larger system. The same threatening urbanists even a hundred years ago could not ways. The Plan’s building-type shaped public cannot be conjured up in an instant, with a exceptions occur in the urban environment, the past begin to imagine: we have more resources to housing from Chicago to Moscow, producing stroke of the planner’s pen; they too require threats which modern city planning has tried use than in the past, but resources we don’t housing estates which came to resemble ware- time to develop. Today’s ways of building to forestall by accumulating a mountain of sity give life, the life they breed is disorderly’. people care deeply about where they live. then explore some of the ways edges of urban late. By contrast, the 19th-century architect use very creatively. houses for the poor. Le Corbusier’s intended cities – segregating functions, homogenising rules defining historical, architectural, eco- The open city feels like Naples, the closed city People live into these places, like nesting. Time territory function like walls. Louis Sullivan used much more primitive This paradox can be traced to one big destruction of vibrant street life was realised population, pre-empting through zoning and nomic, and social context – ‘context’being a feels like Frankfurt. breeds that attachment to place. forms of plate glass more flexibly, as invita- fault. That fault is over-determination, both in suburban growth for the middle classes, regulation of the meaning of place – fail to polite but potent word in repressing anything For a long time, I dwelt in my own work In my own thinking, I’ve wondered what a. Walls: The wall would seem an unlikely tions to gather, to enter a building or to dwell of the city’s visual forms and its social func- with the replacement of high streets by mono- provide communities the time and space that doesn’t fit in, context ensuring that noth- happily in Jacobs’shadow – both her enmity kinds of visual forms might promote this choice; it is an urban construction which lit- at its edge; his plate glass panels function as tions. The technologies, which make experi- function shopping malls, by gated communi- needed for growth. ing sticks out, offends, or challenges. to the closed system (though the formal experience of time. Can these attachments be erally closes in a city. Until the invention of porous walls. This contrast in plate glass concept is mine, not hers) and her advocacy designed by architects? Which designs might artillery, people sheltered behind walls when design brings out one current failure of imag- © Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Johannesburg, exhibited at the 2006 Venice Biennale of complexity, diversity, and dissonance. abet social relationships that endure, just attacked; the gates in walls also served to regu- ination in using a modern material so that it The role of the radical Recently, in re-reading her work, I’ve detect- because they can evolve and mutate? The late commerce coming into cities, often being has a sociable effect. planner therefore is to ed glints of something lurking beneath this visual structuring of evolutionary time is a the place in which taxes were collected. The idea of a cellular wall, which is both stark contrast. systematic property of the open city. To make Massive medieval walls, such as those surviv- resistant and porous, can be extended from champion dissonance If Jane Jacobs is the urban anarchist she is this statement more concrete, I’d like to ing in Aix-en-Provence or in Rome, furnish a single buildings to the zones in which the dif- often said to be, then she is an anarchist of a describe three systematic elements of an open perhaps misleading general picture; ancient ferent communities of a city meet. Thus, the sins of equilibrium and integra- peculiar sort, her spiritual ties closer to city: 1. passage territories; 2. incomplete form; Greek walls were lower and thinner. But we tion bedevil coherence, for planners of educa- Edmund Burke than to Emma Goldmann. 3. development narratives. also mis-imagine how those medieval walls b. Borders: Ecologists like Steven Gould draw tion as much as planners of cities, as planning She believes that in an open city, as in the nat- themselves functioned. Though they shut our attention to an important distinction in sins have crossed the line between state capi- ural world, social and visual forms mutate 1. Passage territories closed, they also served as sites for unregulat- the natural world, that between boundaries talism and state socialism. The closed system through chance variation; people can best I’d like to describe in some detail the experi- ed development in the city; houses were built and borders. The boundary is an edge where thus betrays the 20th-century bureaucrat’s absorb, participate, and adapt to change if it ence of passing through different territories of on both sides of medieval town walls; infor- things end; the border is an edge where differ- horror of disorder. happens step by lived step. This is evolution- the city, both because that act of passage is mal markets selling black-market or untaxed ent groups interact. In natural ecologies, bor- The social contrast to the closed system is ary urban time, the slow time needed for an how we know the city as a whole, and also goods sprung up nestled against them; the ders are the places where organisms become not the free market, nor is a place ruled by urban culture to take root, then to foster, then because planners and architects have such dif- zone of the wall was where heretics, foreign more interactive, due to the meeting of differ- developers the alternative to the Brittle City. to absorb chance and change. It is why Naples, ficulties designing the experience of passage exiles, and other misfits tended to gravitate ent species or physical conditions. For That opposition is in fact not what it seems. Cairo, or New York’s Lower East Side, though from place to place. I’ll start with walls, which towards, again far from the controls of the instance, where the shoreline of a lake meets The cunning of neo-liberalism in general, and resource-poor, still ‘work’in the sense that seem to be structures inhibiting passage, and centre. They were spaces that would have solid land is an active zone of exchange; here

of Thatcherism in particular, was to speak the © Ismail Farouk, Johannesburg, exhibited at the 2006 Venice Biennale attracted the anarchic Jane Jacobs. is where organisms find and feed off other language of freedom whilst manipulating But they were also sites that might have organisms. The same is true of temperature closed bureaucratic systems for private gain suited her organic temperament. These walls layers within a lake: where layer meets layer by an élite. Equally, in my experience as a functioned much like cell membranes, both defines the zone of the most intense biological planner, those developers in London, as in porous and resistant. That dual quality of the activity. Not surprisingly, it is also at the bor- New York, who complain most loudly about membrane is, I believe, an important princi- derline where the work of natural selection is zoning restrictions are all too adept in using ple for visualising more modern living urban the most intense.Whereas the boundary is a these rules at the expense of communities. forms.Whenever we construct a barrier, we guarded territory, as established by prides of The contrast to the closed system lies in have to equally make the barrier porous; the lions or packs of wolves. The boundary estab- a different kind of social system, not in brute distinction between inside and outside has to lishes closure, whereas the border functions private enterprise – a social system that is be breachable, if not ambiguous. more like a medieval wall. The border is a open rather than closed. The characteristics The usual contemporary use of plate- liminal space. of such an open system and its realisation in glass for walls doesn’t do this; true, on the In the realm of human culture, territories an open city are what I wish to explore in ground plane you see what’s inside the build- consist similarly of boundaries and borders – this essay. ing, but you can’t touch, smell, or hear any- in cities, most simply, there is a contrast thing within. The plates are usually rigidly between gated communities and complex, THE OPEN SYSTEM fixed so that there is only one, regulated, open streets. But the distinction cuts deeper The idea of an open city is not my own: credit entrance within. The result is that nothing in urban planning. for it belongs to the great urbanist Jane Jacobs much develops on either side of these trans- When we imagine where the life of a in the course of arguing against the urban parent walls, as in Mies van der Rohe’s community is to be found, we usually look for vision of Le Corbusier. She tried to under- Seagram Building in New York or Norman it in the centre of a community; when we stand what results when places become both Foster’s new London City Hall: you have dead want to strengthen community life, we try to dense and diverse, as in packed streets or space on both sides of the wall; where you intensify life at the centre. The edge condition squares, their functions both public and pri- would expect life in the building to accumu- is seen to be more inert, and indeed modern

URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 © Antrim Caskey, New York, Urban Age In the past, thinking about democracy regional planning and sub-city democracy. focused on issues of formal governance, today The latter two topics focus on the nature and it focuses on citizenship and issues of partici- GOVERNANCE AND LEGAL power of government institutions, not on pri- pation. Participation is an issue that has vatisation or public-private structures of gov- everything to do with the physical city and ernance. Making government work better, its design. For example, in the ancient polis, STRUCTURES and making it more responsive to its citizens, the Athenians put the semi-circular theatre strengthens the role of government as it seeks to political use; this architectural form pro- to develop a ‘partnership’with private and vided good acoustics and a clear view of non-profit institutions. Creating regional and speakers in debates; moreover, it made the here are four key topics that sub-city structures is one way to do so.A perception of other people’s responses during Urban Age has raised about city Making government change in the current method of governing debates possible. governance in New York, cities can thus have an impact, not only on In modern times, we have no similar model London, Shanghai, Mexico City, work better, and government but also on governance – on the of democratic space – certainly no clear Johannesburg, and Berlin: the making it more role of democracy in the world’s major cities. imagination of an urban democratic space. fragmentation of the metropoli- If public-private partnerships are the wave of John Locke defined democracy in terms of tan areas in which the cities are responsive to its the future – at least, the wave of the near-term a body of laws which could be practiced any- T located; the organisation of the future – it is important to re-invigorate the where. Democracy in the eyes of Thomas cities themselves as vehicles for the provision citizens, strengthens ‘public’half of the arrangement. Jefferson was inimical to life in cities; he of governmental services; the impact of the Doing this in the six very different con- thought the spaces it required could be no concept of being a ‘global city’on city deci- the role of government texts we have examined would be carried out larger than a village. His view has persisted. sion-making; and the role of privatisation in by six different policies. Some cities encom- Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, cham- city planning and service delivery. as it seeks to develop pass a sensible subdivision of their region pions of democratic practices have identified None of these cities is large enough to (London, Shanghai) and some don’t (New these with small, local communities, face-to- encompass its entire region, and none is ever a ‘partnership’ York, Mexico City, Berlin). Some are con- face relationships. likely to do so. But that doesn’t mean that the with private and non- trolled directly by the national government Today’s city is big, filled with migrants and region is already the ‘real’city. Since no (Mexico City), some by state government ethnic diversities, in which people belong to regional political organisation exists that can profit institutions (New York), and some are simultaneously many different kinds of community at the react to or help direct public or private deci- cities and states (Berlin, Shanghai). Some same time – through their work, families, sions, the fragmented municipal governments focus on being a global city reinforce each have subdivisions that may be too powerful consumption habits and leisure pursuits. For – along with the national and (for some cities) other. Governance imagines ‘stakeholders’ (London), some that may be too weak cities like London and New York becoming state or provincial governments – make the being ‘at the table’,working with city officials (Mexico City, Berlin), and some don’t have global in scale, the problem of citizen partici- necessary policy decisions. The questions are and others to formulate policy through con- effective subdivisions at all (New York). Some pation is how people can feel connected to whether and how to change this. sensus. It’s unimaginable that representatives have vigorous democracies and one planning practices, such as sealing the edges When we try to convert office blocks to resi- others, when, necessarily, they cannot know The cities themselves can be seen not just of global business enterprises will be excluded (Shanghai) does not have an elected govern- of communities with highways, create rigid When the city operates dential use, for instance. them. Democratic space means creating a as too small to be effective but also too large. from such a meeting. It’s quite imaginable, ment. It’s possible to outline a subdivision boundaries, lacking any porosity. But neglect forum for these strangers to interact. Most, but not all, of them subdivide the city on the other hand, that there will no one and regional structure – and a conception of of the edge condition – boundary thinking, if as an open system – 3. Narratives of Development In London, a good example of how this government to deal with local matters. But the there from the floating population, the infor- city power – in general terms. But their appli- you like – means that exchange between dif- incorporating princi- Our work as urbanists aims first of all to can occur is the creation of a corridor connec- organisation of these boroughs, districts, and mal economy, or representing the poor new- cation in each of these contexts will differ ferent racial, ethnic, or class communities is shape the narratives of urban development. tion between St Paul’s Cathedral and the sub-regions differs radically, and the question comers who have recently immigrated from enormously. The same can be said about gov- diminished. By privileging the centre we can ples of porosity of By that, we mean that we focus on the stages Tate Modern Gallery, spanned by the new is how best to set them up. This issue and the another country. Given the embrace by ernance and the focus on being a global city: thus weaken the complex interactions neces- in which a particular project unfolds. Millennium Bridge. Though highly defined, need for regional thinking are not unrelated city officials of a globally oriented policy, New York and London, on the one hand, and sary to join up the different human groups the territory, narrative Specifically, we try to understand what ele- the corridor is not a closed form; along both topics. The empowerment of a region with the invited stakeholders can easily think Mexico City and Johannesburg on the other, city contains. ments should happen first, what then are the the south and north bank of the Thames it is millions (in Shanghai tens of millions) of that the overall direction of city policy is are not similarly situated on either score.And The porous wall and the edge as border indeterminacy and consequences of this initial move. Rather than generating regeneration of lateral buildings people would not allow for meaningful dem- uncontroversial – indeed, is a worldwide Berlin and Shanghai are not comparable to create essential physical elements for an open a lock-step march towards achieving a single unrelated to its own purposes and design. ocratic participation by local citizens. The phenomenon that no one in the room could any of the other four – or to each other. system in cities. Both porous walls and bor- incomplete form – it end, we look at the different and conflicting And almost immediately upon opening, current boundaries of the principal cities are conceivably resist. ders create liminal space; that is, space at the possibilities which each stage of the design this corridor has stimulated informal mixings themselves inadequate to this task. Sub-city The issues of privatisation and of the fos- Gerald Frug, Louis D Brandeis Professor of Law, limits of control, limits which permit the becomes democratic process should open up; keeping these possi- and connections among people walking the governments, by contrast, can enable citizens’ tering of the global city are intimately con- Harvard University appearance of things, acts, and persons not in a legal sense, bilities intact, leaving conflict elements in span within its confines, and has prompted participation in the daily governmental deci- nected with the first two topics listed above: unforeseen, yet focused and sited. The biolog- play, opens up the design system. an ease among strangers, which is the founda- ical psychologist Lionel Festinger once char- but as physical We claim no originality for this approach. tion for a truly modern sense of ‘us’.This is © Peter Bialobrzeski, Shanghai, exhibited at the 2006 Venice Biennale acterised such liminal spaces as defining the If a novelist were to announce at the begin- democratic space. The cities themselves importance of ‘peripheral vision’; sociologi- experience ning of a story, here’s what will happen, what The problem cities face today is how to cre- can be seen not just as cally and urbanistically, these sites operate the characters will become, and what the story ate, in less ceremonial spaces, some of the differently from those places which concen- surrounded it in the urban fabric, though means, we would immediately close the book. same sense of relatedness among strangers. It too small to be effec- trate differences in a centre; on the horizon, at Hadrian’s architects conceived the Pantheon All good narrative has the property of explor- is a problem in the design of public spaces in the periphery, at the border, differences stand as a self-referential object.We find the same ing the unforeseen, of discovery; the novelist’s hospitals, in the making of urban schools, in tive but also too large out since one is aware one is crossing out of co-existence in many other architectural art is to shape the process of that exploration. big office complexes, in the renewal of high one territory into another. monuments: St Paul’s in London, Rockefeller The urban designer’s art is akin. streets, and most particularly in the places sion-making that affects their lives. Center in New York, the Maison Arabe in In sum, we can define an open system as where the work of government gets done. How does one understand the impact of 2. Incomplete Form Paris – all great works of architecture which one in which growth admits conflict and dis- How can such places be opened up? How can their global city status on the power of these This discussion of walls and borders leads log- stimulate building around themselves. It’s the sonance. This definition is at the heart of the divide between inside and outside be cities? More precisely, what is the role of the ically to a second systematic characteristic of fact of that stimulation, rather than the fact Darwin’s understanding of evolution; rather bridged? How can design generate new city government in producing, or at least fur- the open city: incomplete form. Incomplete- that the buildings are of lesser quality, which than the survival of the fittest (or the most growth? How can visual form invite engage- thering, the process of becoming a global city? ness may seem the enemy of structure, but counts in urban terms: the existence of one beautiful), he emphasised the process of ment and identification? These are the press- There is little doubt that government officials this is not the case. The designer needs to cre- building sited in such a way that it encourages growth as a continual struggle between equi- ing questions which urban design must in all of the cities now seek to promote their ate physical forms of a particular sort,‘incom- the growth of other buildings around it. librium and disequilibrium; an environment address in the Urban Age. global city status. But none of them can easily plete’in a special way. And now the buildings acquire their specifi- rigid in form, static in programme, is doomed control such a development, let alone rethink When we design a street, for instance, so cally urban value by their relationship to each in time; bio-diversity instead gives the natural Richard Sennett, Professor of Sociology, London or redirect city policy away from such a goal. that buildings are set back from a street wall, other; they become in time incomplete forms world the resources to provision change. School of Economics and Massachusetts Yet many city residents have no connection to the space left open in front is not truly public if considered alone, by themselves. That ecological vision makes equal sense of Institute of Technology the global business network or even to the space; instead the building has been with- Incomplete form is most of all a kind of human settlements, but it is not the vision neighbourhoods where it is located.And tra- drawn from the street.We know the practical creative credo. In the plastic arts it is conveyed that guided 20th-century state planning. ditional city services (education, sanitation, consequences; people walking on a street in sculpture purposely left unfinished; in Neither state capitalism nor state socialism housing, policing) have to compete for tend to avoid these recessed spaces. It’s better poetry it is conveyed in, to use Wallace embraced growth in the sense Darwin under- resources against those seeking to support the planning if the building is brought forward, Steven’s phrase, the ‘engineering of the frag- stood it in the natural world – in environ- global city policy from a limited city budget. into the context of other buildings; though ment’.The architect Peter Eisenman has ments which permitted interaction among Should the national (or state) governments the building will become part of the urban sought to evoke something of the same organisms with different functions, endowed delegate greater power to these cities to revise fabric, some of its volumetric elements will credo in the term ‘light architecture’,meaning with different powers. their current global city focus? now be incompletely disclosed. There is an architecture planned so that it can be The city efforts to promote being a global incompleteness in the perception of what added to, or more importantly, revised inter- 4. Democratic Space city are but one example of the trend towards the object is. nally in the course of time, as the needs of When the city operates as an open system – privatisation in these cities. Perhaps the most Incompleteness of form extends to the habitation change. incorporating principles of porosity of terri- significant illustration of this trend is the cur- very context of buildings themselves. In clas- This credo opposes the simple idea of tory, narrative indeterminacy and incomplete rent emphasis on ‘governance’,rather than sical Rome, Hadrian’s Pantheon co-existed replacement of form which characterises the form – it becomes democratic not in a legal government, as the vehicle for public policy with the less distinguished buildings that Brittle City, but it is a demanding opposition. sense, but as physical experience. decision-making. This emphasis and the

URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 © Richard Bryant/Arcaid.co.uk, London, exhibited at the 2006 Venice Biennale population is growing at a significant pace, public investment in facilities and open vast majority of new developments. traditional stock of terraced housing, which, creating a physical landscape that celebrates spaces, could end up with environments that Shanghai’s city planners are aware that in At night the Downtown like Berlin’s perimeter housing or New York’s difference over inclusion – behind gates, cam- lack the vibrancy and urbanity of the city’s the pursuit of economic progress,‘mistakes’ mansion block, has demonstrated enormous eras and barbed wire – where public space diverse neighbourhoods. are being made that at some point in time will area is eerie, with capacity for change and adaptation as the city fails to perform its democratic potential as a Leaving New York in a snowstorm after a need to be ‘corrected’.Forced relocation of flickering lights of undergoes cycles of economic, social and cul- place of interaction and tolerance, and where four-hour taxi ride to JFK airport and taking inner city dwellers (to remote highrise tural change. London still has one of the old- a non-existent public transport system the 373 km/h, fifteen-minute Magnetic estates), the banning of bicycles and motor- makeshift kitchens est and most expensive underground systems reduces the possibility of economic progress. Levitation (Maglev) train journey from cycles on selected streets (because they cause in the world, which is about to undergo a As a new generation of civic leaders begin to Shanghai airport to the ‘centre’is bracing at congestion), the construction of more elevat- in multi-storey apart- massive facelift through a controversial pub- tackle these complex urban questions, only many levels. New York feels delicate and even ed motorways (to supposedly relieve conges- lic-private finance initiative that will affect twelve years after the birth of a new South fragile in contrast to the heroic scale and pace tion), and the cynical appropriation of prime ments indicating the travel in London for the next decades. To pro- Africa, Johannesburg is in a position to redi- of change in China’s febrile mercantile city – sites by corporate behemoths (especially tect Londoners from spiralling prices – rect its considerable economic power towards where over 5,000 towers with more than 8 along the Hung Po River) are indicators of an presence of a new, according to UBS, London in 2006 is the the construction of a more compact and inte- storeys high have been built within 25 years. unsustainable development pattern balanced world’s most expensive city – there is a grated environment, through policies and The raised Maglev monorail flies over a land- by significant public investment in the under- disenfranchised requirement that 50% of any new housing actions that prioritise public transport and scape of serial duplications of cookie-cutter ground system with the addition of 218 kilo- urban subclass project must consist of affordable housing, investment in the centre, retro-fit its disen- gated communities – regimented apartment metres (over half of New York City’s entire not only for families on ‘waiting lists’but for franchised communities with social spaces blocks neatly aligned at equal distances – with network) in the next years. The much cele- multi-centred, green organic urban structure, key-workers like firemen, nurses and police- and facilities and contain the proliferation of vast billboards advertising the very same real brated policy of eleven new satellite towns on unevenly distributed on both sides of the men who are otherwise being progressively out-of-town shopping malls and gated com- estate opportunities, and isolated reflecting the fringes of Shanghai’s vast metropolitan winding River Thames, which flows from the priced out of the market. The reality in many munities, preparing the ground for a new glass skyscrapers that constitute Shanghai’s area, each themed according to national affluent west to the poorer east – has in many of London’s inner city areas is still bleak, phase of development that will inevitably fol- urban experiment-in-the-making in a city of flavours – the ‘German’Town, the ‘Italian’ ways determined the shape of its future devel- where over half of all children live in poverty low as the region continues to expand. over eighteen million people. The drivers Town, the ‘Scandinavian’Town, and so on – opment. One of the first decisions taken by (52%), and across the city 85,000 children live Like all the other cities of the Urban Age, behind this hyper-scale residential develop- has been quietly abandoned in favour of a the new Mayor of London in 2001 (the in temporary housing, many in 150,000 offi- with the exception of Berlin, New York is also ment are not only the high levels of in-migra- more pragmatic response to the needs of a Mayoral Office, itself a new institution in the cially ‘overcrowded’households. The new growing, once again, having experienced and tion typical of so many cities of the global rampant real estate sector – one of the many history of governance of this 2,000-year-old generation of housing typologies currently recovered from a period of relative conflict, South, but also the overpowering demand by ambiguities of this independent Socialist city city) was to accommodate all growth within being designed for London’s new communi- crime and economic decline. Today the dens- the city’s residents, especially its emerging which has recently witnessed the effect of the city’s existing boundary – the so-called ties – with a large concentration in the est city in the USA is building on its ‘melting professional class, for more space and facili- Beijing-directed Communist Party purges Green Belt. The combination of a demo- Thames Gateway in the ex-Docklands area – pot’status as the only American ‘majority- ties inside their homes. Only fifteen years ago, among its ruling élites. graphic and economic growth, a strong prop- has the potential for relieving pressure on minority’city, where over half of the 8 million the average space available to a single person London is also juggling with the interplay erty market and the availability of brownfield housing demand, but risks polarising the rela- people living in the city’s five boroughs are of in Shanghai was six square metres, roughly of private interests and public intervention, as sites – ex-industrial areas, old railway goods tively diffuse distribution of wealth in non-white, non-Hispanic origin. Its compact the size of small car. Today, that size has at it once again – like New York – faces a period yards, redundant gas and electricity depots – London, that determines its diverse character. urban core, with residential blocks arranged least doubled, fuelling the housing boom that of intense growth after decades of decline. has kick-started an unprecedented process of Two years of urban travel and investigation along a tight and regular urban grid and marks the skyline, and, more significantly for While a mere 750,000 people will be added to urban retro-fitting that is transforming the have – as Saskia Sassen has put it – turned a active street frontages lined by shops, has its negative impact on the public realm, the London’s current total of 7.3 million by 2015 image as well as the reality of living and work- group of urban ‘nomads’into an urban ‘tribe’. ground level in every corner of the city. The – a modest figure in comparison to the ing in London. Clusters of highrise buildings Together we have felt and observed how London is also juggling decision to accommodate growth by building growth rates of Shanghai or Mexico City – are springing up around existing and new underneath the skin of at least these six world high, with single point blocks surrounded by most new Londoners will be from outside the business hubs, while the townscape of the cities lie deep connections between social with the interplay of car ramps and empty open space, is damaging UK and many from the enlarged European Thames is filling up with a new generation cohesion and built form, between sustainabil- the subtle urban grain of a city of immense Union attracted by 400,000 new jobs in the of office and residential structures that add ity and density, between public transport and private interests and character and dynamic street life – so visibly city’s strong service and business sectors. The little to the urban quality or grain of the city, social justice, between public space and toler- threatened by the design and typology of the city’s spatial configuration – a dispersed, reemphasising the lasting value of London’s ance, and between good governance and good public intervention cities that matter to the way urban citizens live that parallel policies of region-wide growth demonstrated resilience, accommodating © Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Johannesburg, exhibited at the 2006 Venice Biennale containment coupled with a re-densification waves of colonisation by different ethnic In one generation’s FEELING THE URBAN AGE of its more central neighbourhoods and groups, artists and cultural entrepreneurs, extensive rail-based public transport are the and varying forms of economic activity – time, by 2050, three only way forward in responding to the city’s from garment sweatshops to corporate head- seemingly intractable spatial problems. quarters – underscoring the importance of quarters of the wo years. Six cities. New York, apart, lengthening commuting times for its The civic leaders of Johannesburg face sim- built form in sustaining cycles of urban planet’s 8 billion Shanghai, London, Mexico City, workers and pushing the poor to the far ilar but more extreme challenges in tackling change. Despite the growth in business and Johannesburg and Berlin. fringes of this seemingly limitless city. Here the radical demise of its Downtown. Home to services, New York’s less affluent residents still people will be urban, Together they offer a cross-sec- the rich seek protection in golf-course resi- the city’s major financial institutions up to the suffer from an acute shortage of affordable tion of our Urban Age in the dential typologies in armed and gated com- end of Apartheid in 1994, the central, gritty housing, high levels of crime and poor inner while only a century very year that more than half of munities, or the emerging vertical ghettoes of district of Hillbrow has become a no-go area city schools in one of the world’s richest cities, the world’s population has Santa Fe with their shimmering high-rises to black and white residents alike in the space where the average GDP per person is $40,000. ago 90% of humanity T moved to urban areas. In one overlooking the organic but well-established of a few years.At night the Downtown area is The sheer density of the city and its physical generation’s time, by 2050, three quarters of shanty towns, where the vibrant informal sec- eerie, with flickering lights of makeshift distribution between the Hudson and East was living in villages the planet’s 8 billion people will be urban, tor constitutes 60% of the city’s economy. kitchens in multi-storey apartments indicat- rivers supports what is one of the most effi- while only a century ago 90% of humanity Despite the high quality of the city’s early 20th- ing the presence of a new, disenfranchised cient public transit systems in the world, used and fields was living in villages and fields. Today, one century well-planned, compact neighbour- urban subclass. The effect of this transforma- by over half the population to go to work (in their lives. Perhaps more so than ever before, million people a week move in the opposite hoods of Condesa and Roma, architects and tion has been profoundly spatial.A large per- Los Angeles it is only 20%). Despite huge the shape of cities, how much land they occu- direction – from the fields to the city. Behind planners are struggling to convince their civic centage of the city’s business institutions have investment in its transport system over the py, how much energy they consume, how the dramatic statistics lie very different viscer- leaders that intensification of the city’s central moved out – recently completed hotels and last decades – over $40 billion – the ‘city’of their transport infrastructure is organised al realities that link urban form to urban soci- districts is the solution to its massive infra- office blocks remain empty or boarded up in New York suffers from a flawed system of gov- and where people are housed – in remote, ety, shaped by the homogenising impact of structure deficiencies – poor public transport, the centre – to the anodyne suburban centres ernance where the budget of the Mass Transit segregated environments behind walls or in global flows of capital, people and energy. lack of water, crumbling terrain and lack of of Sandton and Rosebank, surrounded by a Authority is determined hundreds of miles integrated neighbourhoods close to jobs, And each city form – compact, high-rise, low- open space – while the absence of any form of fast expanding sea of walled shopping centres away in the state capital of Albany – rather facilities and transport – affects the environ- rise, hyper-dense, sprawling, dispersed, poly- growth boundary or development control and gated residential communities – inhabit- than by the Mayor of New York – resulting in mental, economic and social sustainability centric, mono-centric, organic, geometric, outside the city’s legal boundaries makes any ed by white families and the new emerging poor strategic coordination, best illustrated of global society. informal or unplanned – brings with it its attempt at city planning meaningless.Yet, class of ‘economically empowered’blacks. perhaps by the ongoing Ground Zero débâcle. own set of social, economic and environmen- architecture and urban design are still manag- Soweto and Alexandra, the formerly segregat- Together with a string of new housing Ricky Burdett, Director, Urban Age, LSE tal consequences. ing to play a significant social role. Even the ed black townships with single-storey shacks projects on the edges of Manhattan, Of the six cities visited, Mexico City epito- controversial private sector led regeneration or two-storey homes laid out on a regular Brooklyn, Queen’s and the Bronx, a series of mises the tensions between spatial and social of the recently abandoned Centro Historico, grid, remain physically, if not politically, seg- linear parks and open spaces are being devel- order. Its endless low-rise spread, with 60% of with street improvements, pedestrianisation regated, with little or no public transport oped on derelict industrial sites that have the its 20 million inhabitants living in illegal and and city centre housing, reflects the impact except for the unreliable and expensive com- potential of creating a ‘Blue Belt’around informal housing, conceals a fast developing the built environment can have on the image munal taxi service which constitutes the only Manhattan, providing an urban lung for its landscape of difference exacerbated by the and identity of a city struggling to establish its lifeline to jobs. In a region that will become high density residents.While this large scale, dominance of the car in a city where petrol is credentials as a democratic and economically one of the most populous in Africa – the private sector ‘urban retro-fitting’initiative cheaper than mineral water. Investment into thriving city, in a period of intense political twelfth largest in the world by 2050 despite responds to overheated market demands, it two-tier motorways, rather than into the and economic change. Having perhaps the effects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and risks fuelling an inevitable process of gentrifi- type of sustainable public transport that reached a natural limit to its horizontal an average life expectancy of 52 – and has cation of the next generation of ‘target areas’ has so successfully transformed Bogotá or expansion, Mexico City needs to untangle its set itself the target of becoming a ‘global which, without the appropriate policies that Curitiba, are pulling the city even further messy governance structures and recognise city region’,Johannesburg’s 3 million plus determine social mix of people and uses, or

