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'Sustainable Cities': No OxymoronDiego Martinoa

a Centro Latino Americano de Ecología Social, Montevideo, Uruguay

To cite this Article Martino, Diego(2009) ''Sustainable Cities': No Oxymoron', Ethics, Place & Environment, 12: 2, 235 —253To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13668790902863481URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13668790902863481

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Ethics, Place and EnvironmentVol. 12, No. 2, June 2009, 235–253

‘Sustainable Cities’: No Oxymoron

DIEGO MARTINOCentro Latino Americano de Ecologıa Social, Montevideo, Uruguay

ABSTRACT Are urban societies unsustainable per se? So far most analyses of urbanization havebeen ethno and temporocentric, concentrating on modern industrial and post-industrial cities ofthe West. The potential sustainability of cities should not be determined with reference to correctconsumption patterns, and the structures of capitalism and industrialism, nor under an autarkicview. To answer the urban sustainability question the characteristics of urban societies need to bedefined and isolated.

Urban areas are commonly perceived as the antithesis of natural areas, particularlyareas of wild nature. This perception also prevails in the part of the environmentalmovement that deals with nature preservation. However, a growing minority in theenvironmental movement has recently begun to approach the urban–nature issuefrom a different perspective—acknowledging that human societies, urban onesincluded, are part of nature.

As an ever-growing percentage of the world’s population concentrates in cities,urban sustainability becomes an increasingly important issue. Today, more than halfof the human population lives in urban areas, and this percentage is expected to growto 60% by the year 2030 (UNCHS, 2001). In industrialized countries and LatinAmerica, the percentage of the population living in urban areas is already over 75%.As urbanization continues, environmental problems such as species extinction,climate change, fragmentation of ecosystems, and over-consumption of renewableand non-renewable resources place an unprecedented burden on the planet.1 Some ofthese environmental problems are more directly related to urbanization than others.Understanding the connections between urbanization and environmental degrada-tion is of utmost importance to achieve sustainability.

As Leeds (1979) points out, analyses of urbanization have not only beenethnocentric, but also temporocentric (excepting a few authors in Anthropology,History or Art History). They have concentrated on the modern industrial and post-industrial cities of the West, often ignoring 8,000 years of urban experience in

Correspondence Address: Diego Martino, Butler 1963, Montevideo, Uruguay, 11500. Email:

[email protected]

1366-879X Print/1469-6703 Online/09/020235–19 � 2009 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13668790902863481

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pre-industrial and non-capitalist societies. This is a crucial omission when we attemptto determine whether the causes of unsustainability lie in urbanism, industrialism,capitalism, some combination of these processes, or some other factor. In order toanalyze the impact of urban societies on the environment, we must distinguishbetween the environmental consequences of urbanization and the environmentalconsequences of industrialism, population growth, high-energy consumption, andconsumerism, to name just a few.

The objective of this article is to determine whether urban societies areunsustainable per se. I first discuss definitions of urban society, sustainable society,and sustainable urban society; and then I isolate the ‘urban’ aspects of society inorder to determine if urbanism is inherently unsustainable.

Urban Society

Despite the importance of defining urban society, the concept is very loosely definedin the literature. The reason for the lack of a clear definition may be the ‘difficulty inidentifying the precise qualitative characteristics which typify urban society’ (Cousins& Nagpaul, 1970).

Characteristics of Urban Societies and Urbanization

Mumford (1940) points out that, after the Middle Ages, the number of cities stoppedgrowing, but in certain cities population growth continued. The patterns of growthchanged around 1800, when ‘we can detect the explosive increases that were toproduce modern urban society’ (Leeds, 1985). The population of England grew from9 million in 1800 to 45 million in 1930, that of Germany from 24 to 66 million, andthat of France from 27 to 44 million (Mumford, 1940). This explosive growth ‘wasaccompanied by a drawing of the surplus into cities . . .Urbanization increased inalmost direct proportion to industrialization’ (Mumford, 1940, p. 145). Theinvention of the steam engine provided a new incentive for the concentration ofindustries; however, small and medium sized industrial towns, which benefitedindustry owners with tighter control of the entire town, prevailed until the latenineteenth century, when much larger concentrations like Paris, London and Berlinbecame dominant. Bookchin, on the other hand, describes urbanization as a processthat took place mainly in the second half of the twentieth century (Bookchin, 1992).For him, urbanization refers to the ‘historic decline of the city as an authentic arenaof political life (that once lived in some balance with the natural world) and, perhapsno less significantly, the decline of the very notion of citizenship’ (Bookchin, 1992, p.5). He asserts that the process of urbanization is engulfing not only rural culture, butthe city as well, replacing ties to the land and citizenship with the market and‘constituents’. Although I agree with Bookchin’s line of thinking, I use the term‘urbanization’ here to denote the process by which a society becomes urbanized,without any valuation of the process as positive or negative for cities or citizens.2 Todenote the process that Bookchin describes, I will borrow the term ‘urban overload’from Capello and Camagni (2000) (see Table 1).

