Institute of Town Planners, India Journal 8 - 1, 65 - 72, January - March 2011
Temporal Transition of Global Space:
Cities in Transition
Prof. Kavas Kapadia
Abstract
As per author, the most significant component of urban growth, time, is not quite clearly
understood. A human settlement not only grows but develops and matures with time. Just
like a person. Taking today as the time line dividing the past and the future the author
tries to project what the future of the city holds for us and concludes that the future of
cities is seen to be confronted with very real concerns about environmental issues such as
pure air, shelter, traffic, water supply, sanitation, solid waste besides the other issues of
poverty, social justice and a growing sense of insecurity.
1.
INTRODUCTION
‘Time is one of the fundamental basis on which all cultures rest and around all
activities revolve’ (Hall, 1976). Countries with a corporate culture display a
marked different attitude to time compared to the developing or underdeveloped
world. Japanese, German and American businessmen attach a fanatical
significance to time appointment. The importance attached to time in urban
areas is distinctly different from that observed in the rural areas.
In task oriented linear thinking societies time is a commodity, whereas in
traditional and more ritual societies, which are generally oral rational in character,
time is a function of your relationships or the cycle of life, argues Dr. Orville
Boyd Jenkins in Time in Different Cultures. What constitutes the understanding
of time in the minds of most Indians, with near universal disregard for any kind
of urgency is difficult to decipher. The importance of time in life in general and
as a nonrenewable resource is not yet well understood. The time over run in a
project, for example is only considered significant if and when it translates in
to cost over run.
The perception of time scale in different societies is just as intriguing as it is in
the life of individuals. Traditional societies, like old people, seem to display a
very highly expandable range of tolerance to absorb time lags, gaps, delays and
capacity for adjustments. This is somewhat of a consolation considering that
“time is ‘monochronic’ in nature — as a ribbon or a road stretching from the
past into the future which is divided into segments called minutes, hours, days,
months and years within this rigid linear structure, one can only do one thing at
a time, as time itself flows swiftly past” (Zukin, 2003). The ‘flow’ appears to
be self regulatory!
Prof. Kavas Kapadia, is Dean of Studies and Professor of Planning, School of Planning and
Architecture, New Delhi. Email: [email protected]
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Elder people, like traditional societies, have faith that time will not let them
down i.e. a higher threshold of capacity to absorb the time lag between
expectation and attainment. Little children tend to demand things now. To
them the prospect of waiting to receive is unacceptable simply because the
waiting time forms a larger percentage of the tiny life span. The same waiting
time is less significant in an older person’s life; so time does not always ‘flow
swiftly’. Time has this quality of relativity. Sometimes time hangs heavy, time
flies, hard times, good times, time is a teacher, time heals, time is money,
time is short and once upon a time … . Time is expandable. The range of the
interpretation of and the expanse of time is enormous from less than the blink
of the eye to an epoch. Every individual has to some extent experienced the
metaphorical representations of these idioms. Time is the core ingredient of
human progress.
2.
TIME: CULTURAL INTERPRETATION
There is no culture which has a more grandiose understanding of time than
Hinduism. Ranging from the infinitesimal truti (1/1000,000 of a second) to a
mahamantara (311 trillion years), unfolding itself in a cycle of creation,
preservation and dissolution. The mystical quality of time is further enhanced
by interspersing the understanding of time with the concepts of moksha (release
from the bondage of rebirth), ‘anaadi’ (beginningless) and ‘annant’ (endless).
Thus unfathomable time units (yugas), Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dwapra Yuga
and Kali Yuga, (a total duration of approximately 4.1 billion years) completes a
‘Kalpa’, which marks the beginning of the next cycle.
Such an understanding of time induces a sense of philosophical and spiritual
quality in its basic acceptance, interpretation and day to day deployment. This
may also explain the total lack of any sense of earthly urgency that time may
be able to induce among most Indians, with a few notable exceptions like
Mahatma Gandhi who understood the greater significance of sporting time
strictly to modulate his own life and led one of the greatest movements in the
history of mankind. The sanctity he attached to time was reflected in the
handful of items that this simple man actually possessed besides his loin cloth,
walking stick, chappals and spectacles. A watch dangled around his neck all the
time.
2.1 Time: The Western View
Almost diametrically opposed to the nearly spiritual idea of time in the Hindu
mythology is the scientific explanation of time, attempted by western scholars,
outside the confines of religious texts of Christian and later Islamic beliefs.
With slight variations in their own understanding of interpretation of time (or
in most cases ‘time-space’) most of these ideas converge or take off from the
concepts of the ‘big bang’ theory. Cutting through the complexities of ‘singularity’
and other technicalities, the ideas and concepts of Isaac Newton and Albert
Einstein conclusively related time and space. Hermann Minkowski, Edwin Hubble,
J.M.E. McTaggort, Stephen Hawking and many others have made significant
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contributions to rationalize the understanding of space-time in the real world.