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URBAN AGE CONTACT Summit Berlin Contact T +49 (0) 30 3407 3527 Cities Programme The London School of Economics and Political Science Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE United Kingdom T +44 (0)20 7955 7706 [email protected] Alfred Herrhausen Society Deutsche Bank Unter den Linden 13/15 10117 Berlin Germany T +49 (0)30 3407 4201 [email protected] www.alfred-herrhausen-gesellschaft.de Cover image: QuickBird satellite of Berlin © DigitalGlobe exclusive distributed for Europe by Telespazio aries between art and entertainment, aesthetic © Anja Schlamann, Berlin, Urban Age ambition and nightlife fun. The first such BERLIN: A PROFILE project was the ‘Tacheles’on Oranienburger Straße, and eventually even the ‘Palace of the Republic’,the former cultural-centre-cum- seat of the East German parliament, (now in tepping out from underneath architectural fraternity to create a metropolis the process of being demolished) was turned the glass arches of Berlin’s of the future.As a result, a lot of sound yet into a temporary arts venue. Three old arm- brand new main railway sta- middling designs, but few masterpieces, were chairs and a hastily cobbled together installa- tion, the Hauptbahnhof, one is realised. Bold and innovative architectural tion usually suffice to transform the fleeting greeted by a plethora of statements are indeed very few and far moment into a memorable one. This culture grandiose architectural gestures between in this city. Today’s general sense of of the transitory, a legacy of our love affair set against the backdrop of a disappointment with this state of affairs has with everything crumbling, seems uniquely S vast expanse of undeveloped less to do with the buildings themselves than suited to the character of the city, and Berlin ground. One’s gaze may come to rest on the with the hopes and expectations of the 1990s. owes much of its attractiveness for tourists to Federal Chancellery, designed by Axel People had once more been prepared to put precisely this idiosyncrasy. It has put Berlin Schultes, or on the ‘Band des Bundes’,the their faith in the redemptive power of good firmly on the map in the European imagina- ‘Federal Belt’of newly constructed govern- architecture, only to discover yet again that tion and proves that, here at least, everything ment buildings; one may take in Norman redemption is the one thing architecture can- is possible and anything goes, no matter how Foster’s Reichstag cupola or the completely not offer. Most importantly, however, the new limited your resources.A spirit of freedom is redeveloped Potsdamer Platz and recall that, a government buildings or the redeveloped indeed key to people’s life in this city. mere fifteen years ago, none of these struc- Potsdamer Platz failed to project an image Berlin’s economic plight, its poverty, its tures existed.What is even more striking from that Berliners could recognise. The city lack of an effective élite, its fragmentation and this vantage point is that the city, as people’s remained as fragmented as ever. abundance of disused spaces, the weakness of living space, does not seem to intersect with In the midst of this unparalleled building its administration and the continuing East- the Berlin that is the new representative centre activity, and while ever more grand expecta- West divide – all these are the very conditions of Germany. City dwellers and citizens evi- tions were projected onto Berlin, the city’s of Berlin’s intellectual as well as real life char- dently inhabit two decidedly distinct spheres. economy collapsed: the Eastern part of the acter. Three factors will determine the city’s Unlike many other European cities, Berlin has city as well as its Brandenburg hinterland fate over the coming years: immigration from no clearly defined city centre complete with were labouring under the consequences of Eastern Europe, a brain drain among the market square, city hall and cathedral. Such deindustrialisation, while the Western part young, and the continuing lack of a city centre central space simply does not exist here. More of the city grappled with the effects of the in the good old European sense of the word. than ever, Berlin is a conglomeration of paral- end of subsidisation. Since 1994, population For most of its history, Berlin has been a lel worlds, a hotchpotch of stages on which figures have been steadily declining, and rather dismal one horse town. It became the long-established residents, newcomers and today, an entire suburban belt is economically capital of Germany because it had been the tourists make their respective entrances. dependent on Berlin. Meanwhile, in the city capital of Prussia. Since the dissolution of The Berlin Wall saved the Western part of itself, more than 100,000 apartments stand Prussia, it has become apparent that the city is the American occupation government decid- a strongly interactive dynamic of developing the city from the fate that, after the War, had empty. For years, both commercial and resi- barely able to survive by its own efforts, sur- ed to develop Frankfurt airport to be the cen- knowledge-intensive industries. Further- typically befallen so many other West German dential properties have been in plentiful sup- rounded as it is by an impoverished region AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE tral base of the US Airforce in Germany. more, the German urban system is connected cities with their emptying town centres and ply and remarkably cheap to get hold of. that is gradually being abandoned by its Frankfurt’s function as a gateway and an to the European and global networks of cities. fraying edges, their populations slowly Compared to Paris,Warsaw or London, this inhabitants. The political task of countering international financial centre was a direct The individual cities can only develop their spilling over into the surrounding country- seems an anomaly. this state of affairs with strong and effective GLOBAL CITY? result of these decisions. Similar historical capacity and innovativeness in their spe- side.Yet there was a price to pay for this in Maladministration and wastefulness have institutions is currently tackled only hesitant- decisions led to the specialisation of other cialisms with the help of very effective net- Berlin, namely the destruction of a coherent left the city1 crippled with debt and effectively ly and without much energy or conviction. cities: Munich became Germany’s high-tech works and cooperation. urban structure. The bombings of World War bankrupt since 2002. The state of Berlin has What Berlin teaches architects and urban metropolis; Hamburg, its news and media As Saskia Sassen rightly points out, a global II and the subsequent partition had carved up withdrawn from all major building projects, planners is, above all, humility. The building ermany is currently rediscov- system.As presented very convincingly by centre; and, with the creation of the German city is by definition part of a network. This Berlin’s infrastructure, its canalisation, its net- which are now exclusively in Federal hands. and planning frenzy of the 1990s showed that ering the city. The themes of Saskia Sassen in various publications, the new Federal Republic in 1949, the seat of govern- applies even more strongly to the urban sys- work of roads and its railway system.Vast The attempts at regenerating the city’s urban architecture cannot be expected to counteract crises and decay, which have type of global city takes on a strategic role. ment was moved to Bonn.Although the role tem in Germany, whose multi-tiered net- areas of derelict land soon became a hallmark infrastructure have been largely successful the provisional and temporary nature of this long dominated discussions on The control, integration and management of political capital was given back to Berlin works are of a regional, national, European of this fragmented city. and, for the most part, the effects of war and city, nor relieve its social frailty.What it can the city, are being superseded functions of the commodity chains that are after unification, it is unlikely that Berlin will and global nature. Thus the German urban When the Berlin Wall fell and Berlin partition have been overcome, but there is a do, however, is continue to create stages and by a new passion for the city. spread throughout