236 D. Martino


According to Price (1978), urbanization occurs when three sub-processes occursimultaneously: population growth, nucleation, and population differentiation. Thesesub-processes are similar to the conditions required in Wirth’s definition of city as ‘alarge, dense, and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals’ (Wirth,1996, p. 190). Quijano, in his essay ‘The Urbanization of Latin American Society’,points out that urbanization has many dimensions so we may speak of urbanization ofthe economic structure, of the social structure, of the ecologico-demographic structure,of the socio-psychological cultural structure, and of the political structure. Moreover,he argues that the process of urbanization takes place in society, rather than being aprocess of society, meaning that the process ‘takes place in the whole fabric of society’(Quijano, 1979, p. 109). Taking a similar view, Peil and Sada point out that‘[u]rbanization involves change in the society as a whole’, but they nevertheless allowthat ‘changes in the economic system are often the first stage in this transformation’(Peil & Sada, 1984, pp. 38–39). Lampard indicates that the urbanization of society is aphenomenon of ‘the last century and a half’ and regards urbanization as ‘a process ofpopulation concentration that results in an increase in the number and size of cities(points of concentration) and social change as an incremental or arrhythmic alterationin the routines and sequences of everyday life in human communities’ (Lampard, 1963,pp. 237, 233–234). Although a general agreement exists regarding the basic aspects of

Table 1. Characteristics of ‘urban overload’ and ‘city effect’, which are described by Bookchinas ‘urbanization’ and ’citification’

Interaction betweenthe economic andphysical environments

Interaction betweenthe economic andsocial environments

Interaction betweenthe social andphysical environments

City effect . Efficient energy use . Accessibility of: . Green areas forsocial amenities

. Efficient use ofnon-renewable resources

Good housingfacilities;skilled jobs;social amenities;social contacts;education facilities;health services

. Residential facilitiesin green areas

. Economies of scale inthe use of urbanenvironmental amenities

. Accessibility tourban environmentalfacilities

Urbanoverload

. Depletion ofnatural resources

. Suburbanizationforced by highurban rents

. Urban healthproblems

. Intensive energy use . Social friction inthe labor market

. Depletion ofhistorical buildings

. Water, air pollution . New poverty . Loss of culturalheritage

. Depletion of green areas

. Traffic congestion noise

Source: Capello and Camagni (2000).

‘Sustainable Cities’: No Oxymoron 237


urbanization of society as a whole—for example that it includes diversification, andconcentration—much remains controversial, and the process of urbanization is not ahomogenous one across continents.

Urban Sustainability

According to Martinotti, ‘the definition of sustainability for cities is to be carefullyqualified both by spatial and temporal criteria. In space it has to apply to a largerunit than the city itself. In other words to an urban system’ (Martinotti, 1997, p. 4).It is important to emphasize this point, which is often confused in the literature: asustainable city does not need to be self-sustaining or autarkic (NSF, 2000). No matterhow one defines the boundaries of the city, cities have always, presumably will always,consumed resources from outside these boundaries, but this does not make such citiesunsustainable. Those who identify self-sustainability as the way to achieve sustainabilitynot only forget this fact, but also ignore the ecological comparative advantages thatcertain regions naturally have over others. Due to the fact that cities necessarily andproperly consume resources from outside their boundaries, and in order to assess theirimpact or share of the earth’s carrying capacity (CC), the ecological footprint (EF)concept was developed (Rees, 1994, 1995; Rees & Wackernagel, 1994; Wackernagel &Yount, 1998; Bicknell et al., 1998; Folke et al., 1998). Although cities consumeresources from other regions, and their EF is larger than their boundaries, this does notmean that they are unsustainable, as implied in this statement: ‘The analysis shows, thatas nodes of energy and material consumption, cities are causally linked to acceleratingglobal ecological decline and are not by themselves sustainable’ (Rees & Wackernagel,1994, p. 223). To deem a city unsustainable because its EF is larger than its politicalboundaries is to imply that the city has to be autarkic to be sustainable. Moreover, ascan be seen in Figure 2 below, although cities are in fact nodes of energy consumption,this results from concentrated population and does not mean that energy consumptionper capita is higher in cities. It may, in fact, be lower (Alexandre & De Michelis, 1996).Although the concept of EF does help us better understand the magnitude of theimpact urban areas have on the natural resource base, it remains difficult for cities toobtain proper feedback from the environment, especially when the resource base isglobal.3 This last point is, I agree, one advantage of obtaining resources locally, for it iseasier to gain feedback from the local environment. ‘Indeed a city that depletes itsresource base becomes less resilient and therefore more vulnerable to external stress’(Alberti, 1996, p. 384).

