On Future Cities’ Vices and Prophets

"Modern cities are poorly conceived...not smart, but, on the contrary, monotonously dull and therefore are doomed ...". Steven K. Rose is the author of this diagnose. He is a New York writer, philosopher and civil rights fighter. Studying the structure of modern cities and their inhabitants' way of life, Rose discovered a number of shortcomings that make these systems fundamentally wrong. Among them, there are such faults, as

1. the distribution of street space, which is in favor of cars and to the detriment of pedestrians;
2. high population density and the total number of people living in the cities, which results in the deterioration of the environmental situation, rising prices for real estate and much more;

the presence of huge buildings that cover the sunlight and have depressing effect on the psyche;

1. a great element of spontaneity in planning, the impossibility of rational route creation and the considerable distance between different places of leisure from each other;  
2. harsh separation of available housing in terms of affordability, comfortableness, etc.

These shortcomings cannot be corrected within existing cities, and therefore the only way to eliminate them is the creation of new settlements. Rose discovers the sources of ideas that can form the basis of such settlements in K. Alexander's, K. Doksiadis' and J. Fresco's works. Obviously, it is worth adding to them the name of A.Yunitskiy.

On the way to the perfect city 

Christopher Wolfgang Alexander is an architect and designer, he is one of the creators of the "template language" in architecture, which today has become a kind of mainstream in urban planning. The main idea of Alexander is that citizens should design their environment themselves, as all the most beautiful places on Earth were created by ordinary people, not by architects.  To simplify this task, there should be designed templates that answer the simplest questions.

Another prophet of the cities of the future, a Greek architect Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis, has been recognised worldwide as the leading architect of Islamabad, the new capital of Pakistan.  In his theory, the city is viewed as a dynamic phenomenon, developing in such a way that the general organization of space allows development without destroying the urban "fabric".

Jacque Fresco, whose name is the third on the list of ideologists of "smart settlements", was developing the concepts of the passive house, cities with sustainable development, resource-oriented economy, universal automation in the key of the holistic design.

In the book "Looking Forward", co-authored by Jacque Fresco, he describes a cybernetic community, the inhabitants of which do not have to work, but have other values instead. Designed by Jacques Fresco "The Venus Project" declared the creation of a social system on the basis of a resource-oriented economic model.

Main missing element

Combining the ideas of Alexander, Doxiadis, Fresco and others, Rose comes to the formation of the concept of the city, living in which will be the most comfortable, affordable and economically feasible. First of all, the right cities must be pedestrian ones. All objects in them must be within walking distance. The height of buildings should not exceed 3-4 floors, and the area of the entire settlement should be withing 1 square mile. The population must not be over 10 000 people. The connection of the city with neighboring cities is provided by linear transport systems capable of transporting people and goods at high speeds. Such description harmoniously fits into the concept of SkyWay linear cities, whose author is Anatoliy Yunitskiy. Moreover, Yunitskiy concretises what kind of transport should be in such a settlement: the one that allows to abandon cars, which are, undoubtedly, the main problem of the cities.

The impossibility for a person to lead a normal way of life in the city that is stuffed with cars is obvious. However, there was simply no alternative to this type of transport until recently. At the same time, as Yunitskiy emphasises , "the main reason for the formation of cities, megacities, mass concentration of people, is the provision of transport accessibility. The availability of jobs, educational, health and cultural centers, places for mass recreation and entertainment, ensuring the possibility of physical contact of people with each other, that is what pulled together in one place first thousands, then millions of people.

These are transport communications that historically have formed the spatial appearance of modern cities and megacities, their spatial framework. Only because of the need to ensure transport accessibility in modern cities, such an ultra-high concentration of residential and industrial buildings was formed. 

The SkyWay transport systems can become the required solution, which would allow to disperse everything that is concentrated in the cities today. Due to the systems' characteristics, they are able to provide transport accessibility at distances much greater than other modes of transport.  This means that the need to concentrate a large number of industrial, social, cultural, etc. institutions in a small area automatically disappears.

There opens the possibility of settling people in the logic of linear cities. "In the middle line of such a city, in a green area of 100 m wide, above the trees, i.е. at a height of 50 m or more, there run high-speed "green" transport communications", describes the settlements of the new type Anatoliy Ynitskiy. "Green in the sense that they are safe, do not threaten the life and health of people (environmental friendliness, noiselessness, safety of high-speed movement, etc.) and do not violate the harmony of the surrounding natural environment, including the landscape. With the city's 50- km in length, and the average travel speed of 200 km/h, the maximum travel time for its residents will be 15-20 minutes (from one end to the other end of the city), and the weighted average time --10-15 minutes.

Office, industrial and other buildings and structures of mass concentration of people, will also be located in the middle green zone of the city and will be within walking distance for its residents.

The correct arrangement of the city is the path to prosperity 

According to Rose, the correct arrangement of a person's places of rest and work, will automatically lead to the prosperity of the society as a whole. Such city design assumes that all the machinery and infrastructure used by people, will become more energy efficient and safer from the ecological point of view. Automation will regulate the use and interaction of the machinery and infrastructure, and the cost will be distributed among all members of the community. At the same time, housing, work and everything else will be integrated within a single residential space, whose population of up to 10 000 people is optimal from the point of view of the conditions for the growth of the local economy.  

In the SkyWay city "there will be no traffic jams, smog, people will not die on the roads," says Anatoliy Yunitskiy in his speech at the international exhibition Smart Cities India. "Children will be able to run barefoot on the grass, not on the asphalt, and parents will not be afraid for their lives. The whole population will be employed, mainly in the service sector, including the cultivation of natural food for their families. People will be healthy, fed and have a lot of free time, which can be devoted to creativity and self-development, since the working day will be significantly shortened."

To be at home everywhere   

The tendency to form a new approach in urban development is caused by a number of factors. Unfortunately, most of them are negative. The ecological and social situation in modern megacities is on the verge of disaster. International congresses, exhibitions, launched investment and technology programs, numerous publications in the media, -- it all says that the time of radical and decisive changes is approaching. A man of the future will be able to wander like a nomad and, at the same time, thanks to effective transport, will always have the feeling at home everywhere.

Or, on the contrary, to live always in the same place, but at any time, to be able to quickly and comfortably get anywhere. "Settlements of the new format will cover and improve all spheres of human life and society," writes Stephen Rose, trying to predict the economic and moral consequences of the ongoing transformations. The company that can implement a new approach in practice, will achieve more than Apple and Google taken together. At the basis for a new world order there will be the values similar to those that are bequeathed to us by Buddha, Confucius and Christ. Among them, there is tolerance, mutual assistance, equality. "