Urban planners and designers try, again and again, to make local Utopias. The word Utopia was introduced in the Western European vocabulary during the Renaissance. But as so many other important words, it originates from ancient Greek: ou, 'non' and topos, 'place', i.e., the non-place, the place that does not exist. But in our everyday consciousness, Utopia often has another meaning, which is more like the Greek eu-topos - eu meaning good, perfect, desirable. Because Utopia is often thought of as the dream of the perfect place.
There are fiftyfour cities in the island, all large and well built: the manners, customs, and laws of which are the same, and they are all contrived as near in the same manner as the ground on which they stand will allow. The nearest lie at least twentyfour miles distance from one another, and the most remote are not so far distant but that a man can go on foot in one day from it to that which lies next it. Every city sends three of its wisest Senators once a year to Amaurot, to consult about their common concerns; for that is the chief town of the island, being situated near the centre of it, so that it is the most convenient place for their assemblies. The jurisdiction of every city extends at least twenty miles: and where the towns lie wider, they have much more ground: no town desires to enlarge its bounds, for the people consider themselves rather as tenants than landlords. They have built over all the country, farmhouses for husbandmen, which are well contrived, and are furnished with all things necessary for country labor. Inhabitants are sent by turns from the cities to dwell in them; no country family has fewer than forty men and women in it, besides two slaves. There is a master and a mistress set over every family; and over thirty families there is a magistrate.
(Thomas More, Utopia, 1516)
Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) is considered the first 'modern' user of the notion of Utopia. He was an English aristocrat who was critical towards Henry the 8th's authoritarian regime. Being an aristocrat, More had to present his critique in a more or less hidden form in order not to become an outcast in his contemporary society, which had strict social conventions, and he did so by writing a novel - called Utopia - about an island beyond the known continents, about an ideal place with ideal societal conditions. His Utopia involves norms of equality, justice, citizens' liberty, a.s.o. - alas a society based on slavery. But his novel should be regarded as an early reckoning with feudalism, and as such it is very important.
A century later another important, although different, formulation of Utopia was made by Francis Bacon, in his The New Atlantis, which he wrote shortly before his death in 1622. Here Bacon uses the ancient Greek myth about the ideal society that sank into the sea. He describes a meeting between a European and the governor of the island Atlantis, where the governor and others in detail tell him about the society of Atlantis. On this island, one institution overshadows all others, namely the one called Saloman's House, the house of the wise, "the noblest foundation, as we think, that ever was upon the earth, and the lantern of this kingdom", as one of the fathers of this institution describes it in the novel.
"The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible."
(Bacon 1622).
The New Atlantis is a symbol of the idea of progress, of the faith in technology and science, of the human mastery over nature. Bacon was perhaps the first proponent for what has become known as technological rationality. His rationality was in the first instance a showdown with Antiquity's view of technology, which opposed human manipulation with the forces of nature. Bacon's idea, however, is also aimed at the future, indeed at controlling the future. With the idea of Saloman's House, he coined the idea that progress is based on knowledge and competence, and was as such ahead of his time (because this idea has only become widespread during the late 20th century).
More and Bacon had two very different Utopias, but they had this in common: that the two Utopias were consciously placed beyond the realities of the world at their times, beyond what was known. They were Utopias in the literary sense of the word. This pattern of utopian thinking was later used in many escapades in literature, for example Jonathan Swifts' (1667-1715) Gulliver's Travels and Ludvig Holberg's (1684-1754) Niels Klims Subterranean Travel and of course, Jules Verne's (1828-1905) writings and the whole science fiction genre.
Utopian thinking experienced its Golden Age during the 19th century. Whereas More and Bacon were concerned with worlds aloof from the real world, the 19th century Utopias had as their starting point the real world. For William Morris (1834-1896), in his News from Nowhere, the starting point was an undisguised contempt for urban life, and he thus introduced an Utopia about a pastoral ideal. In many ways he drew on the social philosophers of the Enlightenment, from Rousseau to Saint Simon (1771-1825) and Charles Fourier (1772-1837). The anti-urban life idea was also taken by Robert Owen (1771-1858), who in his Utopia about a new kind of communities formulated the Utopia of self-supplying communities in the guise of large agricultural communes. Owen was one of the few who realised his Utopia: through reforming efforts and a background as an industrial magnate, and the movement that rose with him, he established 12 large scale experiments, mainly in the USA. Best known perhaps is the community Harmony in Indiana, established in 1825, where 2000 people tried to realise the Utopia.