Sustainable Urban Societies

In 1863 Fustel de Coulanges argued that:

Civitas, and urbs, either of which we translate by the word city, were notsynonymous words among the ancients. Civitas was the religious and politicalassociation of families and tribes; urbs was the place of assembly, the dwelling-place, and, above all, the sanctuary of this association. (Fustel de Coulanges,1980, p. 126)

238 D. Martino


Similarly, Leeds, who argues that urban society encompasses ‘rural’ society, draws a

distinction between the physical and social city. ‘The first’, he writes, ‘refers to the

sum of density of people, the sum of houses’, whereas the latter ‘refers to the societal

networks of the urban institutions’ (Leeds, 1975, p. 332). Eames and Goode also

assert that ‘it is absolutely essential . . . to keep the notion of urban settlements as

defined by form and function separate from the alleged behavioral consequences of

such settlement; that is, the urban center is distinct from the urban lifestyle’ (Eames &

Goode, 1977, p. 44, emphasis added). This crucial distinction must also be made

when analyzing urban sustainability. On the one hand we have to analyze the

‘sustain-ability’ of society, and on the other the sustainable city. However, as we shall

see below, these two are inseparable, since, although the society of a city may intend

to be sustainable, it may fail because the physical city makes sustainability impossible

(Bookchin, 1992, p. xiv). Or an unsustainable society with high levels of consumption

can live in a so-called ‘green city’.Many authors note that a sustainable society will have the following attributes

(Brown, 1981; Weatherley, 1991; Trainer, 1995; Santos, 1999):

. a simple lifestyle;

. alternatives to economic growth or no growth; and

. self sustainability.

The attributes of a sustainable city are, on the other hand, that it (UNEP, 1995;

Alberti, 1996; HABITAT, 1996; Inoguchi et al., 1999; Beatley, 2000; NSF, 2000):

. reduces the ecological footprint, per capita, of its inhabitants by providing

adequate transportation, adequate construction techniques and materials,

concentration of housing, and food production;. develops a closed system for its outputs, trying to convert these into resources

(recycling, use of biogas, composting);. inserts itself in its bioregion, harmonizing its construction, growth, and

production to the surrounding ecosystem. In other words, as much as

possible, it adapts to the natural conditions rather than adapting the natural

conditions to it;. imports carrying capacity from places that have an ecological surplus or an

environmentally sustainable production; and. emphasizes social interaction and political participation for local problem

solving.

It is clear that, if an urban society is to be sustainable, the city in which it lives will

have to have these attributes. Thus, despite the importance of separating the social

from the physical for the analysis of sustainability, urban society and urban

structures and functions are deeply interrelated. As Bookchin states,

the citizens of a city are of no less concern to me than the city itself, for the city

at its best ultimately became an ethical union of people, a moral as well as a

socio-economic community—not simply a dense collection of structures

designed merely to provide goods and services for its anonymous residents.

(Bookchin, 1995, p. 135)



Many authors agree that popular political participation is essential if cities are to besustainable, and that sustainability is unlikely under the present political regime,where citizens have become taxpayers who receive services from an all-powerful stateand its elected representatives (Drakakis-Smith, 1995; Miles et al., 1998; Haughton,1999; Ling, 1999; Wacker et al., 1999). How is this related to our question onsustainable urban societies? Bookchin (1995) and Friedmann (2000) point out thatthe resurgence of citizenship is a crucial step to reach sustainability, and the cityprovides the scenario for this to happen (see also Biehl, 1997). However, while suchpolitical ‘citification’ has positive outcomes, they warn against the dangers of the‘urbanization’—urban overload that has contributed to the disappearance of citizensand the emergence of constituents or taxpayers. So, although analyses of thesustainability of urban societies must isolate the social from the physical, or at leasttry to study them individually, building a sustainable society requires citizens whoare involved in the production of their urbs.

Determining whether present-day urban societies are sustainable is an extremelycomplex task. Therefore, I will address the question by assessing whether or notthe ‘urban’ component of a society renders it as sustainable or unsustainable per se.I do so by analyzing the links between urbanization and environmentaldegradation, the links between industrialism, capitalism, consumerism, urbanismand environmental degradation, and urban societies of the past from asustainability point of view.

Recurrent topics in studies of the links between urbanization and environmentaldegradation are: air pollution (Romieu et al., 1991; HABITAT, 1996; Inoguchi et al.,1999), liquid waste (Goodland & Rockefeller, 1996; Kaika & Swyngedouw, 1999),solid waste production (Jindal et al., 1997; Hassan et al., 1998), excessiveconsumption, and impacts on biodiversity (UNEP, 1995; Lassila, 1999; Morelloet al., 2000). These impacts are concentrated due to urbanization, and in particularcases are increased on a per capita base. While some of these effects are felt mainly inthe urban space itself, others have global consequences (e.g. greenhouse gases) or arefelt far away from the urban centers (e.g. the impact of agriculture on biodiversity).It is common to see urbanization portrayed as the main cause of many of theseimpacts without analyzing other factors, or a scenario with no urbanization.4

Analyzing the environmental impacts of cities, Gleeson and Low (2000, p. 1)mention the fact that ‘world consumption expenditures rose six times between 1950and 1998’. However, they fail to point out population growth in that same period (athree-fold increase), number of births per couple in rural vs. urban areas,consumption in urbanized southern countries (Latin America) in comparison toconsumption in the urbanized north, etc.

