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Landscape and Urban Planning

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Editorial

Planning living cities: Patrick Geddes’ legacy in the new millennium

1. Introduction

This special issue of Landscape and Urban Planning (LAND) “Planning living cities: Patrick Geddes’ legacy in the new millennium” brings together
fresh research and commentary on the past work and future importance of the work of Sir Patrick Geddes. Geddes (1854–1932) was among the social
critics and reformers witnessing the industrial city’s rise to dominance. In response, he mounted vital criticisms and proposed healthier paths for the
evolution of cities and regions.
Though an important figure in his own time, the value of Geddes’ ideas are of even greater significance today. In the face of global mass-
urbanization, environmental degradation, climate change, and revolutions in planning culture, this Special Issue on Geddes offers new insights on
the relevance of his work in landscape and urban planning.
An innovator in regional, “place-based” planning, Geddes’ impact on landscape and urban development was international. He made globally
significant contributions to planning theory and was engaged in redevelopment projects around the world in locations as disparate as the United
Kingdom, Israel (Palestine), India, Cyprus, France, Ireland, and the United States. It is thus appropriate that Landscape and Urban Planning, an
interdisciplinary journal of global reach and influence be the venue for a contemporary discussion of Geddes’ work. As international interest in urban
ecology and regional planning, as well as the many other fields Geddes touched, intensifies, researchers will find the content of this Special Issue
critical to understanding the historical influence and contemporary relevance of Geddes to their endeavors.

2. Sir Patrick Geddes

For those aware of him, Geddes’ name is likely to evoke recognition from a number of disciplines (geography, city and regional planning, botany,
biology, ecological economics, educational reform, and sociology among others). He studied at the Royal College of Mines under Thomas Henry
Huxley but did not complete a degree. As a result, Geddes never held a permanent academic position though, over the years, taught zoology at
Edinburgh University, botany at the University of Dundee, and sociology and civics at Bombay University in India as well as was instructor in various
topics during the summer sessions he and friends organized in Edinburgh. Thus, Geddes was a true Eclectic: “a class of ancient philosophers who did
not belong to…any recognized school of thought but selected such doctrines as they wished from various schools” (Oxford 2017).
However, unlike his ancient predecessors, Geddes harnessed interdisciplinary diversity to create a coherent project. Drawing upon his training in
biology and botany, Geddes sought to bring the new science of evolution into the realm of landscape and urban planning. As he famously noted, “my
ambition being…to write in reality – here with flower and tree, and elsewhere with house and city – it is all the same” (Geddes, 1915).
His aim was to reconceptualize the purpose of the city. To do this, he understood, required a radical reconfiguration of culture, urban design, and
production. Geddes’ radicalism, however, questioned the efficacy of the revolutionary violence of his contemporaries, the Bolsheviks, in achieving
such ends. He took both literally and metaphorically the Latinate meaning of radicalis (“of or relating to a root”) and understood it as something to be
planted and nurtured as much as torn out and destroyed.
For Geddes, like John Ruskin before him, life was the centerpiece of the new city. The city’s function was not to act as a simple structure for
military defense, religious prowess, or capital accumulation. Rather, its highest purpose aimed at protecting, celebrating, and accumulating the
florescence of life and its evolutionary possibilities. Geddes was in concord with Ruskin that, “There is no wealth but Life” (Ruskin, 1866, p. 125) In
staking out this position, Geddes stole a march on the now long-in- the-tooth combats between the left and right, between moderns and postmoderns,
and arrived at a more deeply radical position (Young, 2016).
This position, that there is no higher objective to city development or social organization than life itself, stands in stark contradiction to the
current social order. Global climate change, the catastrophic crash in biodiversity, the unprecedented social bifurcation of wealth and opportunity,
and the mechanization and commodification of the daily life of humans and non-humans speaks to the vital and evolutionary necessity of transi-
tioning to living cities and regions which Geddes termed “biopolis” (Young, 2017; Welter, 2002).
It is in combating this potential evolutionary dead end (“necropolis” as Geddes would say) that the absence of a single work or set of works
detailing Geddes vision is most felt. Had he been able to write such an opus as had Marx, Smith, or Darwin, committing his ideas to a relatively
accessible text, our cities, economic structures, and social relations might be in a very different state.
And while he did not, he did leave behind a seemingly endless legacy of projects, plans, essays, monographs, pamphlets, lectures, books, and book
fragments, much of which has become ample grist for his several biographers, as well as, over time, the many scholars who have invested the time

