Pax Urbana

Pax Urbana

Complexity and Vulnerability in Modern Cities: How do we make them more resilient? Impact of Sea Level Rise on Small Island States and Coastal Countries

28 | terragreen | may 2013

The Urban Ape

The year 2008 witnessed a remarkable threshold in the history of humanity; for the first time in the 200,000-year

history of our species, and in the 10,000-odd year history of civilization, there are more people living in cities and urban areas than people living rural communities in the countryside. Out of the seven billion people living on the planet today, over three and a half billion live in cities. In 1900, around 14 per cent of the world’s human population lived in cities and only 12 cities worldwide had populations exceeding 1 million people. A hundred and dozen years later, 51 percent of us live in urban areas of some sort and 400 cities have populations that exceed 1 million people—19 of whom have populations in excess of 10 million. This is an extraordinary shift in the way we live, one that alters a paradigm that has existed for thousands of years. The consequences of this recent change will take time to play out in full, but we are already witnessing some of the repercussions of this global shift in lifestyles. While cities offer numerous advantages in trade, communication, culture, and social interaction, they are also hungry, thirsty, and demand energy, this results in cities requiring a constant influx of resources to keep afloat. Most modern cities today are not planned; they grew organically from smaller settlements that happened to be in geographically strategic locations. Their growth was a result of them being opportunely located near a valuable natural resource such as a harbour,

Modern cities are highly complex systems, a giant mesh of interconnected networks and systems that together form the basis of what we call urban living. A city is a giant machine that depends on the consistent performance of thousands, even millions, of little individual cogs for the whole to function effectively. However, with this complexity comes vulnerability, modern cities are now more prone to attack and disaster than those of yore. With more people living in cities than in any time in human history, the necessity to ensure that these urban environments are resilient and capable of surviving independently is crucial. The principles of sustainable development, when merged with ideas in urban planning and renewable energy can help with that. Harish Alagappa investigates…

29terragreen | may 2013 |

or near gold mines, or oil fields, or being at a strategic crossroad that allowed it to dominate overland trade routes. No city was designed to be capable of sustaining the kinds of populations that live in them today, and this makes them especially vulnerable. Cities are not simple structures, they are a complex web of interconnected systems that cater to the never-ending demands of their denizens and institutions, and this web is constantly being built and rebuilt, all the while being required to work during the interregnum. This complexity, when compounded with the fact that most modern cities do not produce much in terms of the physical resources required to keep the people living in them alive and in good stead, is a constant challenge to urban planners and policy-makers. The complexity

and vulnerability of modern cities pose a threat to the very fabric of civilization, a word that in itself comes from the Latin for city. With imminent issues resulting from resource scarcities and climate change on the horizon, and the resultant social, political, and potentially military disruptions that may emanate from them, ensuring that cities, and the large mass of humanity living within them, are sustainable, safe, and resilient is going to be crucial to preventing a catastrophic global collapse.

The Birth of a CityFour out of the five most populous cities on Earth—Shanghai, Istanbul, Karachi, and Mumbai—are ports. Seven of the ten most populated cities on Earth are located

at the sites of natural harbours, and the remaining three are on the banks of major river systems. This should tell us the first basic truth about cities; much like the wildlife they end up destroying, they grow spontaneously over a long period of time from relatively humble beginnings. Human beings have lived in semi-permanent and even permanent settlements since over 20,000 years ago, much before the invention of agriculture. The township of Çatalhöyük, located in Southern Turkey, was one of the early humanity largest settled townships. The people of Çatalhöyük were probably a mix between hunter-gatherers and early farmers, but the town represented a huge leap forward in the way human beings lived and interacted with each other and with their surrounding environment.

The township was not very different from many of the slums and shantytowns we see popping up in cities all over the world, like the vast slums of Mumbai or the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, because similar to these slums, they were built by people looking to settle down, who did not have many resources or extensive knowledge of building, and to whom safety came in numbers. The first requirement for a city, it turns out, is a sense of community, that ineffable trait of humanity that finds solace and comfort in the presence of our fellow men and women. Çatalhöyük was an exercise in laissez-faire socialism, there is no archaeological evidence of administrative, military, or religious authority. The men and women of Çatalhöyük seemed to share similar rights—perhaps for the last time in a major city until the middle of the 20th Century—and there is no evidence of warfare or institutionalized religion. It was, in essence, the kind of community

Cities are not simple structures, they are a complex web of

interconnected systems that cater to the never-ending demands of their denizens and institutions, and this web is constantly being built and rebuilt, all the while being required to work during the interregnum. This complexity, when compounded with the fact that most modern cities do not produce much in terms of the physical resources required to keep the people living in them alive and in good stead, is a constant challenge to urban planners and policy-makers

Complexity and Vulnerability in Modern Cities


that would have warmed the cockles of the heart of a die-hard, Das Kapital-reading, proletariat-advocating Marxist. Of the social and political structure of perhaps humanity’s first city, BBC journalist, historian, and political commentator Andrew Marr said of Çatalhöyük (tongue firmly in cheek) that the problem with such authority-free communes or settlements is that they are inherently unstable social structures and disintegrate very rapidly, the residents of Çatalhöyük could only maintain it for it some 1,500 years.

