Metacities and an Urban Land Ethic
Metacities and an Urban Land Ethic
This concluding chapter describes the city as a site of difference and differentiation, placing it in the context of the dimensions of space, place, and ecosystem. It then posits an outlook of the future within the boundaries of the metacity, by defining the concept thereof and linking it with patch dynamics. The metacity, with its various landscapes or spatial mosaics defined by the fluxes of material, energy, information, and people; and by the spatial distribution of people's individual and collective decision making; and by the joint outcomes of fluxes and decisions, is a model that both allows the poetry of Italo Calvino's visions of urban glories and the rigor of urban structure, metabolism, and complexity to be accounted for. Another aspect of this desirable urban future is its land ethic, which falls in the realm of the biophysical, with its attention to conservation and to ecological restoration.
Keywords: city, space, place, ecosystem, metacity, patch dynamics, urban land ethic
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