The Wake

Atop a lofty skyscraper, you sit in your office on a break with the window open. The reflection off the glass is a rich shade of green. Crowded railcars navigate their endless tracks like caterpillars. Solar panels gleam in the sun. The tops of buildings are green with plant life. Below, you hear only birds chirping, people chatting, traders swapping goods in farmer’s markets. The chaotic noise of the city and the relentless roar of thousands cars is gone.

This daydream could be a reality of future “eco-cities” that would bring vast change to the most populous of human living arrangements. This suggestive term was conceived by Richard Register, leader of EcoCity Builders, which is a non-profit organization “dedicated to reshaping cities, towns, and villages for the long-term health of human and natural systems.” EcoCity Builders illustrates a near utopia: buildings would be very close and very tall, since “urban sprawl” grossly contributes to waste in current city designs. Combined with a network of connective pedestrian bridges and an extensive public transportation system (running on non-fossil fuels), high-density city planning would facilitate convenient travel between work and home in a environment largely void of cars.

Cars are the tumor of the contemporary city, according to Register: “To call the car in the city overbearing is just beginning to assess the damage of the bull in the china shop.” Cars force road-centered design, foster unhealthy, polluted living environments, take up space, and create excess waste. Of course, we would be responsible for keeping our eco-cities healthy. Antidotes include slashing resource waste. Any usage would be carefully regulated and restored. People and businesses would need to recycle and compost assiduously. But, in return, cities would sustain their entire population; very rarely looking beyond their borders to satisfy basic needs which would save money and energy on transportation in the process. They would provide a more vigorous living environment. “Concrete jungles” would not-so-aptly describe our cities.

However, it’s due time for a reality check: “we can’t ‘expect’ anything.” The eco-city vision has progressed too slowly: “People have not been very courageous or creative.” Register, believing we need to part with the car, thinks our current efforts are misguided: “The ill-advised ‘better’ car perpetuates the present sprawl infrastructure and postpones dealing with eco-city design.” It may yet be too frightening for society to part from a tool on which we’ve become so dependent. “People are too worried about staying comfortable.” People, tightly gripping their current ways, are only willingly to take the daintiest step forward. “I’ve written dozens of interviews and editorials like this and the idiot editors of mainstream press exorcise everything but the cool creek projects I do-which are nice-but far from sufficient. Serious car criticism and shifting of urban patterns is modern taboo. If we maintain this taboo much longer, we’re not going to make it.” Eventually, Register believes these cities are “inevitable.” Let’s just hope society doesn’t oversleep.