A model for accommodating the human need for small scale communities within the context of global cooperative systems

Abstract

The social sciences which are relied upon by urban planners have made inadequate use of modern discoveries about behavior that have emerged in the biological sciences. Theories from the science of ethology, especially, could have predicted the growing focus on local sub-cultures in developed and developing countries alike. Evolutionary theory suggests such a focus must be evaluated in terms of species survival. A theoretical model is advanced which suggests that the persistent human propensity to identify with small groups is a consequence of our evolution as a mammal; that is an essentially primitive but universal response which must be accommodated even while the cultural evolution of human society requires cooperation on a much larger and more impersonal scale. The model takes the concept of “proxemics”, first advanced by E.T. Hall to describe culturally determined spatial behavior, as one side of an equation. Based on the theories of P.D. MacLean and J.B. Calhoun, proxemic behavior is considered to be a cognitive response by phylogenetically older parts of the brain. The other side of the equation is a concept, termed “distemics”, which deals with the more impersonal spatial relationships that have emerged through the peculiarly human capacity for abstract thought. The basic hypothesis is that stable, well functioning and reasonably satisfactory human habitats require a balance of spaces designed to facilitate behavior on both levels, and that human survival and the continued evolution of culture require their elaboration on a global scale. The model is applied to the study of a small industrial American city of 40 000 people, which has been regionally isolated from larger metropolitan areas. From this study a four part hypothesis for further research emerged which posits that the critical factor for social stability is the in-migration of alien sub-cultures. When such in-migration is absent ethnic and other proxemic differences tend to merge into a common culture. However, lack of distemic relationships, which are dependent on social diversity, tends to lead to social and economic stagnation. On the other hand, new populations can be accepted amicably only if local life styles are buffered by zones for distemic interaction. Over a sufficient period of time, new proxemic cultures develop from such interaction, and cultural evolution proceeds to a new proxemic—distemic cycle.