While urbanization might aggravate the problem, citification can be part of thesolution by providing the economies of scale that are necessary to manage wastesappropriately. Moreover, while an urban society can increase consumption percapita, as we shall see below, it can also help reduce the ecological footprint of thecity as a whole. A city with a population of 100,000 people can have a smallerecological footprint than two cities with 50,000 people, or 10 cities with 10,000people. Capello and Camagni (2000) argue this point, comparing the city of Milan tothe rest of the province of Lombardy, using the case of electricity and energyconsumption. Figure 1 exemplifies the city effect by showing how the city of Milan,

240 D. Martino


the largest in the province of Lombardy, consumes, per capita, less energy in publiclighting, less domestic electricity, and less electricity in total than the rest of theprovince.

Although Young (1997) has explained the origin of the idea of the city as‘unnatural’ and non-environmentally friendly, and Harvey (1996) has noted howpart of the environmental movement has ignored or denigrated the cities, blamingcities for environmental degradation is still commonplace. To ensure some balance inassessments of the environmental impact of cities, it is important to identify theadvantages of urban areas as well as their impacts. By highlighting the impacts ofpresent day urban societies, without isolating the urban component, a dangerous

44%

33%

31.8%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%

Milan Population Electricity in Public Lighting

Domestic ElectricityAll Electricity

Figure 1. Using the case of the province of Lombardy and the city of Milan, this graphshows how Milan citizens consume less electricity resources per capita than the rest of thepopulation. With 44% of the population, Milan consumes only 31.8% of the electricity of theprovince. Source: based on Capello and Camagni (2000).

Figure 2. Not only is BTUs consumption per household lower in the city; electricityconsumption shows a sharp contrast between city and rural areas in the US. Source: based oninformation from EIA.



mistake is made, one that can divert energy and resources into fixing the wrong

‘problem’.The language used is also problematic. Gleeson and Low point out that ‘the

‘‘consuming city’’ of the developed world is merely the counterpart of the new

‘‘producing cities’’’ that are found in regions to which manufacturing capital has

moved. ‘Such cities’, they continue, ‘are attractive to investment precisely because

they offer the least regulatory friction to dirty production’ (Gleeson & Low, 2000,

p. 24). However, there is no such thing as a consuming city, it is the people living in

them that consume. Moreover, as can be seen in Figure 2, in the USA consumption

of resources seems to be higher in so-called ‘rural’ areas. In the same vein, cities in

the global South are not in charge of environmental regulations, the federal or

central government is. So why blame cities for the lax regulations? The following

quote from the US National Science Foundation summarizes the point: ‘Urban (or

any other) places are not containers of sustainable or unsustainable processes but

rather are produced through processes that may or may not be sustainable’ (NSF,

2000, p. 8). Urbanization frequently produces environmental degradation, but this is

definitely not an inevitable outcome.Because I am trying to analyze whether the urban component ipso facto renders a

society unsustainable, I need to ‘isolate’ many of the factors associated with

urbanism. Studies on urban sustainability are recent, and critics of urban areas are

usually temporocentric. For these reasons, many of the ‘faults’ attributed to cities

could be, in fact, caused by other factors, like industrialism or capitalism. Rees and

Wackernagel, for example, refer to high-income countries in which at least 75% of

the population is urban. Then they refer to the wealthiest quarter of the population,

which produces 75% of the wastes, and say that the population of wealthy cities is

responsible for 60% of current levels of resource depletion and pollution (Rees &

Wackernagel, 1996). They are relating cities to over-consumption just because people

in industrialized countries live in cities. Instead, they could have linked industrial-

ization or capitalism to over-consumption. However, they are assuming that the city

is unsustainable because people in wealthy countries live in them and also consume

many resources. However, we should ask how much the average city dweller in an

industrial country consumes, and how much the average ‘rural’ dweller of an

industrial country consumes.We must be careful not to link every environmental problem to urbanization

without analyzing other possible reasons for them. On the other hand, one cannot

ignore the patterns of consumerism that are present in the city, and the fact that it is

in cities where consumption becomes more explicit (Miles & Paddison, 1998).

Although living in a city might create some economies of scale and other ‘city

effects’, it can also increase the demand for consumer ‘wants’ over that found in non-

urban areas. The increase in consumption may be a consequence either of living in a

city, or of the increased income that generally comes as a result of living in a city

(HABITAT, 1996). I would add that consumption in urbanizations could also be a

consequence of inequalities. According to Miles and Paddison (1998, p. 820),

consumption is interactive in a social sense, insofar as it provides an arena

which distinguishes one social group from another, often through inequalities

242 D. Martino


associated with access to resources, and yet is simultaneously integrative in

providing an arena within which consumers can feel that they belong to

something.