Authors like H.G. Wells and Edges Allen Poe took the liberty to take their
readers into what was later established as an impossibility realm of time travel.
A lot of literature on time emphasizes the unidirectional nature of time- more
commonly referred to as the ‘arrow of time’. A fascinating union or explanation
of ‘space-time’ continuum has emerged.
Einstein revealed that one of the most dramatic aspects of the universe is that
it is expanding and the presence of motion, forces and curved space time,
happens in the expanding space. To understand this dynamic relationship between
space and time it may be necessary to try and understand the concept of
‘entropy’.
Entropy is a measure of how evenly energy is distributed in a system. In a
physical system, entropy provides a measure of the amount of energy that
cannot be used to do work. When heat flows from a hot region to cold region
entropy increases as heat is distributed throughout the system. The concept of
entropy is central to the second law of thermodynamics. The second law
determines which physical process can occur. For example, it predicts that
heat flows from high temperature to the low temperature in spontaneous
process. The second law of thermodynamics can be states that the entropy of
an isolated system always increases and the processes which increase entropy
can occur spontaneously. Since entropy increases as uniformity increases, the
second law says qualitatively that uniformity increases.
Entropy is also a measure of disorder, or more precisely unpredictability. To
illustrate the point further, a series of toss of a normal coin has a maximum,
entropy (since the outcome can be either heads or tails) while a coin with
heads on both sides has zero entropy since the result will always be heads. In
information theory, entropy is a measure of the uncertainty associated with a
random variable. Clauide E. Shanon in 1948 developed a concept, known as ‘A
Mathematical Theory of Communication’ in which a scientific attempt was
made to define entropy as a measure of the average information content one
is missing when one does not know the value of the random variable.
2.2 Inside Organic Growth
There is a striking parallel here with the typical Indian city. Most Indian cities,
perhaps like cities across the world, are the products of a sum total of random
variables induced by a force which at best is unplanned, unintended and or
uncontrolled - besides being highly unevenly applied. We are still not fully equipped
to understand this equation. Throughout time this has resulted in cities with
overlapping and apparently confusing functions and spaces. In reality however
this has been the real strength of the organic cities imparting in them a strong
sense of vitality, uniqueness and resilience. “Resilience in our personal lives is
about lasting, about making it through crises, about inner strength and strong
physical constitution. Resilience is destroyed by fear, which causes us to panic,
reduces our inner resolve, and eventually debilitates our bodies. Resilience is
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built on hope, which gives us confidence and strength. Hope is not blind to the
possibility of everything getting worse, but it is a choice we make when faced
with challenges. Hope brings health to our souls and bodies.
Resilience can be applied to cities. They too need to last, to respond to crises
and adapt in a way that may cause them to change and grow differently; cities
require an inner strength, a resolve, as well as a strong physical infrastructure
and built environment”.
Events requiring a force to produce an action have a strong sense of direction.
One more explanation connecting time with the force producing effect which
establishes the cause effect relation is time. You have experienced the joy of
throwing a stone in a quiet water body and observe the ripples get further
away from the point of impact (where the stone has vanished) till they dissipate
and reach the edge of the pond. Have you ever noticed the ripples get generated
from all around the lake by multiple tiny forces converge forcefully to a point
from where a stone emerges to fly and lodge itself into your outstretched
palm? This is known to be a logistic impossibility. The sum of the argument is
that forces produce effects and that effects do not usually produce a force.
Normally we do not associate ‘force’ with time unless there is presence of
motion. Motion induces and helps recognize change. In entropy, change is the
most obvious way time is perceived. The directionality of the arrow of time is
due to the presence of some force rationalized by our sense of understanding
of the world around us and the resulting effects thereof. We see events fading
into the past (even though some scientists believe that there is no future and
no past – only a present), continuously changing. “Consider the city once again.
It is more than a set of relationships and a congeries of buildings; it is even
more than a geopolitical locale-it is a set of unfolding historic processes. In
short, a city embodies and enacts a history. In representing the city, in producing
counter representations, the specificity of a locale and its histories become
critical” (Rosler, 1991).
Cities are perceived in temporal time. ‘Stability’ and ‘continuity’ are essential
prerequisites of a human settlement. The ‘force’ comes in the form of ad hoc,
uncontrolled investments in a fragmented manner in response to a short term
individualistic interest. In most cases a multitude of forces operate quite
unmindful of an overall strategy. At the state level it comes in the form of
policy decisions that stimulate investments in a region, city or a specific sector.
In the present day system of planning the nature and the urgency of the
investment are further decided by the political priorities representing urban
development and governance.