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2017.07.007
Received 11 July 2017; Accepted 11 July 2017
0169-2046/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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and effort to refine it. Their labors have created a growing library of secondary sources on Geddes, an index that has recently been added to by a
number of excellent researchers from several different disciplines. Examples include: Envisioning sociology: Victor Branford, Patrick Geddes and the
quest for social reconstruction (Scott & Bromley, 2013); “The evolution of cities: Geddes, Abercrombie and the new physicalism” (Batty & Marshall,
2009); “Understanding the European City Around 1900: The Contribution of Patrick Geddes” (Meller, 2000); The City After Patrick Geddes
(Welter & Lawson, 2000); and Biopolis: Patrick Geddes and the city of life (Welter, 2002). In addition to illuminating much that is of value in Geddes’
work, perhaps more significantly, they have assisted in making the reading of his original ideas more accessible and so contributed to more fruitful
investigations by future scholars.

3. The contributions

It is the purpose of this Special Issue of Landscape and Urban Planning to contribute to this on-going effort to unpack and rediscover Geddes’ work
through rigorous appreciation and insight as well as constructive critique. The occasion for this issue is the marking of the centenary of Cities in
Evolution (Geddes, 1915), an eclectic text that has become Geddes’ most well-known book.
In an effort to capture some of the scope of Geddes’ endeavors we sought out a diverse range of papers on Geddes’ influence, projects, theoretical
explorations, international reach, and practical applications. An annotated reader of Geddes’ major works are also included for those interested in
pursuing Geddes’ ideas through primary source manuscripts.
Geddes’ work influenced many thinkers and practitioners and his impact on the planning field was, of course, no exception. In her article,
“Jaqueline Tyrwhitt translates Patrick Geddes for post-World War Two planning,” Shoskes (2017) traces the work of Jaqueline Tyrwhitt in reviving
and expanding Geddes’ influence among post-war planners in Europe and the United States. Her efforts brought Geddes’ ideas on regional planning
to a new generation who had no contact with him during his life. Batty (2017) furthers this inquiry with “Thinking organic, acting civic: The paradox
of planning for cities in evolution” by sketching Geddes’ influence on 20th century planners and exploring the contemporary relevance of Geddes’
ideas in reference to planning for complex, evolving cities.
The importance of Geddes’ ideas for contemporary, applied planning is examined in several additional papers in this Special Issue. In “A revised
approach to the energy-water nexus using the place-work-folk and energy balance theories of Patrick Geddes,” Tajchman (2017a, 2017b) applies
Geddes’ place-work-folk triad as a framework for coordinating more synergistic energy/water planning by states, municipalities, and utilities.
In “A transformative Outlook on the twenty-first century city: Patrick Geddes' Outlook Tower revisited,” Cerra, Muller and Young (2017) look at
how Geddes’ Outlook Tower concept might be readapted in contemporary research and educational facilities to address regional and global en-
vironmental issues.
In their article, “Learning the city”: Patrick Geddes, exhibitions, and communicating planning ideas,” Amati, Firestone, and Robertson (2017)
continue this exploration of Geddes’ ideas on public engagement and education by examining his use of city exhibitions to involve people with their
cities and foster “urban leaning.”
Subsequent articles explore the theory undergirding Geddes’ approach and its implications for planning. In “Free cities and regions” – Patrick
Geddes’ theory of planning,” Young (2017) argues that Geddes’ concepts of civics and technics constitute the basis of a coherent and far reaching
theory of city and regional planning.
In a nearly companion paper, “Civics” – Patrick Geddes’ theory of city development,” Clavel and Young (2017) explore Geddes’ concept of civics
to uncover Geddes’ theory of social development and change.
In theory and practice, Geddes joined an alternative modernity with a spirituality rooted in nineteenth century European romanticism and
contemplative Eastern philosophy. While secular discussion often gives short shrift to this latter aspect of Geddes’ synthesis, it plays a central role in
his perspective. Noting the importance of spiritual and temporal themes in Geddes’ work, in “An integral lens on Patrick Geddes,” Eisenman and
Murray (2017) compare Geddes’ ideas with the values and philosophical objectives of Integral theory, making an important connection between
Integral ideas and the field of landscape and urban planning.
While associated with the Anglo-American planning tradition, Geddes spent much of his career in the Middle East and India. In an important look
at Geddes’ physical planning legacy, “Geddes resurrected: The legacy of Sir Patrick Geddes in contemporary urban planning in Tel Aviv,” Mualam
(2017) assesses new planning projects in Tel Aviv within the context of Geddes’ original plan for the city.
In “Patrick Geddes in India: Anti-colonial nationalism and the historical time of ‘Cities in Evolution.”’ Rao-Cavale (2017) critically explores
differing attitudes and cultural objectives between Geddes and members of the Indian Nationalist movement.
Commentaries on the above papers discussing various aspects of Geddes’ work and influence are provided by Welter (2017), Steiner and
McSherry (2017), and Bromley (2017).
Finally, as noted above, Geddes left an extensive written legacy for future generations to pursue. To assist in that process Tajchman (2017a,
2017b), in “An annotated reader of key works by Sir Patrick Geddes,” provides an introduction to the content of many of Geddes’ major manuscripts
representing central themes in his life’s work. This listing, in addition to her inclusion of references for the several complete bibliographies of his
work, offers researchers the opportunity to pursue Geddes’ ideas and projects in greater depth and detail through primary sources.

