A Stable Urban Ecosystem: Its Evolution within Densely Populated Societies

Abstract

This chapter presents a stable urban ecosystem and its evolution within densely populated societies. One of the properties of the stable human habitat of the future is that it has urban characteristics. Ambitious people in the countryside, and in many towns, stream into cities in search of employment and education. Contemporary intellectuals have been exceedingly reluctant to admit that man's future is predominantly urban. Because future urbanites will not be able to live in the manner to which present city dwellers have become accustomed, many feel they will not be able to live at all. However, there already exist technologies for producing materials, for building, and for transport that will conserve large amounts of scarce energy. Because prototypes of the desired outcome do not exist, it appears necessary to construct one or more economic images of human settlement at steady state. The appropriate model would start from a set of circumstances typical of less-developed regions, and socio-technical changes would be induced in that composite.