Enough of history; the essentials have been told as far as the early, modern Utopias are concerned. Looking at this history (not as literature history, but idea history), I notice two fundamental contexts in Utopian thought, which will be guiding me through the following. The first context is concerned what might be called the social ontology of Utopia, or, what it means to be a social being and what constitutes society and social development. The second context, to which I will shortly return, is concerned with the urban context.
The modern utopias have all been engaged in one basic problem, namely how to formulate the principles for the individual's relations to the community and society at large. With inspiration from Olsén (1994), we can describe how each of the 'entities' - individuality, community, and society - are based on a range of principles. (I have added the society dimension):
| Individuality | Community | Society |
| Versatility | Cooperation | Welfare |
| Autonomy | Solidarity | Security |
| Freedom | Equality | Rights |
| Competition | Hierarchy | Bureaucracy |
| Individualism | Social | Societal |
| Egoism | Oppression of individuality |
Class/ethnicity |
| Losers | Terror | Warfare |
| Isolation | Unfree inclusion | Suppression |
The modern utopias of society have in different ways experimented with new models of a society where the relationship between individuality and community is reconsidered. This relationship has been made into a fundamental antithesis between individuality and sociality (Gould, 1988), penetrating all pores of society and the minds of individuals, by the dominant idea of democracy ever since the Enlightenment: Liberalism.
In the view of Fukuyama (1992) and many others, the model of liberal democracy has proven to be the single most important model of a future society, it is the only alternative, the argument goes. Obviously, Communism has proved inadequate for modern, complex societies. More and more countries in the World, over the last decades, have turned 'democratic', although we see the occasional military (or other) coup. We might say that it is not only Coca Cola and Sony that globalise, so do the fundamental beliefs in the appropriateness of capitalist economy and liberal democracy, i.e., the model of 'welfare-capitalism'. This globalisation process is taking place with strong influence from the 'exporters', Europe, the USA and Japan. The Danish state, for example, has recently set up a Democracy Foundation with the aim of exporting Danish democracy to other countries (mostly ex-communist and trying-to-be-ex developing countries). Fukuyama's notion of this 'End of History' is a problematic way of thinking. Whereas one might argue for it as being just an unfortunate way of characterising current affairs, it is absurd to talk about an End of History - as if the world will be gone tomorrow, which, of course, it won't (in spite of ecological problems). Instead, I suggest, History is 'alive and kicking', and always will be. And, as we know, there is no such thing as the only, nor best, way. The fact that Communism was/is not sustainable - at least not in its 'realised' form - is no proof of the superiority of Liberalism or Capitalism; it just shows that Capitalism was 'fitter'. It does not mean that it is better! Yet, this seems to be a quite common belief, all around the world.
What does all this mean in terms of societal value orientation? It means that the dominant value orientation will be overshadowed by the liberal democratic values. What are they? I argue, as mentioned, that liberal democracy can be characterised by its construction of an antithesis between individuality and sociality. The relationship between the individual and society is often, in liberal democratic theories, thought of in very instrumentalistic terms. To Schumpeter, for example, democracy is merely an instrument for legitimising the competition between elites - political participation is not seen as a 'human right'. In my view, this idea denigrates the notion of participation. I argue that participation is a normative notion. As such it is difficult to express, or define. But it is also my point that it is a very important notion, and that a wider and deeper understanding of it is needed in order to handle the dialectical relationship between individuality and sociality, between the individual and society. In other words, the notion of participation is vital to a critical normative theory about the individual/society dialectic, and thus for rethinking democratic ideas and visions. In this work, a Utopian approach seems appropriate.