4. Future research

As noted above, Geddes was never quite able to produce the opus containing the final working out of his theories. However, he did leave a full
portfolio of ideas, designs, theoretical propositions, typologies, and schemata. This, plus the growing secondary literature on Geddes provides a
fertile seedbed for additional work. While the range of Geddes’ efforts offer a full spectrum of directions for future research, a few distinct lines
suggest themselves:

4.1. Holism

Geddes’ interest in holism defies siloed disciplines. Geddes, a biologist by training, viewed the interconnectedness of the world. He insisted social
and ecological forces were inextricably linked and that these vital relationships are an important arena for research. Reconnecting fundamental
social forces such as spiritual and temporal power, city and region, culture and place, and university and city will be central to exploring the drivers
of cities in evolution. How is the regional city viable in a global context? What is the role of spirituality in the greening of cities and city-regions?

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What are the political and economic mechanisms for achieving the ecological city?

4.2. Living cities economy

Geddes posited the “living city” could not be achieved solely through dead capital. What was required, he argued, was mobilizing the living
energies and vital culture of cities and their surrounding regions. Exploring and articulating this idea will be an important research front in landscape
and urban planning: How can social and natural capital be combined to create new urban and regional forms and dynamics? How can civic forces be
marshaled for the reconstructive work that this transition requires?

4.3. The wise city

Geddes insisted the past was a vital part of our social inheritance and offered opportunities as well as obstructions to advancing the city of life.
Finding the value latent in the unique histories of cities and regions and connecting it to contemporary solutions will be an important step towards
developing wiser, more ecologically and socially sound metropolitan areas. How did previous cultures provision themselves in a given region? What
do these activities and designs suggest for current city development? How can landscape and urban planning gain from embodied place-wisdom in
their efforts to address present-day challenges?
As noted, during the fifty years of his career, Geddes wrote and acted prolifically. Within that array of sources and insights is material that can
assist us in our efforts to stave off evolutionary failure and build a society, economy, and culture where ‘there is no wealth but life.’ Creating such
cities and regions deserve the full measure of our efforts. We hope this Special Issue makes its own small contribution to that project.