While Çatalhöyük was the largest urban settlement in the era before civilization proper, the real genesis of city life began in the valley of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates in the Middle East, in the modern-day countries of Syria and Iraq. Here, we saw some of the earliest large settlements that grew into centres of Civilization; a word that comes from the Latin civilis—which also gives us words such as civil, civic, civilian—which in itself comes from the Latin civis, meaning citizen, and civitas, meaning city. In the ancient world, to

be civil-ized was to be living in a city. Civilization was born in the city, or the city was borne out of civilization. The cyclical relationship between the two can be seen even today, it is common for city-dwellers in countries around the world to think of the rural brethren as slightly duller, blunt instruments who lack the sophistication, intelligence, and social graces of the people living in cities.

The birth of the city came from the conglomeration of people, goods, and ideas. The world’s first cities as we know them were probably formed by the people of the ancient civilization of Sumer—whose other contributions to human history include writing, the wheel, pottery and many more—near the banks of the Euphrates River, downstream near their mouths in the Persian Gulf. Cities such as Uruk, Lagash, Eridu, Ur, and Kish were settlements that served as both administrative and trading centres. These cities were the largest and most important in the world for hundreds, even thousands of years between around 500 to 700 BCE

What makes a city possible in the first place is the idea of what I like to call energy profits. If one looks at the work a farmer does in taking care of his or her land, planting and harvesting food crops, and subsequently selling those crops in the market (or paying some as tribute, as was common in the ancient world), the amount of food the farmer produces is far greater than what he and his family need to survive. Indeed the average farmer in the ancient world could produce enough food to feed ten or more people for the entire year. What this does is leave the remaining nine or so people free to pursue other things. Farming is a labour-intensive activity, and farmers have little time to pursue hobbies. However, people who do not need to farm can work as potters and end up inventing the wheel, or as traders who need a system to keep track of transactions and end up inventing writing, or as kings and priests who promise salvation and protection, but are really only out to pillage and loot what they can for themselves. Traders would build settlements in places that allowed them the quickest access to multiple trading locations simultaneously, which would grow rich from the trade. These settlements would attract artisans and more traders, trading more diverse and exotic goods. Kings would set up their courts there, soldiers would be needed to guard it, and priests would set up temples. And hey presto, before you could say “urban development”, a city is born.

While Çatalhöyük was the largest urban settlement in the era before

civilization proper, the real genesis of city life began in the valley of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates in the Middle East, in the modern-day countries of Syria and Iraq. Here, we saw some of the earliest large settlements that grew into centres of Civilization; a word that comes from the Latin civilis – which also gives us words such as civil, civic, civilian – which in itself comes from the Latin civis, meaning citizen, and civitas, meaning city. In the ancient world, to be civil-ized was to be living in a city


ComplexityThe first major concern consequential to the complexity of major cities emerges from the fact that the mesh of interconnectedness that defines these cities is gargantuan in size and intricate in its layout. No one can clearly comprehend the vastness of the networks that underlie the seemingly normal and mundane orderliness of most cities. Yet, every aspect of civic administration affects a dozen others, and those dozen provide feedback to the first in an infinite loop of mutating data. Within this mesh of interconnected networks, the famous principle of the Butterfly Effect can come into play. The primary thrust of the Butterfly Effect is that complex systems display ‘Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions’; that is, a minor change in the initial conditions can have a chain reaction that can trigger a much more substantial outcome. The name Butterfly Effect comes from a famous example elucidated by noted American mathematician Edward Norton Lorenz in 1972, which states that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas. Similarly, in a complex system such as a large urban conglomeration, a small change in the initial conditions can have potentially devastating consequence. Nowhere has this point been as clearly illustrated as the global economic recession that we are all in the midst. The world’s banks and financial markets, a closely interconnected mesh of information, were brought to their knees by what should have been a localized problem; increased interest rates caused people to fault on the house’s mortgage payments which resulted in the sub-prime mortgage lending crisis that eventually created the global economic

recession. The inability of sub-prime lenders to recover their loans in the United States of America led to a spiralling chain reaction that ended up destroying one of Britain’s biggest banks and some of the USA’s oldest financial institutions, which has since affected countries such as India and China, as the developed world—the primary market for their India’s service economy and China’s manufacturing economy—is now able to afford fewer goods and services, which is affecting the growth of these two emerging giants. As economic growth in these countries stall, inflation increases, causing civil unrest and unhappiness with the ruling government in democratic India. As odd as it may sound, India’s 2014 General Election could have been decided by a sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States in 2007.

