It tolls for the city...

“No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." John Donne – Meditation XVII from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, 1624

The city is an ancient infrastructure. Since, perhaps, the inception of the machine of the human collective that we discussed last week, since we began to rely on the hunting and gathering of others, we began to develop a socio-political and economic infrastructure. McKibben lyrically traces the interdependencies inherent in the delivery of electrons from NY wall to toaster, navigating from Utah uranium mines to arctic Taiga. Sutcliffe begins to trace the relationships of purportedly different, but inexorably connected systems in the development of the street-car, specifically in the late 1800’s at the advent of the industrialized age and modern theories of planning. “The creators of this [modern] phenomenon of planning saw decentralization as one of their prime objectives: planning may thus be seen as, to some degree, a product of the urban transport revolution.” (Sutcliffe, 23) Perhaps it is the first act of city development to admit John Donne’s all too familiar maxim above and begin a process of decentralization and urbanization.

Sutcliffe writes, it seems, from the standpoint of an economic determinist. “…[I}nnovation and invention… are the direct product of supply-demand relationships.” (ibid, 24) The apparent contradictory divergence of technological progress and economic welfare is explained socially, and is indicated by rising per capita urban land rent. (ibid, 28) The use of indicators and an appeal to a different system belies a deterministic, systemic view of technological progress.

“Thus, behind what might appear at first sight to be a technological problem, we can discern a confrontation of interests in the area of political economy… a compromise solution is most likely at the time when, and in the place where, the new technology is likely to produce a net increase in the social product.” (ibid, 36)

The idea of a ‘social product’ seems to me to be a distinctly progressive one. As our infrastructural systems become intertwined, it becomes hard to tell where one begins and one ends. Social welfare and technological progress become commodities whose relationships can be measured by simple metrics, in this case urban land rent.

The language of the text reveals a vantage of technology not at isolated events, or deus ex machina but as discrete elements in the greater infrastructure, with potentials. “…[T]he steam railway… was susceptible a priori of being adapted to the needs of movement within cities.” (ibid, 24) The seems to imply that the railway in it’s participation in the infrastructure could necessarily be adapted to serve other parts of the infrastructure. A defensible position to be sure, but perhaps the danger in the sentiment of a priori progress is highlighted in the following notion. “To some extent, therefore, the increase in usage suggests that a latent demand existed for the improvement of urban transport before electrification was carried out.” (ibid, 24) Following this line of logic to its absurdities, should we then have all highways 10 lanes wide because traffic levels will rise to fill them? Surely if not everywhere, then in downtown areas where there is more traffic demand? Sutcliffe presents a deterministic infrastructure of technological progress, which may adequately address the needs of the drivers and the residents and provide a perfectly reasonable solution, but I am left asking, where is the room for the designer in the systemically determined urban experience? At what level, and with what systems, is our agency most meaningful?