THE starting precondition for urban structures and urban life is a surplus of production in agriculture. Cities were and are dependent on this fact. In 7,000 years of urban history, few cities have managed a continuous, long-lasting tradition. Many cities, even capitals, have disappeared. Some were destroyed in wars by enemies, the population wiped out and buildings demolished. But equally, changes in environmental conditions have also forced people to abandon their cities.

Till fairly recently, cities could only grow within the limits of the carrying capacity of their accessible environment. If the so-called ‘ecological footprint’ of the city involved an overexploitation of natural and/or human resources, urban development came close to a collapse. This ecological footprint had to be in accordance with the energy available to society. In the main, the traditional city operated on solar energy, as did the transport system. Human beings used their body energy for walking, and/or the energy of animals for different activities. Along the rivers, or the coast, wind energy was available.

Among the ancients, the Greek as well as Chinese people had learned how to develop cities in accordance and balance with the bearing capacity (ecological footprint) of their natural environment by controlling the population. If the number of people exceeded the carrying capacity, a new settlement had to be established elsewhere. In Greece, the so-called ‘Greek colonies’ were established along the Mediterranean coast. China developed a hierarchy of district cities in accordance with the capacity of the agricultural environment, reflecting a long tradition of wisdom and clever governments, operating within the natural borders in a responsible manner. This was the situation till the 19th century.

The availability of cheap and abundant external energy from coal, oil and gas for steamships, railways, car traffic and aeroplanes fundamentally changed the character of urban development. Cities could now expand much further than what their formal locally limited footprint would otherwise allow by using the new means of transport. In the past, cities mainly depended on the amount of primary products, resources and energy in their accessible environment, with only some precious and expensive products obtained from distant places. With the new transport modes, however, the resources of the whole globe became easily accessible. The cities began to absorb more and more people from the countryside, as manpower was replaced by fossil fuel powered machines and agriculture started using fossil fuel based fertilizer.

The share of urban population exceeded 50% of the global population in 2008.¹ Such a situation is sustainable only as long as the whole globe can be used as a life support system for cities, and cheap fossil fuel is available to power the transport system.

But the flip side of the coin is also becoming more visible: increasing urbanization means increasing energy demand. This fact has not yet been adequately recognized by many urban planners, who continue to dream about a larger urban population in the future. But not only is this future uncertain, it will also be different from the trends of the past 200 years. The analysis of available resources shows that the bearing capacity of fertile ground, atmosphere and the ecosystem had already been exceeded many years ago, as the two reports of the Club of Rome, 1972 and 30 years after, have proved.² 

 

What will be the future of our cities? The only certain thing about the future is that it is uncertain. Industrial out-put, life expectancy and available resources will decline when cheap and easy accessible fossil fuel cannot be replaced to the same degree by other sources of energy. If urbanization continues to be dependent on additional energy, as was the case in the past and will likely be the case in the future, de-urbanization is inevitable. If this happens, the scenarios will change. Different ways of de-urbanization are imaginable. By developing local energy sources (mainly solar or from underground), the cities’ image will change from a so-called ‘Petropolis’ to ‘Ecopolis’, producing not only their own energy, but also converting the existing city into a place of urban agriculture within the city borders.

Does this mean ‘fertile ground’ instead of dirty asphalt and concrete? Will this be enough to reduce input of energy and resources as well as output of waste and pollution to the desired levels? Another scenario imaginable is a kind of ‘villagization’ or ‘ruralization’ of the society. This, however, does not mean going back to the past village structures, but a move into the future with energy efficient, sustainable local societies. Whether the dream of a technological driven ‘Technopolis’ will become a reality under scarce commodities remains somewhat uncertain.

In any case, the future will bring about a change of lifestyle away from individual motorization to more intelligent transport solutions based on solar energy. This can only become possible by maximizing the share of pedestrians and cyclists in the urban transport system.

 

Since more than half of the world population already lives in cities of different kinds, the possible futures will also be different. Cities with historical centres from the pre-fossil era can more easily be transformed to respond to future needs. If they can get rid of car traffic, the restructuring process can start immediately – bringing people, business, culture and life back to these historical centres, as has so often happened in many European cities during the last 40 years. It is also a big advantage for those cities which have retained their rail-based public transport systems built in the 19th and the first quarter of the 20th century. These urban structures have a much brighter future than the big American or Australian agglomerations. Finally, if cars were to be removed from these parts of the urban area, population density will increase and a variety of opportunities can be re-established in a short period. Walking will become the main mode of mobility in this kind of urban structures, alongside cycles supported by public transport, which is not in conflict with these basic solar driven modes.

 

Many Indian cities have the huge advantage of vibrant historical centres like the walled city in Delhi, the old parts of Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Chennai, and so on. If all motorized vehicles can be removed from these precious urban spaces and public money used to upgrade the wonderful historical buildings, with improved sanitation and the provision of information technology, these parts of the city can be easily rejuvenated.

Even in the slums, it is possible to create livable community spaces if the slums are not motor car dependent, like Nesa in Mexico City. If public spaces are not extended for car use and the buildings renewed with the best sanitation standards, replacing one-storey huts by solid four to five-storey buildings, the slums can easily be converted into urban structures fit for the future. This does not mean copying an urban development style as exists in Hong Kong, where high-rise buildings are built as mass storage containers for people. However, it must be recognized that Hong Kong offers, in most of its districts, a variety of opportunities like the Indian city centres.