It is possible, following this argument, that consumption in an urban system is

stimulated by the inequalities of urban societies (Gleeson & Low, 2000).

Consumerism, particularly in Western societies, represents an opportunity, in

the consumer’s mind, to bridge the inequalities that are enhanced and made

conspicuous in an urban setting. If we add this to an income increase, a desire to

consume stimulated by advertising, and a sense of loneliness created by

urbanization, we have a recipe for increased consumption (Miles & Paddison,

1998). However, although this process is in part a consequence of living in an

urban area, the city per se does not have to be unsustainable and a channel for

consumerism. The challenge is to find the point between the ‘city effect’ and the

‘urban overload’ that avoids some of the effects of urbanization that lead to

consumerism. The isolation and loneliness pointed out by several authors quoted

in Miles and Paddison are not an inevitable consequence of urbanization, nor are

the inequalities, which are so blatant in southern cities. The scale of analysis

has to be broadened to understand them. As Gleeson and Low (2000, p. 21)

point out:

In the present context of globalization, cities are ‘growth machines’ geared to

an ever-expanding consumption of nature . . . the urban sustainability discourse

is limited by its failure to confront the deeper causes of unsustainability. Most

important among these causes are the current growth model of global capitalist

economy and its entropic logic of accumulation.

Some clarification of terms is, once again, necessary before trying to isolate some of

the non-urban components associated with urban areas. Moreover, the exercise of

‘isolation’ will be done by analyzing societies that, though urban, did not have the

other ‘contaminating’ characteristics. The use of the term ‘pre-industrial city’, for

example, is understood in contrast to the ‘industrial city’. So what constitutes an

industrial city?

Is it any city in a society where the take-off into industrialization has taken

place? But does nineteenth-century Exeter differ significantly from Sjoberg’s

pre-industrial city? . . .Perhaps an industrial city should be defined as a city

dominated by a particular industry, in the way that nineteenth-century

Leeds and Manchester were dominated by textiles. However, Florence in the

fifteenth-century, Norwich in the seventeenth century and Lyons in the

eighteenth century were also textile towns in this sense. In Lyons, 14 percent

of the total population, meaning something like half the working adults,

were employed in textiles, and most of these in silk. Is the industrial city a

city dominated by large factories? This would certainly exclude Florence and

Norwich, but at the price of leaving out nineteenth century Birmingham and

Sheffield as well, since they were cities of small workshops. In other words,



the ‘post-industrial city’ (as it may be more convenient to call it) was no

more monolithic than the pre-industrial city. (Burke, 1975, p. 16)

We need to be cautious when referring to certain conditions of urban areas, and to

certain moments in time, as if they were typical ‘urban’ conditions, and must guard

against ethno- or temporocentric assumptions when analyzing urban areas in

general. Wirth warned in 1938 that, despite the link between mass production,

capitalism, and cities in the modern world, we cannot deny that ‘cities of earlier

epochs may have been . . . in a pre-industrial and pre-capitalist order . . . [but] they

were, nevertheless, cities’ (Wirth, 1996, p. 50). Comparing industrial and

pre-industrial, capitalist and pre-capitalist cities, can lead to important conclusions,

for as Leeds argues, ‘we are in fact continuously living in, experiencing, and looking

at capitalist forms of urbanization’. Later he adds

[g]reat density, large population agglomerations, and increasing population size

are necessary symptomatic results but, as diagnostic traits of the Urban in

general, are of limited value since they describe only the cities, and then chiefly

capitalist cities, of urban society and not urban societies as wholes, especially

noncapitalist ones. (Leeds, 1979, p. 237, emphasis added)

Eames and Goode exemplify this fact with the examples of poverty and material

consumption (referred to as urban lifestyle) which are often associated with the

‘urban’, but which are, respectively, a result of the economic systems and ‘market

demands characteristic of capitalist industry rather than residence in the city’

(Gleeson & Low, 2000, p. 49). Although I agree with Eames and Goode’s argument,

we cannot ignore the fact that social isolation, intensification of advertisement,

and patent social differentiation of cities creates an ideal atmosphere for consum-

erism to flourish. Finally, Eames and Goode note that ‘we must distinguish between

a society that is becoming modernized (mass production, mass communication,

monetization, bureaucratization) and one that is becoming urbanized (increasing

urban form and function) since the two processes are not the same’ (Gleeson & Low,

1996, p. 50).When it comes to comparison of pre-industrial or pre-capitalist cities with

‘modern’, industrial, or post-industrial cities, there are diverse examples. Sjoberg

