Planning 3 Introduction (Module 1b)

Cities are a human invention. They are the result of a deliberate effort to expand social life and to make it more satisfying. The invention of agriculture and invention of cities resulted in complex social organizations. Longer life spans, larger populations, expanded knowledge and education, improved health, expanded welfare, and the proliferation of the arts and of recreational activities became major aspects of urban way of life.

Urbanization has saturated many of the world societies. Early cities developed government, commerce, and religion as distinct activities and occupations. Early urban way of life was clearly different from the rural way of life. But urban social organizations continued to grow beyond walls and city limits. Cities are people – ideas of culture and science – more than they are physical buildings or geographical places.

City-generated lifestyles are now spreading so rapidly that we may expect them soon to urbanize the entire archipelago...

HOMOS SAPIENS
…early times, a rare animal living in sporadic but intense competition with other animals and subsisting by hunting and food gathering.
…became successful in adapting his environment to his own needs and in the creation of artificial habitats.
…gained a position of almost complete domination over all other forms of life on earth, greatly expanded his sources of food and energy and his ability to modify the effects of nature on him.
…unique skills and powers evidenced by the great increase in his numbers

Human population is doubling itself within one hundred years.

T.R. Malthus, an English economist theorized that “population increases in a geometric ratio while subsistence increases arithmetically and that unless natural catastrophes, war, or sexual restraint control population increase, worldwide famine or war will follow.”

Exploitation of nature in new and disturbing ways were recognized.
Increasing numbers of mankind and the supplies of food and shelter are the most profound problems

…beyond mere subsistence lie questions of the quality of life – bodily and mental health, happiness, fulfillment, joy.

The ultimate source of all the benefits of life is the EARTH itself and man’s relationship to all its life and resources.

Man’s life is intricately woven into the whole web of life on earth. His astonishing powers have not enabled him to control nature in any categorical sense but merely to administer much more disturbances than before.

No matter how socialized our activities are, how artificial their immediate environment and how much local and immediate control may be exercised, WE ARE PART OF THE PLANET’S ECOLOGY AND WE IGNORE THE FACT AT OUR PERIL

Solutions must come about in two ways…
- there are enormous ethical problems raised by the need to make choices and decisions affecting the relationships between men and all other forms of life and between different human groups.
- there is the problem of understanding the nature of all these relationships in order to create more effective and sympathetic controls over the problem.

This course is concerned with the aspect of understanding the complex systems of man’s activities in the whole context of the planets ecological systems.

go to Module 2: http://pupclass.blogspot.com/2008/05/planning-3-module-2-ekistics.html