The complex interconnectedness of a city’s various life support systems implies that it is possible to cripple a major city’s entire civic infrastructure by disabling just one aspect of the system. This vulnerability is even more profound when one considers the fact that there have been attempts to do the same on numerous occasions

On March 20, 1995, Japanese cult group and terrorist organization Aum Shinrikyo (currently renamed to ‘Aleph’) —whose members believe a doctrine of absorbing the world’s sins and preparing for an imminent doomsday—attacked the Tokyo underground metro rail network by releasing the dangerous and extremely poisonous neurotoxin Sarin in a gas form in crowded train compartments. Thirteen people died and over a thousand suffered breathing problems as a consequence of the attack. The death toll was limited because the mixture was impure and the

quantities used were small (around 900ml). A single pinhead of pure Sarin is enough to kill a fully-grown adult. Nevertheless the attack was an indication of how one aspect of a major city’s infrastructure can be crippled, leading to a chain reaction that can eventually shake the foundations of civilization itself. Modern cities are heavily dependent on the input and constant exchange of energy and information, both from outside to within the city and also throughout the city via its civic network. With the advent of the internet, the possibility of cyber-attacks has again highlighted the defenceless nature of modern cities. Without almost all major functions handled by computers that are connected to the internet, a well planned and executed act of violence on a city’s cyber infrastructure can have devastating consequences.

The impact of the super-storm Sandy on the United States’ eastern coast was devastating; cities such as New York and New Jersey were subject to floods, storm surges, and damages worth billions of dollars. As America’s major cities reeled a chilling realization came to the fore, this was just the beginning. The impasse on climate change has resulted in even greater amounts of carbon being pumped into our atmosphere, affecting global climate in ways whose impacts are difficult to foretell. However, scientists agree that the question is no longer that of trying to stop climate change, but of adapting to it. With greater variability in global climate will come more stress on the infrastructure of our cities in the form of storms, hurricanes, droughts, and heat waves. A key point of mitigating the impacts of climate change and adapting to an uncertain and changing climactic



future will be making cities resilient and adaptable to these impacts. It will be necessary for global leaders, architects, civic engineers, and urban planners to find ways in which some of the world’s major cities can be adapted to surviving in this brave new world. As cities expand outwards and the distance between two urban conglomerations is eroded to form a megapolis, the energy consumed and the potential threat of climate change disaster will increase exponentially. These megapoli can be shining beacons of man’s conquest of nature and his ability to not depend on the environment for survival, but rather shape his environment around him. However, while we do not have a full understanding of the impacts of climate change and their effects on global urban denizens, it will be crucial for city officials across the world to build systems that will be able to absorb these shocks and emerge stronger as a consequence.

A Delicate Jugular Vein

Cities usually grow on the shores of seas along major trading routes near nice, large natural harbours that can take the load of many ships entering and leaving at once; or near river valleys that provide a transportation route and a source of water for the city’s denizens. As humanity marched forward, the organization grew ever more complex. Farmers—whose high energy-profit toil allowed everyone else in the city to do something other than trying to find food—soon found him or her muscled out of contention as cities grew larger and more complex. Farming communities are spread out over vast distances occupying large tracts of land, and as all city-dwellers know, the single most valuable commodity in a city is space. As transportation networks grew, all roads would lead to the city, be it Rome, Harappa, or Trantor. These roads, these transportation networks are now the key to the survival of a city. Fast forward to today and look at a city like Delhi. The food that feeds the city’s 11 million inhabitants comes from farms stretching from Punjab to Uttar Pradesh. The electricity that powers the city comes

from thermal power plants all over Northern India as well as Hydroelectric Dams in the Himalayas. Despite the fortune of having a river flow through it, large-scale industrial pollution on the likes of which one rarely sees people do to their own river and primary source of fresh water, has left the River Yamuna almost entirely incapable of supporting life and her waters are regarded as dangerously toxic. Thus, for water, Delhi has to depend on the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), which sources fresh water from the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers (further upstream), before the cities of the North India’s plains leave them polluted beyond recognition