(1960) distinguishes between pre-industrial and industrial cities, asserting that the

former are not impersonal, secular, and great in size, as was assumed in the folk–

urban hypothesis (from Redfield). However Thrupp, in her critique of Sjoberg’s

book, states that ‘the case for extrapolation of antiquity rests on the supposition that

all historical change between the rise of cities and industrialization is cultural and

therefore irrelevant to the hypothesis’ (Thrupp, 1961, p. 62). Vance, examining land

assignment practices in pre-capitalist, capitalist, and post-capitalist cities, concludes

that land assignments in cities are under ‘pure capitalist control’, that traditional

practices have been abandoned, and that ‘economic measures still determine most

decisions’, even in societies officially committed to other values (Vance, 1971,

pp. 119, 120).5 Despite the massive and diverse amount on information on pre-

industrial, ancient, and pre-Columbian cities, there are few, if any, articles regarding

244 D. Martino


environmental sustainability in pre-industrial urban areas. However, despite the lack of

literature in this particular field, some preliminary conclusions can be reached by

discussing related literature in the fields of archaeology, history and more recently,

environmental archaeology.One of the first contrasts we find between pre-industrial urban societies and

industrial or post-industrial urban society (keeping in mind Burke’s point) is that the

rural/urban dichotomy is not as clear as it appears to be in modern society. The city

of Uruk (population 50,000), for example, expanded its walls in 3000–2500 BC, and

included gardens and cultivation as well as the city inside them. The city of Sijilmassa

(population approximately 30,000) had walls, not only for the city itself, but also for

the orchards and cultivated areas that stood beside the city (Lightfoot & Miller,

1996). Mumford constantly remarks on the unity that existed between the ‘urban’

and the ‘rural’ in the Middle Ages. ‘The town of the Middle Ages’, he writes, ‘was not

merely in the country but of the country: the food was grown within the walls, as well

as on the terraces, or in the orchards and fields, outside’ (Mumford, 1940, p. 24).

However, despite the differences that cities in the past might have with contemporary

cities, they are, as Wirth (1996) argues, still cities.6

Berkes and Folke define feedback as the result of certain behavior that can

reinforce (they call it negative feedback) or modify (positive feedback) future

behavior. On the other hand,

[a]daptive management deals with the unpredictable interactions between

people and ecosystems as they evolve together . . .Organizations and institu-

tions can ‘learn’ as individuals do, and hence adaptive management is based on

social and institutional learning. Adaptive management differs from the

conventional practice of resource management by emphasizing the importance

of feedbacks from the environment in shaping policy. (Berkes & Folk, 2000,

p. 10)

They argue that certain societies adapt to changing environmental conditions better

than others. Despite the lack of certainty as to the reasons for these differences, they

indicate that ‘appropriate feedback mechanisms’ might be the clue to influence

decisions that will alter future behavior to ‘make adaptation possible’ (Berkes &

Folke, 2000, p. 19).Atkinson (1996), Alberti (1996), and Redman (1999) bring the feedback

mechanism topic (without mention of this particular term) to the urban discussion.

Atkinson (1996, p. 334) states, for instance, that ‘[o]f particular concern with regards

to any model of urban sustainability is the way in which the conceptualization,

analysis and planning of urban regions has almost entirely lost sight of real

resources’. Alberti (1996, p. 381) notes that ‘although cities affect and are affected by

natural systems beyond their physical boundaries, the interdependence between

urban systems and the regional and global environment is not reflected in urban

decision-making’. Redman believes that this separation between decision-making

and ‘real resources’ and the ‘regional environment’ is due to the increase of

organizational structure of urban societies, which leads to separation between

higher-level decision makers and productive situations. So, while in ‘modern’ urban



societies the separation is ‘institutional’ and physical, in medieval and ancient citiesthe separation was not physical, but might have been, as Redman is arguing,institutional. This, together with other non-environmental factors, might explainwhy some ancient urban societies survived for millennia, while others did not.Nevertheless, it must be stated that being close in space does not mean that decision-makers were more aware. In other words, physical proximity to the productive landdid not guarantee that decision-makers and decision-making institutions were ‘closeto the land’ emotionally, or that they worked and depended on it enough to be awareof the issues concerning its management. In this context, Bookchin’s remarks on thedangers of overspecialization resulting from urbanization (or urban overload)gain importance:

Our small communities should be economically balanced and well rounded,partly so they can make full use of local raw materials and energy resources,partly also to enlarge the agricultural and industrial stimuli to whichindividuals are exposed . . .To separate the engineer from the soil, the thinkerfrom the spade, and the farmer from the industrial plant promotes a degree ofvocational overspecialization that leads to a dangerous measure of socialcontrol by specialists. What is equally important, professional and vocationalspecialization prevents society from achieving a vital goal: the humanization ofnature by the technician and the naturalization of society by the biologist.(Biehl, 1997, p. 22)

Ancient Urban Societies

As a final point on the discussion of the sustainability of urban societies, I willcontest the assumption that all urban societies are not sustainable by brieflyanalyzing urban societies of the past and by examining how many of the impactsattributed to urbanization were not necessarily a consequence of urbanization itself.Redman argues that urban society ‘introduced a whole new set of human–environment interactions’. He points out four major impacts derived from thetransformation to an urban society. First, more people require more food. Second,there is a need for more material to construct cities. ‘A third impact is the territoryitself that is given over to settlement, creating urban ecosystems.’ Fourth, there is aseries of new interactions derived from urban societies’ industry, trade, andhierarchical administration (Redman, 1999, p. 127).

