Cities grow bigger and bigger. That's the natural tendency since history began.
However, city planners nowadays, especially in Europe, are faced with a novel dilemma: how to deal with shrinking cities.
I just forgot where I read that article but it featured de-urbanization and how some city planners are preparing for it. It may sound alien now but, over time, this concept will soon evolve and become a philosophy of its own.
It thus contradicts with what we are currently practicing. Today, raw land is converted to either residential, commercial, or industrial lots since that is its highest and best use: to be converted into something "beneficial" to humans.
But, in the future, there is a huge possibility that a lot of areas in the world's cities will be abandoned. I might say this can be an effect of both a shrinking population and a gradual shift to a more sustainable lifestyle (which thus shuns the energy-intensive city life in favor of life lived in the surrounding rural landscapes). By then, we will have to contend with what to do with those vacant districts.
I think that article mentioned that such a phenomenon is happening already. Due to the economic crisis of 2008, much of Detroit became deserted. In Germany, there are operations to demolish lonely parts of the city and revert these back to nature.
Maybe, that's just a natural progression. Rather than the end of civilization as we know it, de-urbanization is just another step towards a more nimble, more nature-friendly human race.
However, city planners nowadays, especially in Europe, are faced with a novel dilemma: how to deal with shrinking cities.
I just forgot where I read that article but it featured de-urbanization and how some city planners are preparing for it. It may sound alien now but, over time, this concept will soon evolve and become a philosophy of its own.
It thus contradicts with what we are currently practicing. Today, raw land is converted to either residential, commercial, or industrial lots since that is its highest and best use: to be converted into something "beneficial" to humans.
But, in the future, there is a huge possibility that a lot of areas in the world's cities will be abandoned. I might say this can be an effect of both a shrinking population and a gradual shift to a more sustainable lifestyle (which thus shuns the energy-intensive city life in favor of life lived in the surrounding rural landscapes). By then, we will have to contend with what to do with those vacant districts.
I think that article mentioned that such a phenomenon is happening already. Due to the economic crisis of 2008, much of Detroit became deserted. In Germany, there are operations to demolish lonely parts of the city and revert these back to nature.
Maybe, that's just a natural progression. Rather than the end of civilization as we know it, de-urbanization is just another step towards a more nimble, more nature-friendly human race.
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