the world are concentrat- ever regain its former central economic role. system could prove to be a valid future alter- became, albeit by a narrow parliamentary painful lack of resources when it comes to project images. Good metropolitan architec- For some decades, German ed in the global cities.At the same time, the This historical sketch implicitly classifies native to the highly centralised model of the majority, the capital of the newly unified maintaining the city’s libraries, schools, the- ture has much in common with good stage G cities have been losing popula- global city is a central location for production Germany’s urban network as a special case in global city. Germany, expectations ran high and grand atres and universities. Berlin is a poor, eco- design – a fact more apparent in Berlin than tion and jobs. This problem affected cities in and a transnational market place for high the hierarchy of the global urban system. Can visions abounded. Surely, the city would soon nomically weak city that is terrifically cheap anywhere else in the world. East Germany the hardest after unification, as quality, knowledge-based services. Germany really be considered to be a special Dieter Läpple is Professor of Regional & Urban be home to six million people, and all manner to live in. the loss of jobs, the decline in population and How can we explain the absence of a case that shows deficits? Economics at HafenCity University Hamburg of fanciful plans were drawn up for this new Contrary to initial expectations, no new Jens Bisky, journalist, Süddeutsche Zeitung the moving away of young people with quali- German city high up in the hierarchy of An alternative explanation can be found in metropolis: Berlin was to become the power- urban élite has emerged post unification.A fications meant that they were faced with dra- global cities, even though Germany has held the discussion on ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ Translation from German by Anne Rigby house of the new Republic, the focal point for bourgeoisie, in whatever shape or form, that Translated from German by Alexa Alfer matic levels of negative growth. However, the position of ‘export champion’for many (Hall/Soskice). If it is true that modern capi- an entire ‘Generation Berlin’,the ‘hub’that would set the tone, function as a social from the beginning of the 21st century, there years and has been exceptional with regard talism is not a homogeneous entity, but that would connect East and West,a veritable ‘lab- barometer, speak out on behalf of the wider 1 Like, for example, Bavaria or Hesse, Berlin is a federal have been clear signs pointing to a change in to the integration of its economy into the different models of capitalism have developed oratory of unification’.Such promises were public and take the lead on issues of common state in its own right. urban development trends. world market? under different historical conditions, then it is directly rooted in the rhetoric and practices of concern, simply does not exist in Berlin. Some profound economic changes In answer to this question, the peculiarities not unlikely that these different models also the Cold War, when, thanks to huge subsidies Berlin is a city of ordinary people, students, occurred in cities, further accelerated by the and interruptions in German history are have correspondingly different patterns of provided by the two respective German states, newcomers fleeing the provincial backwaters enormous effects of globalisation and digiti- often referred to. Germany only gained one urbanisation. The ‘belated’industrial nation West Berlin had been established as a of their childhoods, and a fast living and mer- sation. The change from an industrial to a common capital city when the Prussian dem- of Germany had already developed an alter- a worldwide series of conferences investigating ‘Window on Freedom’,while East Berlin stood curial bohemian crowd made up of artists, service-led economy, based on science and ocratic empire was founded in 1871. Berlin native to the liberal production system at the the future of cities proud as the ‘capital of the first Workers and intellectuals, journalists, freelancers and plain culture, particularly in the large West German became the seat of government and devel- end of the 19th century, which can be charac- organised by the Cities Programme at the Peasants’State on German soil’.On either side drifters. This latter set shapes the mood and urban regions of Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne oped into Germany’s dominant economic terised as a form of regulated, corporate mar- London School of Economics and Political Science and the Alfred Herrhausen Society, of the Wall, Berliners themselves tended to lifestyle that dominates Berlin’s inner city dis- and Hamburg, meant the development of a and cultural city but never achieved the cen- ket economy. This model of ‘Rheinian Capit- the International Forum of Deutsche Bank view such labels – which bore precious little tricts. Most of these people lead rather precar- new urban dynamic.We can now see a re- trality of London or Paris.After the historic alism’combined with strong federal struc- relation to the realities of their everyday lives ious and uncertain lives, but they have cer- urbanisation in terms of employment as well disasters of the Nazi regime and the Second tures, formed the basis for the economic and – with a healthy amount of scepticism.While tainly made Berlin the only German city in as population, and even in East German cities World War, Berlin’s central role was totally social system of West Germany. It is very likely others were certainly welcome to entertain which a carefully chosen witticism, a surpris- such as Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin the popu- destroyed by the break-up of the German that Germany has not only created an alterna- illusions of grandeur, Berliners’first loyalties ing gesture or an ingenious performance lation is once more increasing. Reich and the splitting of Germany into four tive model of production, but also an alterna- lay with their neighbourhoods and their lov- count for more than status and income. The urban system in Germany, as in many occupation zones. Many companies moved tive and effective model of urbanisation. ingly tended urban allotments. Indeed, money plays an astonishingly minor other countries, shows that globalisation and their headquarters from Berlin to West Characteristic of this model of urbanisa- Since the early 1990s, Berlin has, above all, role in the social life of the city.And Berliners digitisation do not lead to a disintegration Germany. Following a resolution by the tion is both the polycentrality of the urban been a huge building site, and architecture like to take things slowly – a fact that surprises of the city, as predicted by many experts, but American occupation government, the new system with its distinct complementary divi- often had to grapple with paradoxical expec- even Swiss visitors to the city. to a re-evaluation of the city and the develop- Bank Deutscher Länder (Bank of German sion of labour between individuals cities, and tations: on the one hand, the ‘Planwerk This bohemian scene has found a perfect ment of a new form of urban centrality, States), which was the predecessor of the the phenomenon of regional ‘manufacturing Innenstadt’,a decidedly anti-modern re- form of expression in the ‘intermediate utili- which, in Germany, takes the form of a Deutsche Bundesbank, was founded in service districts’. urbanisation and city-centre revitalisation sation’of disused buildings. There are many process of urbanisation. Frankfurt after the closure of the Reichsbank Whereas globalisation in the 1980s and directive, decreed that the ‘historical city’ such empty structures all over Berlin, and While in most other countries, dominant in Berlin.As a consequence, the Deutsche 1990s led to a strong global dispersion of should be recovered; on the other hand, squatters are swift to move in and put them global cities have emerged, Germany has Bank and the Dresdner Bank moved their industrial functions in Anglo-Saxon coun- politicians and residents alike expected the to creative use – dissolving traditional bound- none, but instead has a multi-polar urban headquarters to Frankfurt.At the same time, tries, the urban regions in Germany still have

URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 URBAN AGE: GLOBAL OVERVIEW URBANISATION OF THE WORLD

growth 2005 to 2015

5 mi (2005)

Urban agglomerations, UN Population Division

The relentless pace of contemporary urban growth becomes tion, the fastest growing cities in the world are located outside subcontinent are also expanding rapidly: New Delhi adds 64 particularly evident in a number of rapidly expanding cities, the advanced capitalist core. Lagos is adding an average of 67 residents an hour, Mumbai 49 and Dhaka 61. where the number of new city residents increases by the hour. new residents every hour, putting enormous strains on its As is the case with other indicators of contemporary urbanisa- already challenged urban infrastructure. Cities in the Indian HUMAN FOOTPRINT

low impact high impact

In the contemporary urban age, the spatial effects of city-based ing continental scales, it is estimated that over 80% of the through thick networks of production and consumption. economies, cultures and societies are being felt in virtually Earth’s land surface is influenced by the human footprint. There is a strong interconnection between an urban agenda of every corner of the planet. Beyond the massive expansion of Activities as diverse as agriculture, industrial development and sustainable development for cities and a global environmental urbanised areas and the consolidation of regional cities reach- tourism are spreading across the world linked to urban centres agenda. URBANISATION AND KEY INDICATORS BY COUNTRY URBANISATION, 2005 YOUTH ENERGY CONSUMPTION CAR OWNERSHIP

Out of the four indicators urbanisation, energy consumption, proxy for the developing world. This far, higher levels of urban Urbanisation of the world / Source: Energy consumption / Source: low concentration Urban agglomerations, UN Population International Energy Agency (IEA), 2004 Division Urbanisation, 2005 / Source: World car ownership and youth, higher levels of the first three are gen- populations are accompanied by higher energy consumption Human Footprint / Source: Center for Urbanisation Prospects, 2003 Revision, International Earth Science Information UN erally indicating more advanced economies and only youth and car use but not with youth. high concentration Network (CIESIN) , Columbia University. Youth / Source: World Urbanisation with its extreme concentration in Central Africa appears as a Car ownership / Source: The World Bank Prospects, 2003 Revision, UN

URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 THE SIX CITIES: REGIONAL OVERVIEW BERLINLONDON NEW YORK MEXICO CITY SHANGHAI JOHANNESBURG

BirminghamBirmingham MetropolitanMetropolitan rregionegion

MetropolitanMetropolitan regionregion MetropolitanMetropolitan rregionegion MetropolitanMetropolitan regionregion MetropolitanMetropolitan regionregion MetropolitanMetropolitan regionregion

GreaterGreater LondonLondon

SStatetate ofof BerlinBerlin MMexicoexico D.F.D.F. New York City TTolucaoluca DDee LLerdoerdo PueblaPuebla CCityity ooff Shanghai Municipality JJohannesburgohannesburg