The first three factors are related to urbanization, but not unique to it. Moreover,as Jacobsen and Firor (1992), like Redman, argue, the concentration of populationgave a fertile ground for the spread of some deadly diseases, and this in turn affectspopulation growth. The need for material to construct shelter is not limited to urbanareas. Finally the impact in the territory itself, as Redman states, is nowadays lessthan 3% of the land (land alone, not including oceans) (ICLEI, n/d), and we canimagine how low that impact might have been in ancient cities. However, as we sawabove, the last point is of interest, especially with regards to the ‘hierarchicaladministration’.

246 D. Martino


Weiskel argues that, ‘despite six millennia of experience, we have not yet learned as

a species to construct urban environments in which we can live on a sustainable

basis’ (Weiskel, 1991, p. 18). He argues, without reference, that, since the origin of

urbanism, every urban experiment has failed because it destroyed its surrounding

environment. He argues that urban decision-makers do not get feedback from the

environment, so unsustainable practices are continued despite the knowledge of rural

people. He overlooks the fact that, in ancient cities, the rural/urban dichotomy is not

as clear (if it ever is) as in modern cities. Agriculture used to be part of urban

activities, and many of the ‘rural’ workers lived in the city, as is the case for example

with the Yoruba in Africa (Lloyd, 1973), and Sardinia or Sicily in Italy (Chisholm,

1979). Davis similarly argues that, ‘the very success of the urban regime might prove

ultimately disastrous by virtue of the environmental damages . . . that it causes.

Because the city is the most complex form of settlement, it is also potentially the most

destructive’. But no link between complexity and tendency to a destruction of the

environment is shown. Finally, he states that ‘often . . . an attack from the outside

was only a contributing cause, a final step, in the process of city death’ (Davis, 1973,

p. 17). Again, no references are provided. Fall et al. (1998), based on references and

palynological analysis of lake cores, conclude that localized deforestation occurred

during the Neolithic, but that regional deforestation occurred in the wake of Bronze

Age urbanism in the Near East. However, Waelkens (1995) and Waelkens et al.

(1999) note that pollen samples show how deforestation happened before the

creation of the city of Sagalassos in Asia Minor (from 6000 BC to 3000 BC), and

continued at the same pace during the existence of the city (from 3000 BC to 700

AD), with some improvement during the last 400 years of it existence. However, the

worst signs of deforestation, overgrazing, and abuse of the land came, according to

pollen records, after AD 1050, when Turkmen tribesman arrived from Iran. So the

city of Sagalassos survived almost 4000 years, and its collapse was not due to

environmental degradation. The city of Sijilmassa constitutes yet another example of

a city that flourished for 650 years, and then also collapsed due to a war and not

because of mismanagement of the environment (Lightfoot & Miller, 1996). Monte

Alban in the Valley of Oaxaca (population more than 25,000) survived for several

millennia before its collapse, not due to overuse of resources but because of

competition from other societies in the valley and outside, or due to an invasion

by these same societies (Balkansky, 1998). Finally, and also in Mesoamerica,

Teotihuacan, or the city of the gods, with a population of up to 250,000 people,

survived more than 600 years and then collapsed due to fire or war, and not because

of environmental degradation (Carlson, 1993). These are just a few examples of cities

that survived centuries or even millennia without collapsing due to environmental

degradation. There surely are cases of ancient cities or pre-urban societies that

destroyed their surrounding environment, just as there are cases of non-urban

societies that were sustainable, and cases of non-urban societies that collapsed

because they destroyed their environment. The point is to show that some cities in

the past were sustainable. Many factors, like population growth, industrialization or

lack of feedback, might be the reasons for unsustainability; but despite the close

connection of urbanization to many of them, we cannot describe every urban society

as ipso facto unsustainable because of it.



Discussion

I have argued that urban areas cannot be regarded as unsustainable per se, that the‘urban’ is not isolated from the ‘rural’, and that urban societies encompass much ofwhat is sometimes described as rural. Moreover, the discussion of the geographicallimits of the influence of cities has shown that urban sustainability cannot and shouldnot be judged under an autarkic view. When analyzing cities’ sustainability, a moreencompassing socio-geographic approach is needed.

In the same vein, an ecosystem approach can be appropriate to manage cities andtheir surroundings (Trzyna, 2005). There are intensive links between rural, urban,and natural areas, and the city cannot be assumed as ‘an autonomous entity whoseecological health can be ensured through the regulation of endogenous socialprocesses and the improvement of physical infrastructure’ (Gleeson & Low, 2000,p. 9). Ways to integrate the city and its planning into the structure and planning of itssurrounding landscape need to be found. In order to understand the links betweenthe city and its surroundings, the broader context in which the city is situated and itsinterrelations need to be analyzed. Here, two distinctions need to be made, the firstone over city size, and the second one over the location of impacts from cities.