Despite these efforts, Delhi still falls close to over 300 million gallons a day (MGD) short of meeting the needs of the inhabitants of the Indian capital. This is made up for by private citizens using tube wells and pumps to access groundwater. However, 11 million people accessing the limited groundwater of a city that receives only moderate rainfall can have dangerous long-term repercussions on the soil. Cities today are complex organisms that are closely connected through a series of sinewy nerves that form its electricity, food, water, and information networks. As more people migrate to these cities, and as now,

The inability of sub-prime lenders to recover their loans in the United

States of America led to a spiralling chain reaction that ended up destroying one of Britain’s biggest banks and some of the USA’s oldest financial institutions, which has since affected countries such as India and China, as the developed world – the primary market for their India’s service economy and China’s manufacturing economy – is now able to afford fewer goods and services, which is affecting the growth of these two emerging giants. As economic growth in these countries stall, inflation increases, causing civil unrest and unhappiness with the ruling government in democratic India. As odd as it may sound, India’s 2014 General Election could have been decided by a sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States in 2007.


there are more human beings living in cities than in the countryside, the vulnerability of these cities is only increasing every day.

The law of diminishing returns can also play a key role in the instability of complexity global cities in the near future. Cities are kept alive by the act of constantly pumping energy into them, energy in the form of electricity, automotive fuel, food, water, and other supplies. Few global cities possess these resources, or the means to convert raw resources into finished products used by the people, within city limits. All the things that the city needs to survive has to be brought to it. These networks are critical to a city’s survival, without a seemingly never-ending of trucks, trains, planes, and ships bringing in food to feed millions, pylons carrying Mega Watts of electrical energy, pipelines bringing in water and natural gas and drainage systems that clear the city of filth, most cities would not be able to survive for very long, especially not ones that are noted for being centres of finance or communication as opposed to manufacturing or trade. The city of Sarajevo, the capital of the nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was the epicentre of the Bosnian War in the 1990s. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the various communist governments (commonly referred to as the Commonwealth of Independent States) that constituted the erstwhile USSR each went through a bout of revolution and political upheaval, but few places were as brutally affected as the former Socialist nation of Yugoslavia. As various political and social factions within the country began to clamour for independent states, Sarajevo became the focal point for the newly independent state of Bosnia and

Herzegovina. Blockaded and constantly attacked by Serbs who wished to form the independent state of the Republic Srpska (the Serbian Republic), the people of Sarajevo witnessed the collapse of urban infrastructure over a period of almost 4 years. The siege, which began in April 1992, cut-off supplies of food, water, fuel, electricity, and all the other essentials that a city needs to survive. Surrounded by military forces, there were ration queues for water, constant bombardments, no medical supplies, and few military supplies to defend themselves. By the time the city was liberated in February 1996, over 11,000 people had died, and a further 56,000 were wounded. The Siege of Sarajevo was a showcase of how dependent a city is on supplies from the outside, and how fragile the intricate web of interconnectedness is in modern urban settlements.

Moving ForwardThe question of complexity and vulnerability in modern cities is a difficult proposition for urban planners, but solutions are being solicited. One of the major issues faced by modern cities is water, the most essential ingredient for human life. Rainwater harvesting is becoming more and more common in cities that experience substantial rainfall, this is an essential piece of civic planning that needs to be implemented in cities in India, where rainfall is not distributed over the year but occurs specifically during the monsoon months from June to September. Energy generation is an issue worldwide, and cities consume most of energy produced on Earth. Renewable energy technologies

can help make cities more self-sufficient in their energy needs, utilizing solar energy, and since most major cities are located on the coast, the potential of offshore wind and tidal energy to power a city are ideas that many experts in the field of sustainable development and renewable energy technology are seriously considering as solutions to ensuring modern cities are energy secure. Perhaps the biggest issue for cities in the 21st century will be that of food. With more than half the global population now living in cities, the pressure on agrarian populations to sufficiently be able to provide over 3.5 billion people with their most basic need, food, is immense. Making cities food secure is a challenge that would require the substantial assistance of science to engineer food crops that give higher yields and are more resistant to failure, along with pesticides, fertilizers, and germicides that not only protect the crop and help it grow, but also protect the farmer and the consumer and help the soil maintain its richness. As greater energy is put into a city, the greater is the energy that will be required to maintain it at where it is, and ensuring this energy—in the form of electricity, fuel, food, and water—is not halted will be the responsibility of future urban planners and administrators. Cities are the foundation of civilization, they allow people from various cultures, communities, and with different ideologies to interact and exchange ideas. Humanity’s most fascinating ideals, democracy, writing, civic administration, and the rule of law, all emerged from the vibrant intermingling of minds and bodies that one witnesses in the great cities of the world. As these cities now appear to consume most of humanity, it is our responsibility to ensure their continued security and resilience. #


Documents

Pax Urbana