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Altitudes of Urbanization PDF
Altitudes of Urbanization PDF
of Urbanization
Pierre Bélanger
Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture
Harvard Graduate School of Design
belanger@harvard.edu
+2,000 km ASL
+10,000 m ASL
-10,000 m
Key
Diagram
F
rom 10,000 metres below the sea, to
35,000 kilometers in orbit above the
surface of the earth, the infrastructure
that supports urban life has reached
unimaginable extents below ground, in
the water, and across outer space. Re-tracing the
conventional contours of the cities we live in and
the spaces we travel through, this diagram illus-
trates the range of depths and dimensions that
we have reached and explored over the course of
the past 3,000 to 5,000 years of human history.
Organized through different depths and eleva-
tions, the elements mapped out here pro-pose a
different projection of the infrastructures that not
only support everyday life, but also the environ-
ments generate it. While attention is traditionally
given to the plans of urban civilization and top
views of human history, this schematic cross-sec-
tion view of the world opens a lens on the planet
as an urban projection, pattern and process of
overlapping change across different layers and
level of space, in time.
Editorial
Altitudes of urbanization
From 10,000 m below the sea, to 35,000 kms in orbit above the better understood and revealed, from this alternative vantage
surface of the earth, the infrastructure that supports urban life has point, from the side, as being associative and integrative—often
reached unimaginable extents below ground, in the water, and overlapping, intertwined and entangled.
across outer space. Re-tracing the conventional contours of the Opening a lens on the complex urbanization of the underground
cities we live in and the spaces we travel through, this diagram and of the atmosphere, this association of the quantitative with the
illustrates the range of depths and dimensions that we have qualitative made possible by seeing sideways offers three impor-
explored, exploited, occupied, and instrumentalized over the tant observations on the once and future hinterlands of the under-
course of the past 3000–5000 years of human history. Organized ground, the ocean and the atmosphere:
through different depths and elevations, the elements and equip-
ment mapped out here propose a different projection of the infras-
tructures and territories that not only support everyday life, but – Surface as Deeply Political Projection of Spatial Power: the sep-
also the environmental forces that generate it. While attention is aration of surface and subsurface rights reveals hidden, uneven,
traditionally given to the plans of urban civilization and top views and sometimes violent powers of the State and over time,
of human history, this schematic cross-section view of the world expose the suppressed rights of pre-State populations and the
opens a lens on the planet as an urban projection, pattern and pro- dispossession of aboriginal land rights; if consumption requires
cess of overlapping, cyclic change across different layers and levels extraction then the remote spaces of resource extraction—of so-
of space, in time. called resource hinterlands, are as urban as the city-centric
Referencing John McHale’s canonical chart of Vertical Mobility in spaces of consumers.
his 1969 The Future of the Future and Patrick Geddes’ 1909 Valley
Section of Civilization, this visualization shifts our predominantly – Air as Thick, Fuzzy, Complex Space: the conflicts between flows
legal, static and technological view of the world from above to across different airspace—above ground, below water, or under-
open a longitudinal lens on the processes and patterns of contem- ground (aircraft flight path and bird migration, industrial fish-
porary urbanization across three horizons: the orbital, the subter- ing and fish migration, deep mining and land resources) are
ranean, the submarine. An aircraft lost in mid-flight in the middle no longer linear or direct, but they may be better designed,
of the ocean, a sinking ship washed ashore, a receding coastal planned, and synchronized.
shoreline, a deep-water free dive, or a high-altitude sky dive, are
planetary events that may seem isolated but are all interconnected – Spatial Risks as Relative, Temporal, Interconnected: the vulner-
as territorial processes in time. Not only can heights, depths and ability and risks of coastal populations is less dependent on the
levels of planetary processes be numerically coupled with other distance from shorelines or setbacks from coasts than by the
metrics such as changes in temperatures or air pressures at differ- quality and concentration of coastal ecologies including the dif-
ent altitudes, they can also be spatially combined with other less ferent latitudes of littoral flora and altitudes of biota that lie
conventional flows. For example, the cloudy tracks from flight above and below the surface.