Regarding city size, the argument against cities is usually based on the functioningof mega-cities. Norberg-Hodge (1996, pp. 396–397), in her argument againsturbanization, states that

[f]ood and water, building materials, and energy must all be transported greatdistances . . . In their identical glass and steel towers with windows that neveropen, even air to breathe must be provided by fans, pumps, and nonrenewableenergy . . . urban populations depend on transport for theirfood . . .Westernized urban centers . . . all use the same narrow range ofresources.

As discussed above, the potential sustainability of cities should not be determinedwith reference to current consumption patterns, and the structures of capitalism, andindustrialism.

Carbon neutral buildings have been designed and constructed; many urban areas,including mega-cities, succeed in habitat conservation (Schaefer et al., 2004; Desfor& Keil, 2004; Moskovits et al., 2004); many urban parks exhibit more biodiversitythan farm areas located nearby. But mostly, mega-city residents’ consumptionpatterns need not be less environmentally friendly than those of rural or small cityresidents. Many small city residents around the world consume products from afar,just as mega-city residents do. Consumption patterns, including the distance traveledby goods, the amount of goods, the impact of the production of those goods, etc., arenot defined by the fact that a person resides in a small, medium or mega-city.

Regardless of their size, urban areas emit wastes. Due to the concentration ofpeople and activities, liquid and solid waste as well as air pollution and habitatdestruction is, ceteris paribus, larger in larger cities. Although some of the impactsof waste are felt far from the location of the city (mainly, but not only, the resultof industrial activities), most is limited to the city surroundings. The ecosystemmanagement concept, which can help ‘ensure that ecological services and

248 D. Martino


biological resources do not erode irreversibly as a result of human activities’(Brussard et al., 1998, p. 10), is close to the regional approach needed; it isrelated to adaptive management, and recognizes humans as part of ecosystems(Grumbine, 1994; Gibson & Tomalty, 1995; Harwell et al., 1996; Slocombe, 1998;Stein et al., 1999). Adaptive management ‘assumes that ecosystems are inherentlyunpredictable and require policies that are flexible’ (Harwell et al., 1996, p. 500).Moreover, ‘adaptive management is accepted as a legitimate urban strategy . . . [it]accommodates learning, uncertainties associated with limited knowledge, unex-pected outcomes, surprise’ (Marcotullio & Boyle, 2003, p. 18). This relates to theimportance of obtaining feedback from the environment, a crucial aspect of urbansustainability.

On the one hand, the ecosystem approach to urban areas is still closely associatedwith the urban ecosystem approach. This view has the advantage of valuing naturalareas in the city and the value of the city as ecosystem; it also provides an interestingview to analyze the city. However, it has the problem of centering on the city, insteadof focusing on the landscape in which the city is located and with which the city isinterrelated. On the other hand, the ecosystem approach has the clear advantage ofbringing a variety of temporal and spatial scales to the analysis of the city in theregion. Beatley (2000) describes the advantage of taking the regional approach withpolitical decentralization for the case of European cities. In the Netherlands, forexample, each province prepares its own regional plan. This plan is not mandatory,but municipalities will follow it because the province will approve municipalproposals based on the guidelines of the regional plan. In this context the focus fordecision planning and decision-making is not in the city but in the region.

One of the biggest challenges to design sustainable integrated cities is to overcomethe human–nature dualism. Nature is present in the city, and it needs to be managednot just to make the city greener but also to embed the city in its larger naturalecosystem (Beatley, 2000). ‘Conservation of biodiversity has to be planned andmanaged in such a way as to coordinate protected areas with the total landscape inwhich they occur . . . [including] urban and peri-urban environments’ (Heywood,1996) and, I would add, with the total landscape as focus.

Notes

1 As Mumford (1940, p. 389) pointed out, ‘it is easy to prove that, if the metropolis has increased in

population in the past, it will continue to in the future. Those who hold these views regard any other

possibility as unthinkable—by which they mean, in reality, that they are incapable of further

thought’.2 The use of the emphasis is justified by the misuse of terms such as urbanism, urbanization, and

urban in the literature (see Eames & Goode, 1977, p. 45). Therefore, urbanization here is the

process by which a society becomes urban.3Urban sustainability indicators can provide the necessary information on how to assess the links

between an urban area and its resource base. For information on indicators see Bell and Morse

(2001), Atkinson (1996), Dilks (1996) and Alberti (1996).4 For a historical analysis of the view of cities as antithetical to environmental sustainability see

Young (1997).5 For other comparisons of pre-industrial and pre-capitalist cities with modern, industrial or post-

industrial ones, see Goose (1982), Storey (1985), Batten (1998), Rapoport (1990), Massicotte (1999)

and Grillo (2000).



6 Specialization could be another general difference, however, Bookchin (1992) and Goose (1982)

present different views for modern and pre-industrial cities, respectively.

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