Planetary scale – Exploring patterns of worldwide urbanization

Our planet has become heavily urbanized over the past decades. This development has been enabled and driven by new infrastructure, agricultural technology, well-developed logistics systems, increased circulation of capital, and so forth. One visible effect of this development is the territorial expansion of urban agglomerations: Borders between cities and their environs are gradually dissolving.

The workshop moderated by Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid dealt intensively with the issue of how the global trend of urbanization is changing non-urban areas. “Nearly half the world’s population now lives in urban areas,” Christian Schmid stated at the beginning of his summary. “But in our discussions we also included the other half, because every region of our planet is affected in one way or another by urbanization.”

The workshop presented the concepts of concentrated and extended urbanization. Concentrated urbanization takes place in urban nodes. But these centers depend on people, food, raw materials, etc. that come from the outside, and their significance massively influences non-urban areas. “This gives rise to something that we call extended urbanization,” said Christian Schmid.

Several speakers dealt with concrete examples of extended urbanization such as the region around Singapore or the Pearl River Del- ta. How is countryside placed at the service of cities? How do the requirements of cities change social life in the urban hinterland? And what infrastructure does the hinterland receive or require? In sparsely populated regions the per capita cost of infrastructure is much higher than in the city – which has a great effect on the quality.

“We tend to focus on concentrated urbanization and not pay attention to what lies further beyond,” said Christian Schmid. This was one of the key findings of the workshop: We must adopt a broader perspective. “But we are only at the beginning of an important discussion. We need more analysis, more dialog, and strong commitment to shed light on the subject of extended urbanization.”

In summary, the participants of the of the planetary workshop called for professionals to pay less attention to spectacular megacities and world cities and more to the urban hinterland – because this plays a key role in the sustainable development of the planet.

Planetary scale mobile workshop

The automobile was not invented in Detroit, but it was first mass produced here. The success of the car industry is long since history – so Jerry Herron and Aaron Martin took the participants mainly on a journey through the past. The first stop was the Ford Rouge Assembly Plant. Designed by Albert Kahn and built in 1928, this factory became world famous for integrated production: Base materials were fed in one end and finished cars rolled out the other. At one time, 100,000 people worked in the 93 buildings, some of which are gigantic. They produced their own electricity and made their own steel. Today only a few automobiles are manufactured here.

The Ford Highland Park Plant, also designed by Kahn, makes an even drearier impression. Here Ford began building the legendary Model T in 1910. This plant, today entirely abandoned, changed the face of the world – in the 1920s half of the world’s cars were made here. The third stop of the mobile workshop was then more alluring: In the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant the young Henry Ford developed the Model T and its predecessor models. An impressive museum is located here today.

The final stop in the city center was particularly architecturally stimulating: The Michigan Building (pictured, left) a former giant luxury cinema is being used as a banal parking garage. Deterioration is pervasive in Detroit – but here the extent is downright absurd.

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