LLeipzigeipzig

Today the population of only a 3.5% share of the After a decade and a half of In recent times London, a For the first time in its histo- a persistent level of poverty in The current population of ational space is scarce. The Within China’s current legal growth, and it is expected to The current population in the Africa’s total economic out- Berlin stands at approximate- country’s GDP and a limited significant population service-led urban economy ry, New York City’s popula- New York. Mexico City Metropolitan gross residential density in framework, Shanghai can be continue, expanding by more City of Johannesburg is ca 3.2 put was c 17%. Johannesburg ly 3.4 million. During the last centrality within the German growth, Greater London cur- with a global orientation, has tion passed the 8 million New York City covers Area is estimated at 18 mil- this part of the district is understood as a city-state: it than 10% annually for at least million. It is estimated that is a service-oriented econo- century, Berlin’s growth, rela- economy. The city’s embat- rently has about 7.5 million experienced what is perhaps mark in the year 2000 after a approximately 830 square lion, of which 8.6 million live about 2,090 people per sqkm. extends over 6,300 square another decade. The urban the city grew 4% per year on my: 74% of people are tive to other large European tled public finances compli- residents; projections indi- an unprecedented economic decade of strong growth. kilometres, of which 25% is within the Federal District. Expanding the amount of kilometres and has more than economy is also modernising: average in the late 1990s and employed by services, busi- cities like London, has been cate its economic recovery cate that this figure will reach bonanza. Currently its Gross Since then, the city has con- dedicated to open and recre- Both the population and recreational space and the 18 million inhabitants. approximately half of the some projections present a nesses or the real estate sector. fairly slow. In fact Berlin pres- and limit its employment and 8 million within the next City Product is estimated at tinued to add residents, and ational space. The gross resi- urbanised area of Mexico City number of cultural facilities Whereas its traditional city labour force now works in the growth scenario in which With Johannesburg’s new ents an anomaly in a world of development policies. decade. Greater London cov- €34,500 per capita account- this trend is expected to con- dential density of New York Metropolitan Area have for the residents of this high- boundaries demarcate an area service sector, while 36% are metropolitan Johannesburg boundaries, the city now cities that are rapidly expand- Berlin covers approximate- ers approximately 1,600 ing for almost 20% of the tinue over the next ten years. City is about 9,600 people per expanded dramatically since density area is considered of 289 square kilometres, in employed in a diversified set will reach almost 15 million stretches over 1,600 square ing. By the end of the 20th cen- ly 892 square kilometres, square kilometres of land area UK’s national economy.Yet a Regional growth outside the sqkm, by far the highest in the the mid-20th century. Both a fundamental priority among which 6.5 million people live of industries. The Yangtze people by 2015. The urban kilometres, reaching a gross tury, the city’s population stretching out along the Spree at a gross residential density hard core of poverty lingers in city has also continued apace. United States. However, this continue to grow in complex many Mexican town at very high residential densi- River Delta – Shanghai's core of Gauteng province is residential density of ca 1,900 showed a mere 72% increase River and its plateaus. In of about 4,700 people per Inner London, particularly in With a Gross City Product density level drops signifi- patterns – whereas the urban planners. ties, most of Shanghai's terri- wider economic base reach- expected to become the people per sqkm. This is a low from its level in 1900. Even Berlin, open space has not sqkm. However, almost half its eastern and southern of approximately €39,500 cantly outside the city.Also, core has regained some popu- Mexico City is of para- tory is now considered able within a three-hour drive world’s twelfth largest city- urban density by internation- more striking, in the past been an afterthought to city of this surface is comprised of areas. per capita, New York is one of densities across New York are lation, suburban sprawl con- mount importance for the urbanised and reaches an from the city – comprises region, behind Lagos yet larg- al standards, yet the highest of decade of increased invest- planning; open and recre- open and recreational space. the world’s richest cities. This unevenly distributed, and tinues apace, fuelled by low- Mexican national economy. average density of 2,900 peo- 22% of China's productive er than Los Angeles. all urban areas in South ments to Berlin there was a ational space accounts for The city has decided to juggernaut urban economy vary widely from peaks in cost mortgages and a lax reg- Its Gross City Product ple per sqkm, arranged in a capacity and generates 30% Johannesburg is consid- Africa. Densities vary widely population decline of 1.5%. 45% of the city’s surface. The accommodate the expected generates up to 4% of the parts of Manhattan to the rel- ulatory framework. (€105,000 million) con- seemingly chaotic patchwork of its exports. ered the economic engine of across the metropolis, reach- At €23,354 per capita, gross residential density of population growth within its entire US GDP.It has been atively low densities in the The Federal District covers tributes 22% of Mexico’s of agricultural, residential South Africa and its urban ing peaks in both disadvan- Berlin’s Gross City Product is Berlin is about 3,800 people existing urbanised area pointed out often that even outer boroughs with a about 1,488 square kilome- GDP. and industrial land uses. economy has a growing con- taged inner-city neighbour- substantial.Yet this, the per sqkm. through structural densifica- with the enormous wealth notably suburban character. tres. In the urbanised north- Since 1992, the Shanghai tinental and global reach. In hoods and the peripheral largest city in Germany, has tion. generated by the city, there is ern portion, open and recre- economy has shown rapid 2003, its share of South township of Alexandra.

BERLIN LONDON NEW YORK MEXICO CITY SHANGHAI JOHANNESBURG COMPARED TO GERMANY COMPARED TO THE UK COMPARED TO THE USA COMPARED TO MEXICO COMPARED TO CHINA COMPARED TO SOUTH AFRICA GDP/capita GDP/capita GDP/capita GDP/capita GDP/capita GDP/capita € 23,400 € 32,200 € 46,800 € 12,200 € 6,400 € 3,100 200% 200% 200% 200% 200% 200%

150% 150% 150% 150% 150% 150% One person 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% One person households One person households Unemployment households One person households Unemployment UnemploymentUnemploymen Unemployment One person households 100% One person households 50.7% 34.1% Unemployment 4.4% 9.7% 25.1% 19.0% 6.9% 5.8% 31.9% 9.7% 50% 50% 50% 4.8% 50% 50% 50% Unemployment 37.4% Germany Berlin Car ownership London Car ownership New York Car ownership Shanghai Johannesburg 303/1,000 people UK USA Mexico City China South Africa 340 cars/1,000 people 206/1,000 people Mexico

Foreign born 0.7% Foreign born 13.7% Car ownership 183/1,000 people Foreign born Foreign born Foreign born Car ownership 0.7% Car ownership Foreign born 27.1% 36.6% 397/1,000 people 62/1,000 people 6.7% ore World Urbanisation Prospects, 2003 Revision, United Nations Source:

20 mi 100% POPULATION GROWTH and New York had already a URBANISATION BY and South Africa started with
United Kingdom Population growth in the six total population of above 5
Mexico City SELECTED COUNTRIES similar levels in 1950 of about
Germany
Shanghai
United States Urban Age cities follows a million and share a period of All three countries with 43% but Mexico urbanized 80%
15 mi Mexico variety of different patterns. decline followed by growth in advanced economies includ- more rapidly and is about to
South Africa London, New York and Berlin recent years. It was not until ing the US, Britain and pass 80% within the next 60%
China had their period of exponen- 1990 that populations of 10 mi Germany were already largely decade. The case of China tial growth at the beginning Mexico City and Shanghai
New York urbanized by 1950. Since is one of extreme change where
40% of the 20th century; Mexico crossed the 15 million mark. London then, the proportion of urban the key phase of urbanisation 5 mi City, Shanghai and
Berlin population in these countries is a phenomenon of the 20% Johannesburg did not start to
Johannesburg have only grown from present. grow at similar rates before between 65 and 80% to levels 0 mi 0% the 1950s. By 1910, London 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 between 80 and 90%. Mexico 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030

URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 HOUSING AND URBAN NEIGHBOURHOODS: DENSITY

The world cities studied by African metropolis pockets of accommodate growth while the Urban Age project present extreme high density in the preserving urban character DENSITY GRADIENTS NEW YORK divergent distributions of inner-city and underserved and insuring adequate urban density, land-use areas in black townships amounts of personal and Shanghai
arrangements and growth break the low-density monot- household space. Sufficient 500 models. The highest gross res- ony of urban sprawl. amounts of open and green people per hectare idential density peak is Cities throughout the space are another necessary reached in some central city world need to respond to the component of sustainable neighbourhoods of Shanghai demographic pressures lead- densification. which accommodate over 600 ing to rapid urban growth. Even in cities experiencing Johannesburg
400 people per hectare. However, Densification rather than demographic decline, as in Shanghai as a whole is not the horizontal expansion is how the case of Berlin, design- densest city in the group as growing cities can take more based interventions have the density falls abruptly as soon environmentally sustainable potential to manage change, 300 as one leaves the city centre. and socially inclusive devel- re-adapting existing struc- With 96 people per hectare on opment paths.Achieving this tures to new conditions and average, New York occupies goal requires a careful mix of even generating an attractive-
that position. Mexico City infrastructure investments, ness of place that could lead New York 200 comes close, but without land-use coordination, social into an urban turnaround. Mexico City
reaching Manhattan-like policies and urban design. peaks in its centre and main- The latter is particularly cru- taining a more homogenous cial to maintain the liveability 100 high density throughout the and broad attractiveness of MEXICO CITY entire urban area. The urban environments under- London
European cities, London and going processes of densifica- Berlin
Berlin, show the flattest densi- tion. More research is needed 0 ty curves, nevertheless achiev- to understand the varying 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 ing a higher overall density capacity of different street km from city centre than Johannesburg. In this grids and block layouts to

BERLIN SHANGHAI

LONDON JOHANNESBURG

URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 TRANSPORT AND MOBILITY LABOUR MARKETS AND WORK PLACES

The transport infrastructure North London due to the lim- choice for more than 22% of the city. The majority of new The distribution of employ- require specialised work Prices and Earnings, UBS 2006 Source: th and mobility patterns of the itations of early 20 -century its residents. affluent developments rely on MODAL SPLIT ment by sector in all of the places from where they can EARNINGS BY SECTOR six Urban Age cities offer a technology to deal with geo- Transport patterns in the the private car. The 12,500 Urban Age cities shows the contribute the most efficient- Berlin (all trips) striking illustration of very logical constraints south of three rapidly expanding cities privately run mini taxis are extent to which cities have ly to the urban economy. € 50,000 specific geographic, historic the River Thames. In addi- – Shanghai, Mexico City and used for 20% of journeys to 27%38% 10% 25% changed into service-based The reduced employment and political conditions. tion, all three cities rely on an Johannesburg – are more work while 40% of all jour- economies. For all of the share of urban manufactur- € 40,000 Regardless of the differences extensive network of regional diverse. In all three the period neys to work are still done by Johannesburg (all trips) cities, the service sector ing does not diminish the between the six cities there is rail servicing their metropoli- of exponential growth and foot. Shanghai’s first under- employs more than half of the importance of this sector € 30,000 33%33% 33% clearly one identifiable sub- tan regions while being suffi- infrastructure building came ground metro line was urban labour force. This tran- within urban production € 20,000 group that includes the older, ciently connected to intercity much later. Mexico City was opened only a decade ago. London (all trips) sition appears the most far complexes, supporting lead- mature cities like New York, rail. Mobility patterns reflect the first of the three and start- The total length of the current reaching in New York and ing sectors of a city’s econo- London and Berlin.All three this extensive availability of ed building its underground metro system is 65 km, but 30%46% 23% London where less than 10% my. Moreover, Shanghai, € 10,000 are characterised by an exten- public transport with modal in the late 1960s and today another 10 lines totalling 218 of the urban labour force is which is one of the fastest sive urban rail system. Berlin’s split shares of over 50% for operates an efficient 200 km km are under construction, Mexico City (all trips) engaged in industrial activi- growing urban economies in € 0 Berlin Johannesburg London Mexico City New York Shanghai U- and S-Bahn system work-related trips in New long network. Despite being a reflecting the scale of growth 79% 21% ties.Yet cities are far from the world, retains an impor- extends over 396 km within York, and around 30% of all reliable system, it is only used and reach in the city’s infra- becoming mono-cultural tant manufacturing base. the city. New York’s subway is trips in London and 27% in by 14% of the city’s popula- structure. The share of public New York (commuting only) ‘office economies’,in fact Shanghai’s various industries € 40,000 370 km long and was strongly Berlin. Public transport affin- tion. Meanwhile, minibus transport is rapidly growing financial and business servic- employ up to a third of the 54%34% 11% influenced by the administra- ity in the three cities comes services account for more with 23% of daily trips to es are the main employment city’s labour force and are € 30,000

tive landscape that cut off the along with similarly high lev- than half of all trips. work using some form of Shanghai (all trips) category only in London. seen as one of the pillars of system from urbanised areas els of walking and biking: Johannesburg has no under- public transport, including Even in New York, it is ‘other this rapidly expanding global € 20,000 west of the city’s core. 32% in Berlin and 25% in ground rail system and most rail, metro and bus. 24%19% 25% 29% services’that make up almost economic node. London’s 480 km of under- London. In Manhattan walk- of the 120 km of surface rail public transp.car cycling walking/other half of the city’s employment € 10,000 ground rail mainly serves ing to work is the mode of serves only the older areas of base. This broad category includes a diverse range of € 0 Berlin Johannesburg London Mexico City New York Shanghai urban activities including labourer bus driver personal, social, health, edu- industrial worker bank credit officer cational and entertainment female factory worker primary school teacher services.All of these niches

BERLINLONDON NEW YORK BERLINLONDON NEW YORK Source: Senate department of urban development Berlin Source: UK census 2001 and Transport for London 2004 Source: US census 2000 and New York Transit 2004

Agriculture 1% Industry 6% Industry 4% Industry 10% Construction 3% Construction 3% Other services 39% Other services 29% Other services 46% Construction 5% Trade, hotel transport 15%

Trade, hotel Trade, hotel transport 23% transport 30%

Transport network Financial and business services 32% metro/underground Financial and Financial and regional/commuter rail business services 22% business services 32% inter-city rail MEXICO CITYSHANGHAI JOHANNESBURG MEXICO CITYSHANGHAI JOHANNESBURG Source: Desarrolladora Metropolitana SA Source: The 3rd comprehensive transport investigation of Shanghai 2005 Source: Statistics South Africa Census 2001

Agriculture 1% Agriculture 7% Agriculture 1%

Other services 32% Industry 13% Other services 20% Other services 37% Industry 14%

Construction Industry 32% Construction 6% 6%

Financial and business Trade, hotel services 12% Trade, hotel transport 36% transport 24% Financial and business services 12% Trade, hotel Construction 5% Financial and transport 24% business services 18%

URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006 SOCIAL DISADVANTAGE

Social inclusion is one of the most important challenges for tions of social disadvantage appear in manifold geographical Shanghai and Mexico City. Berlin and Johannesburg present a contemporary cities.All of the six cities – Berlin, Johannesburg, patterns. Some cities are characterised by their socially and combination of both patterns, each of them showing a specific London, Mexico City, New York and Shanghai – present signifi- physically decayed inner cities, as can be seen in parts of East geography inherited from their unique development histories cant concentrations of socially disadvantaged populations, and South London and parts of New York City’s boroughs out- and recent transformations. even though most of them are in a period of economic expan- side Manhattan. Others relegate their disadvantaged popula- sion and sustained physical development. Urban concentra- tions to underserved metropolitan peripheries as is the case in ore Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University Source:

INFANT MORTALITY

24 or less 25 to 49 50 to 84 85 to 124 125 or more

BERLIN LONDON NEW YORK Social help receipients; source: Senate Department of Urban Development Index of multiple deprivation; source: UK census 2001 Population below poverty line; source: US census 2000

privileged area average disadvantaged area severely disadvantaged area

MEXICO CITYSHANGHAI JOHANNESBURG Overcrowding; source: Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía 2000, supplied by Desarrolladora Metropolitana S.A. Overcrowding; source: The 5th census of China, 2000 Unemployment, source: Statistics South Africa Census 2001

URBAN AGE SUMMIT BERLIN NOVEMBER 2006