References

Amati, M., Firestone, R., & Robertson, S. (2017). Learning the city: Patrick Geddes, exhibitions, and communicating planning ideas. Landscape and Urban Planning, 166 this volume.
Batty, M., & Marshall, S. (2009). Centenary paper: The evolution of cities: Geddes, Abercrombie and the new physicalism. Town Planning Review, 80(6), 551–574.
Batty, M. (2017). Thinking organic, acting civic: the paradox of planning for cities in evolution. Landscape and Urban Planning, 166 this volume.
Bromley, R. (2017). Commentary-Patrick Geddes and applied planning practice. Landscape and Urban Planning, 166 this volume.
Cerra, J., Muller, B., & Young, R. (2017). A transformative outlook on the twenty-first century city: Patrick Geddes' outlook tower revisited. Landscape and Urban Planning, 166 this
volume.
Clavel, P., & Young, R. (2017). “Civics”: Patrick Geddes’s theory of city development. Landscape and Urban Planning, 166 this volume.
Eisenman, T., & Murray, T. (2017). An integral lens on Patrick Geddes. Landscape and Urban Planning, 166 this volume.
Geddes, P. (1915). Cities in evolution: An introduction to the town planning movement and to the study of civics. London: Williams & Norgate.
Meller, H. (1900). Understanding the European city around 1900: The contribution of Patrick Geddes. In M. Volker Welter, & J. Lawson (Eds.), The city after Patrick Geddes (pp. 35–54).
Oxford: Peter Lang.
Mualam, N. (2017). Geddes resurrected: The legacy of Sir Patrick Geddes in contemporary urban planning in Tel Aviv. Landscape and Urban Planning, 166 this volume.
Rao-Cavale, K. (2017). Patrick Geddes in India: Anti-colonial nationalism and the historical time of ‘cities in evolution’. Landscape and Urban Planning, 166 this volume.
Ruskin, J. (1866). Unto this last. New York: John Wiley and Son.
Scott, J., & Bromley, R. (2013). Envisioning sociology: Victor Branford, Patrick Geddes, and the quest for social reconstruction. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Shoskes, E. (2017). Jaqueline Tyrwhitt translates Patrick Geddes for post world war two planning. Landscape and Urban Planning, 166 this volume.
Steiner, F., & McSherry, L. (2017). Commentary-Patrick Geddes’ contribution to planning theory. Landscape and Urban Planning, 166 this volume.
Tajchman, K. (2017a). A revised approach to the energy-water nexus using the place-work-folk and energy balance theories of Patrick Geddes. Landscape and Urban Planning, 166 this
volume.
Tajchman, K. (2017b). An annotated reader of key works by Sir Patrick Geddes. Landscape and Urban Planning, 166 this volume.
Welter, V. (2002). Biopolis: Patrick Geddes and the city of life. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Welter, V. (2017). Commentary-‘By living we learn’ – Patrick Geddes influence on the planning profession. Landscape and Urban Planning, 166 this volume.
Young, R. (2016). Modernity, postmodernity, and ecological wisdom: Towards a new framework for landscape and urban planning. Journal of Landscape and Urban Planning, 155, 91–99.
Young, R. (2017). Free cities and regions – Patrick Geddes’s theory of planning. Landscape and Urban Planning, 166 this volume.

⁎
Robert F. Young
The University of Texas at Austin, School of Architecture, Community and Regional Planning Program, 310 Inner Campus Drive B7500, Austin, TX 78712-
1009, United States
E-mail address: ryoung@utexas.edu
Pierre Clavel,
Cornell University, School of Architecture, Art, and Planning, Department of City and Regional Planning, 219 Sibley Hall, United States
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, United States
E-mail address: pc29@cornell.edu

⁎
Corresponding author.