The influence of the so-called colonial urban style can be seen in the wide roads cutting up the urban body into pieces and separating functions and societies which otherwise would have been connected across the street. By filling up this wide paved space with new houses, shops and other opportunities, we can convert these endangered structures into a more valued space for the urban body, especially when these structures are connected with undisturbed public transport on the surface like bus systems or trams.

If, however, the cities are built around and for cars, as is so often the current fashion, the agglomerations will have to face many problems in the future. A huge amount of energy for car mobility is necessary to serve these cancerous urban structures developed during the second half of the 20th century. Integration into a sustainable urban body will not be possible without fundamental structural change. These settlement structures will either have to be abandoned by their residents or be reshaped to form new, much denser urban sub-centres which are, as far as possible, self-sufficient in energy production as well as food supply, business, and so on. However, to start and support this healing process of the car addicted society of the 20th century, the right measures have to be implemented.

 

The individual optimization of housing and parking is the root cause behind the urban problems of today, creating congestion and urban sprawl on the one hand and concentration of shopping opportunities in shopping centres not related any more to the urban area, concentration of work opportunities, etc., on the other. These individual-optimized structures are dependent on heavy public support and will be a burden in the future. Historically, an increase in car ownership went hand in hand with loss of local workshops, disintegration of the human society, loss of security in the public space, and loss of life space of children, to mention a few.

Moreover, we have congestion, as deficits of public transport produce a kind of unwanted ‘collateral’ damage and leave municipalities to face unsolvable financial problems. Concentrating on traffic flow treatment only deals with a symptom and not the cause of the problem; congestion is only a symptom of an ill city. If only we ask where the cars are coming from, we will get the right answer: all cars come from parking places and have their destination in parking places! It is the dominant parking regulation which causes these problems. The treatment can only be successful if the causes are correctly identified and treated. To develop a sustainable city, it is thus necessary to reorganize parking from the individual garage to common garages surrounded by a car-free pedestrianized urban environment.

In any case, whether it is the historical, colonial or agglomeration city in which urban density is above 150 inhabitants per hectare, this measure will help bring back the shops for daily needs, as also create a vast range of working opportunities, cultural and leisure activities, since a car-free environment forms the necessary social network of urban life.

Cars have to be stored in common garages. If the distance between these common garages is about 1,000 metres, the average walking distance toward these garages is not more than 250 metres. A public transport system with stops at every 500 metres can substitute car trips in a far easier and better way for distances longer than what pedestrians like to walk or cyclists like to ride. The demand for car traffic under these circumstances can be reduced to about three per cent of today’s volume.

 

Walking in a car-free, healthy, interesting and beautiful environment over two or three hundred metres is fun compared to the present situation on a narrow, polluted and noisy sidewalk in a dangerous and bad environment. This added value can be realized only through a reorganization of the existing cancerous individual parking arrangement by a socially agreeable common parking regulation. It is likely that such a measure will not only make parking cheaper, but also simultaneously enhance security in public spaces. These measures also support the social network instead of cutting it into pieces with carriageways. It will decentralize the economy into a variety of small local shops and bring employment back to where the people live.

 

Alongside the positive social and environment effects, the energy saving effects too are considerable, since the energy demand for mobility will go down by over 90%, including the energy demand for public transport. Equally, the employment effect for reshaping the agglomeration built for cars into a human scale city will be enormous, enhancing the positive effects on the quality of life, cultural and social stimulation, thereby fundamentally altering the nature of future society.

 

Footnotes:

1. United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2007 Revision, Executive Summary.

2. Donella Meadows, J. Randers and D. Meadows. Limits to Growth. Universe Books, New York, 1972; Donella Meadows, J. Randers and D. Meadows, Limits to Growth: The Thirty Year Update. Chelsea Green Publishing Co., White River Junction, VT, 2004.

 

References

H. Knoflacher, Zur Harmonie von Stadt und Verkehr. Freiheit vom Zwang zum Autofahren. 2., verbesserte und erweiterte Auflage. Böhlau Verlag Wien – Köln – Weimar, 1996.

H. Knoflacher, J.M. Schopf, M. Mailer and P. Pfaffenbichler, EMRECU (Effects of Realised Measures on the Reduction of Energy Consumption in Urban Transport) Auswirkungen realisierter Verkehrsmaß-nahmen auf die Reduktion des Energieverbrauchs im städtischen Verkehr. Forschungs-projekt der Europäischen Kommission, Generaldirektion XVII, Energie, durchgeführt vom Institut für Verkehrsplanung und Verkehrstechnik der Technischen Universität Wien, 1998.

H. Knoflacher, Freedom From Car Dependency: The Precondition for Liveable Cities. Vortrag beim Auto-Free New York Meeting, New York am 22.02.2005.

H. Knoflacher, Grundlagen der Verkehrs-und Siedlungsplanung: Verkehrsplanung. Böhlau Verlag Wien – Köln – Weimar, 2007.

H. Knoflacher, Virus Auto. Die Geschichte einer Zerstörung. Verlag Carl Ueberreuter, Wien, 2009.