Bringing a Utopian perspective into my research includes what I, with reference to Ernst Bloch (and Rasmussen 1996), will call simultaneous concrete and abstract Utopian activity, i.e., an activity that - using Robert Jungk's words - can give me a 'draft of the future' (fremtidsudkast), something to work towards, a way to relate to the not-yet-being ('noch nicht'). Rasmussen (1996) illustrates this idea in the figure below:
If research is to be called Utopian reflecting it must necessarily bring together the abstract - dreams, visions, fear - and the concrete - the everyday, the being and the inevitable. For Bloch, the abstract Utopias are characterised by their compensating function and they are generally unrealisable. Contrary to these, the concrete Utopias are possible, and have therefore a foreboding, or presentimental ('forudanende' in Danish), function. The Utopian process is tantamount to making the abstract Utopias concrete. The aim is to transcend alienation in our relations to art, everyday life, and nature. In his Prinzip der Hoffnung, Bloch analyses the history of Utopias, from daydreams over wishful thinking to actual Utopias in literature, dance, painting, poetry, opera, fashion, travels, and much, much more, in other words all kinds of Utopias, be they social, technological or architectoral. He did not, however, build up his own Utopia; rather his work should be regarded as a referential framework for Utopian activity, where the process between the abstract and the concrete is placed in the centre, and where the emphasis is put on the subjective experience and imagination whereby one avoids the danger of making Utopia instrumental.
In the following, I will take a closer look at Utopias in the urban context, as I mentioned. What are the contemporary Utopias about our cities? What are the major trends in urban and regional planning? Looking at the most recent Municipal Plan for Copenhagen, as well as several plans from the Danish national government - many others could also have been chosen - we might say that the idea is that Atlantis is being revisited. Bacon is now impersonated by people like Åke E. Anderson and Christian Wichman Mathiassen (1993), who present themselves as today's Utopian thinkers of urban and regional policy. The New Atlantis is now called the K-region - where K stands for: Knowledge (Kundskab), Communication (Kommunikation), Competence (Kompetence), Creativity (Kreativi-tet), Conurbations (Konurbationer), Force/Energy (Kraft), Career (Karriere), Cultural consumption (Kulturkonsum), and, Commercialism (Kommercialisme). Anderson and others speak of visions, nevertheless they keep the real Utopias to themselves. Instead they build up an argumentation based on what they conceive as facts which are tried made objective and documented. Even though their ways of documenting the facts ought to be criticised, the basic idea of the K-society is perhaps one of the most powerful contemporary Utopias, and perhaps even the strongest vision of society ever put forward (Selstad 1989). If perceived less rigidly than by Anderson et al, the vision gives a vigorous picture of the resources of society, its patterns of settlement, its communication, and its ways of life and recreation. Nevertheless it is very easy to disagree with Anderson et al's concrete visions, for example about an integrated Øresund region as a big Growth Machine, and one can rebuke them for their understanding of the K's and their consequences for urban and regional planning. 'Urban theory' should not only be about metaphors like 'growth machines', 'power centres', or 'yellow and blue bananas'. Theory of cities and urban development should use metaphors, but there should be more to it than drawing bananas on maps and shouting 'Growth!'
Fortunately, there are indeed other ideas, other metaphors, so to speak, influential in the debate about the future of our cities and society at large. The Utopia of the urban society was Henri Lefebvre's project. Capitalist spatiality is contradictory in terms, and that is obvious Lefebvre (1991) argues. He uses this antagonism to derive an important contribution to the Utopian thinking of the city and its space. The production of an alternative space is the end of private property and of the state's political dominance over space, and this involves a transition from dominance to usurpation, and the primacy of use over exchange; this is Lefebvre's 'formula' for the realised Utopia of the urban society, of the oppresseds' recapture of the city and a city life based on needs, values of use and play (Simonsen, 1993). This Utopia - that we should have the right to the city, and not vice versa - is not, however, up to much if we cannot 'taste it', put our feelers out; if not 'in reality' then at least in our thoughts, in our imagination. That we could 'capture', or conquer, the image of the city, as it is, and as it could be.
