Baltimore is often called a “post-industrial” urban
region. What set of cultural and
theoretical assumptions does this label invoke?
The industrial and post-industrial tag emerges from the Modernist
program and discontent with it.
What is Modernism?
The industry window at Zion Church |
The cultural program of Modernism, which like any cultural
program is a mix of theoretical assumptions, assertions of boosters, and a
vernacular mythology, is a view that held sway from the late 19th through
mid-20th centuries. Modernism involves
assumptions that progress, driven by industrialization and urbanization,
improve society and result in a sequence of development. At the pinnacle of that development was the
north temperate, industrial metropolis.
Although initial examples of industrial development led to dangerous,
polluted, and disease ridden settlements, the leavening of progressive urban
reformers in the late 19th century ushered in the “sanitary city.” The sanitary city ideal mitigated the ills of
the industrial city, and is most often what people think of when they envision
a “modern” city. Such cities suffer less
from local pollution, treat wastes released downstream and downwind, provide
effective infrastructure for transportation and sanitation, and ideally contain
some natural amenities for the benefit of citizens, for example.
Discontent with
Modernism
There are at least two problems with the Modernist
development model. One is that there has
proven to be something “after” the modern.
Of course that doesn’t mean something beyond time, but it does suggest
that the development model has shortcomings.
The Modernist, industrial city was assumed to be the epitome of national
and regional development. Perhaps people
thought that once achieved, such a modern city would persist indefinitely. Now it is clear that is not the case. Industrial, sanitary cities in many north
temperate regions have retreated from the high economic activity, population
density, and investment in infrastructure and buildings that they enjoyed at
their zeniths. Former industrial
powerhouses in the Midwestern and Northeastern US, or in eastern Germany and
Europe, have slipped in size, productivity, and prestige. They have become post-industrial.
An Opening for
Sustainability
Baltimore City's Sustainability Website |
Of course, the wisest cities, including Baltimore, are
poised and actively attempting to take advantage of this shift as an
opportunity to become more sustainable and to provide an attractive and safe
social, economic, and biophysical environment for old and new citizens. So there can be positive outcomes of the
shift from the industrial ideal.
Global Failure of
Modernism
The second shortcoming of the Modernist development model is
its application on the global scale. It
appears in the damning phrase, “developing country.” This application seems to assume that all
human settlements will evolve through some deterministic sequence, for example,
from bucolic agricultural commodity markets, through raucous trading centers,
and ultimately to efficient industrial production machines. Associated with this shift is the human
demographic transition, in which the initially high birth and mortality rates
associated with more agricultural life styles are gradually replaced by low birth
and death rates per capita with improved sanitation, medical care, access to
education, and the shift from farm to diverse forms of industrial labor.
A Capetown, South Africa township. |
The assumptions of deterministic development seem to poorly
match the reality in many parts of the world.
Northern hemisphere industrial and labor development in fact exploited locally
equable climates, abundant water for drinking, power, and transport, and drew
on resources and people from elsewhere.
In particular, industrial production continues to draw on globally
distributed oil, gas, and now even biomass stocks. Do the “developing” countries have access to
this kind of resource base? By what
vulnerabilities are settlements in the Global South, located as they often are
in arid and semi-arid regions, or low lying coastal zones, constrained? Are contemporary populations in the
“developing” world fixed or mobile relative to regional economic
opportunities? The differences, some
just now emerging, between the tidy model of development derived from the
Global North, and the novelty and diversity of motivations and forms of urbanization
in the Global South, suggest that the Modernist narrative, and the mercantile
to industrial to sanitary city transition, has limits in understanding
urbanization as it now exists throughout the world.
Understanding
Urbanization without Modernism
Our post-industrial city, and improved understanding by
comparing it with the diverse forms, social, and ecological implications of
urbanization throughout the world, can both benefit by acknowledging the limits
of the Modernist development model. Our
participation in the Research Coordination Network for Urban Sustainability is
one tool to advance the theory and practice of urbanism without recourse to the
Modernist conceptual and political model.
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