paths left by daily commercial aircrafts and passenger planes at
cruising altitudes of 10,000 m can overlap the seasonal and cyclical Across time, and into the future, this deep sectional set of pro-
migration of different bird species like geese or ducks along inter- jections brings to light the inseparability of environmental forces
continental flyways at 4000 m above sea level. The banal survey of and flows, climates and temperatures, pressures and atmospheres
a 150-mm curb elevation on a street or of an interstate highway that regulate the range of senses, sites, systems and infrastructures
ramp can be plotted by satellite-enabled global positioning sys- of contemporary economies. Here, in this field of motion and this
tems in high earth orbit to a boundary marker, benchmark, or mon- stratified landscape of information, multiple grounds can be read
ument on the ground. The land laws that enable ultra-deep and revealed as both index and interface: a registration of existing
subsurface mining of copper in Chile and open pit diamond mining temporalities, shifting territories, indigenous interests, and emerg-
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by transnational corpora- ing agencies. Change both occurs from below (e.g. an earthquake or
tions are best understood through subsurface mining leases a tsunami), as it does from above (e.g. an airquake such as the
granted by States, on the surface, which control rights to the attacks on the Twin Towers during 9/11). Altitudinally, change is
underground. as much environmental and spatial, as it is political and ecological.
Seeing and seen in section, processes that are often isolated, in This longitudinal landscape provides an augmented understanding
plans, or divided in conventional categories, from above, can be of where we live in relationship to thermodynamic exchanges,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tust.2015.09.011
0886-7798/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 Editorial / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
Note
Fig. 1. Seeing from the side: altitudinal section showing depths of extraction with
underground urbanization to the deepest hole in the ground at 10,781 m below sea
level to atmospheric urbanization with satellite revolutions at 380,000 km in high
earth orbit.
Editorial / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology xxx (2016) xxx–xxx 3
Fig. 2. Synchronization as strategy: the flows, forces, processes and patterns shown at different heights and elevations of the altitudinal section are synchronous and
simultaneous (occurring at similar times). From the side, they propose how overlaps or frictions between different systems (constructed vs natural) at different elevations can
be re-designed, re-planned, or re-engineered at different times (to avoid conflicts between the controllable and the uncontrollable, or the determined and the indeterminate,
or the planned and unpredictable) through a range of temporal measures such as strategies of sequencing, scheduling, and synchronization.
Further reading Voss, J.D., Masuoka, P., Webber, B.J., Scher, A.I., Atkinson, R.L., 2013. Association of
elevation, urbanization and ambient temperature with obesity prevalence in
the United States. Int. J. Obes. 37, 1407–1412.
Brenner, Neil, 2013. Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary
Williams, Rosalind, 1990/2008. Notes on the Underground: An Essay on
Urbanization. Jovis Verlag GmBH, Berlin, DE.
Technology, Society, and the Imagination. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Carson, Rachel, 1937. Undersea. Atlant. Mont. 78, 55–67.
Wirth, Louis, 1938. Urbanism as a Way of Life. Am. J. Sociol 44 (1), 1–24.
Cohen, Joel E., Small, Christopher, 1998. Hypsographic demography: the
distribution of human population by altitude. PNAS-Proc. Nat. Acad. Arts Sci.
95 (24), 14009–14014. Pierre Bélanger
Federal Aviation Administration, 2008. Airspace. In: Pilot’s Handbook of Harvard Graduate School of Design, United States
Aeronautical Knowledge FAA-H-8083-25A. US DOT, Washington, DC. 14-1
<http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/pilot_ E-mail address: belanger@harvard.edu
handbook/media/PHAK%20-%20Chapter%2014.pdf>.
BuckminsterFuller, R., 1970–71. Planetary planning. Am. Schol. 40 (1), 29–63 Received 8 August 2015
(Winter).
Geddes, Patrick, 1925. Valley plan of civilization. The Survey, 288–290, June 1. Accepted 28 September 2015
McHale, Todd, 1969. The Future of the Future. George Braziller Inc., New York.
Rotch, Abbott Lawrence, 1895. Comparative altitudes. In: Studies of the Upper Air. Available online xxxx
Boston, Commonwealth, Boston, AM, p. 1.
Sloterdijk, Peter., 2009. Airquakes. Environ. Plan. D: Soc. Space 27 (1), 41–57.
Verne, Jules, 1864. Voyage au Centre de la Terre. Pierre-Jules Hetzel, Paris, France.