What then is the 'urban'? One understanding hereof is: "Whatever else it may entail, the urban process implies the creation of a material physical infrastructure for production, circulation, exchange, and consumption." (Harvey, 1985) And further: "the built environment ... as a complex of use values for the production of value and surplus value". Urban development has historically been subordinate to the development of the societal division of work, and the 'urban-rural' dichotomy is a particular expression of the division of work, and as such a "a lost distinction that was in any case but a surface manifestation" (ibid.). Thus it seems to me that Harvey argues that the 'urban' basically is a capitalist phenomenon, but is that so? Of course, cities as we know them came about under capitalist conditions, but to draw the conclusion that the city as such is a capitalist phenomenon is not only rash and reckless, but also distinctly wrong. It is has often been said that in the social history of capitalism there have been two 'big phenomena', namely industrialisation and urbanisation (cf. Castells). Both of these are real historical phenomena, but of what consists the relation between capitalism, industrialism, and urbanism? To me it seems it is in the dialectics of this relation, and others, rather than in the causal thinking of 'capitalist logic', that we may understand the city as a societal and contextual phenomenon, or perhaps rather phenomena. In other words, the logic of the city is not only the logic of capital.
The notion of the city should in my view be developed into a critical and normative idea, which gives the city a positive as well as a negative meaning.
"This is a call ... for a living memory: a popular memory, as Foucault had for so long insisted; a mourningful memory as Derrida so well set out via his homage to Paul de Man, one which re-covers the possible impossibility, the play of the game, over and over again. One which takes at its leverage an 'as if', i.e., one which re-members the 'that which lies around' in the spatiality of an excluded middle, and in doing so, takes it out of its impossible burial site or impossible void and creates it, tastes it, chews it, tries it on 'for size'. It is a conscious re-covering, healing, and narration of possibility. It is a mapping or envisioning of the 'that' of what we might become, based not on idle daydream or fancy or even 'experience' per se, but rather, rooted precisely in real life, in all its precarious and profane ways."
Golding (1993) p. 217
Or, in other words, the city as both Utopia and Dystopia. The city as a basis of an understanding of the whole question of humanity's social development (Golding 1993). This goes for both the understanding of the development until now, and, the development as it could take place:
"For the whole focus now comes upon the importance - no, the necessity - to re-cover 'urban-ness' in all its anomie, and rather chaotic, heterogeneity, if we are indeed serious about creating a radically pluralistic and democratic society." (ibid. p. 216)
Golding shares with Sennett, Young, and Lefebvre the claim that it is in the understanding - and use - of the city, the urban, that we can develop and shape a truly democratic society.
This approach is thus basically about answering the ancient question: What is democracy? It involves a critical reflection of the meaning of sociality, what it means for humans to be social beings, and what connects individuals to community and society, in other words, the ontological foundations of democracy. In the following, I will argue that not only the first mentioned context, the social ontology of Utopia, is relevant in answering this (which it obviously is), but also that the other context, the urban context, is indeed relevant.
The two contexts mentioned here are so interrelated in my mind that the separation into two is only analytical, and they will from now on be summed up as the democratic perspective in the urban context, which will be examined and elaborated further in Chapter 2.
Having gone into the idea of a democratic perspective, the next step will be to confront that with the new world of information and communication technologies (ICT). This will be done in Chapters 3 and 4. In chapter 3, I will introduce and analyse the connections between the new ICTs and participation in the urban context. This will bring me on to the issue of the internet, which I see as the most important development in the area. In chapter 4, I will follow up on this debate, and focus more on the design aspect - how to work with ICT and participation when designing systems (both technological and organisational).
In chapters 5 and 6, I will take a look at two concrete urban contexts - one in Denmark (Amager), and one in Japan (Tokyo). My main concern is Amager, the Danish context, with which I've worked with intensively, but I also consider the Japanese context important, not least because my design considerations are greatly influenced by my Japanese supervisor, Prof. Hijikata.
The remaining two chapters will present, first in chapter 7, some methodological considerations, and next, in chapter 8, an attempt to gather all the threads.
In the spirit of the internet (if such a spirit exists), I had originally planned to publish this thesis on-line, and only on-line. However, the PhD administration would not allow me to do so. The on-line version, which will be made supplementary to the printed version, will be basically the same as the printed, but extended with both hyperlinks and a reference database. Visit it at http://www.gotzespace.dk.
John Gøtze
Lyngby, March 1997