Are we planning too much?

Reading book like Cradle to Cradle one could wonder what kind of view of nature many “environmentalists” have. You can easily find arguments like “Nature does not produce waste” and “Nature has no design problem”. It is if nature would have a plan and a strategy for evolution, which is off course not true. That is if you don´t belong to some religious movement. One of the big waste deposits from nature, fossil fuels, is at the moment giving us a headache.

Think about the concepts “Design for Environment” and “Green product design”.

Is that how nature works? No nature has no plan for design but just an indiscriminate selection

One could say that this is how the market economy works. Just design and produce and let the market find out what can survive. The problem is that there is no effective market economy but a jungle of subsidiaries, legislation etc. Isn´t it just our ignorance and deficient planning for the future that creates lock-in effects?

Beware us of a nature that would give subsidiaries to some of its inventions.

Beyond research disciplines?

The academic system favour isolation of problems (reductionism and intradisciplinary) so that complexity can be reduced and problems can be solved by different methodologies. The idea is that the whole system can be understood if we understand the parts. This development is obvious in natural science where a large number of new disciplines have been created. What we can see now is that cross disciplinary sciences develop where knowledge and methods from one discipline are applied in another discipline e.g. biomedicine.

When it comes to research in the area of sustainable development and in meeting the grand challenges for our civilization e.g. dependence on fossil fuels, climate change, water resources, poverty etc. different discipline try to meet in multi- and interdisciplinary scientific fields. It has however turned out difficult to merge scientific disciplines in a fruitful way. Reasons for this might be that the individuals are still thinking within their disciplinary “box”. Another problem is that it is not always people who are struggling with the real problems in society that formulates the problems and the research questions. This is done by the researchers and sometimes also by research agencies. There is thus still an important gap between academy and practitioners in city planning, industries etc. Also these practitioners have a fragmented view of the problems and tend to formulate the problems on a low system level. In reality problems like developing more sustainable pathways for cities are far too complex to break down into separate discipline areas. One can therefor ask if the existing structure of research and problem formulation really can tackle the problems relating to our unsustainable societies. Is there a pathway built on transdiciplinary science where problems and research questions are formulated outside the box, beyond disciplines? This would require much more close work between researchers and practitioners during a longer time or that individuals can move more freely between these two groups. It would also require much more flexibility and new ways of thinking around research funding.

However there is a very strong driving force for researchers to stay within their discipline and to reduce complexity in order to be able to publish in scientific journals. If you want to succeed in an academic career you should not go too far out from your main research field. The best you can do is to stay in a narrow field and also publish central review papers which are cited by many other researchers. Pioneers are still recognized by all arrows in their back.

Will China be the first country to build radical Ecocities?

The cities we have in the developed countries have been shaped during hundreds of years. During the last one hundred years many cities have been shaped out of our need for car transports for people and goods. We can now see the negative effects of this development but there is a very strong lock-in effect due to existing infrastructure, planning routines, our minds etc. Can we change this situation by incremental changes or do we have to take more radical steps? Can we build new cities or city areas like radical Ecocities? I will not go into the discussion to define an Ecocity or why we need them. The interesting thing is that the concept of Ecocity is very much on the agenda in China and also Swedish companies are involved in several Ecocities e.g. Caofeidian and Wuxi.

In a lecture with title “EcoCity – what and why? ” in Tianjin, China, 17.04.2007 the finish professor Eero Paloheimo stated that:

"China could produce eco-city design and eco-cities in the same way as Venezuela produces oil or Switzerland produces watches. China could become the first and most important producer of eco-cities".

Eero Paloheimo argues that in the European cities the planners have too many constraints in order to radically change the planning process in order to build radical Ecocities. His argument why China could do it is:

"As far as I understand, Chinese decision-makes do not have the same constraints and are not as easily steered by the media. Major, radical decisions may be easier to take when you believe they are correct and need not suffer from irrelevant criticism. Making such a radical decision as to build an eco-city is possible in China. It would not be possible in Finland or other European countries."

Another argument in line with this is that China can leap-frog in the development:

"By taking radical action, China could still avoid the worst environmental problems that already affect all countries in Europe. China could – at least partly – jump over the industrial stage, which has proven itself to be a mistake.”

The arguments from Eero Paloheimo why China could be better off when it comes to building radical Ecocities boils down to:

1.       China can leap-frog through development and avoid technologies and infrastructures
 that are destructive to environment

2.       China can build faster and without our planning constraints.

The first argument has been discussed extensively not the least within the Industrial Ecology research community and the conclusion is that it seems very difficult for developing economies to leap-frog.

The second argument is interesting because it is built on the thought that due to the lack of democratic processes China can easier and faster build radical Ecocities. They don´t have the constraints of the participatory democratic processes. I think this is built on an idea that an Ecocity can be built by experts and not by citizens who have many different ideas what an Eco city really is. The planning of an Ecocity then turns out to very instrumental, more or less as we developed cities 40-50 years ago, when we planned the suburbs to the large cities. The experience from this period is that cities have to be developed by the people living there and not only by experts. Participatory democratic processes may slow down the overall planning phase but they ensure that all dimensions of sustainability are included also the social.

Link to the lecture by Eero Paloheimo
http://www.eeropaloheimo.fi/EcoCity.htm

About Ecocities:
http://www.ecocitybuilders.org/
http://www.ecocity-project.eu/