3.
TIME AND HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
The most significant component of urban growth, time, is not quite clearly
understood. A human settlement not only grows but develops and matures with
time. Just like a person. Built structures age and function, and activities get
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intertwined, spaces and functions overlap, trees grow changing the light
pattern and ecological balance, pathways get defined and used, land and property
uses get into a perpetual cycle of flux, people constantly sculpture assessable
spaces to suit their requirements till a level of optimal comfort is reached.
Social network and cultural bonds get strengthened sheltered by the city spaces
and familiar landmarks. Every citizen gets to relate with his habitable
surroundings in his own idiosyncratic way. Whether this relation is positive or
negative is immaterial. The rhythm of life and the imagibility of the place get
registered as a collective psyche - a public sentiment, and the arrow of time,
as it moves along transforms this mutual relational sentiment of man and his
environment to a state of nostalgia. The present slips into the past. Events
turn into memory. In this continuous state of transition and change comprising
a string of events if time were to be seen as a point (present) on a highway
stretching from the past to the future, there is always a momentary freeze
best described in the words of Rudolph Clausius (1822-1888). “The universal
tendency for entropy is to increase. The crucial notion of equilibrium, the
state towards which a system tends when it is left to its own devices”. The
constant change then is but a string of stages of equilibrium held in harmony by
time. “Urban environments are constantly and inexorably changing ... a building
or other elements of the built environment of a given period and type tends to
be a carrier of the “spirit” of it’s time. Every city can therefore be ‘read’ as a
multi layered text, a narrative of signs and symbols. The built environment
becomes the biography of urban change” (Carmona, Heath, Oc, and Tiesdell,
2003).
Our understanding of the role of time in plan making and indeed of the way our
cities have evolved and developed is limited to historic documentation of events
gone by. If we accept the fact that total energy of the settlement (the synergy
generated by the physical form, the economic, social and cultural cross
connections) is the outcome of a force that is continuously acting on it to
produce low entropy (high unpredictability) we may be compelled to further
probe the cause effect relationship to induce a measure of ‘order’ in our
settlements. Although it must be clearly understood that we conveniently label
as ‘urban chaos’ what does not fit our limited understanding of the complexity
of the manner in which the real world operates. The settlements that remain
in a prolonged state of static equilibrium are the ones that illustrate the cause
effect relation of the absence of the force the lack of an impetus that brings
about the change. The principles of ‘growth’ are just as valid when the city is
in a state of decline.
One enduring quality of time is that while the future is inaccessible, the past is
like an open book to read and learn from. That time flows and is unidirectional
makes it a valuable nonrenewable resource. In the planning parlance this has
tremendous value, since past experiences are a storehouse of diverse events
which have already taken place. “There is another aspect of time that is
intriguing. It facilitates the acceleration of knowledge on the part of human
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beings. We differ from all other biological organisms in that we accumulate
knowledge with the passing of each generation. We can accomplish things
today (e.g., space travel, transplant surgery, computer technology) that our
ancestors never dreamed of centuries ago” (Jackson, 1997).
How then must we regard time in the ‘planned’ approach to city development?
“Up to recent time, city planners have disregarded the fact that when a certain
degree of maturity is reached in the cities of today, they universally display the
same alarming symptoms. These are endangering their very existing (Sert,
1970).
Taking today as the time line dividing the past and the future let us try to
project what the future of the city holds for us. Much of the projections for
the future must necessarily be based on the past experiences. Cities, societies
and communities with their own limitations of physical peculiarities which were
largely driven by the social, cultural, climatological and howsoever rudimentary
by today’s standards - technological status of the settlements. Every facet of
survival - buildings and nature were somewhere or the other was subject to a
‘moral order’10, rooted in the very ethos of life. Marching along the path of
modernity this ‘moral order’ has given way to the ‘technical’ order. Today the
world seeks to find the answers to a sustainable growth in the technology and
looks towards the past to be able to find ways and means to justify the global
issues of growth and the local concerns of equity, justice, fairness and a respect
for nature. This is one great paradox of time. There is a desperate need to
move ahead and constantly look back for guidance because all that is history
today was ‘modern’ till yesterday.
4.
THE FUTURE OF THE CITY
The issue of quality of life coupled with the acknowledgment that the global
population balance will tip in the favor of urban living has sparked off renewed
interest in the future of our cities. The future of cities is seen to be confronted
with very real concerns about environmental issues such as pure air, shelter,
traffic, water supply, sanitation, solid waste besides the other issues of poverty,
social justice and a growing sense of insecurity. The redistribution of wealth
that has occurred slowly over the last century has not really changed the power
equation between the rich and the poor ‘have nots and the have yachts’
(Fergusen 2009). But also continues to threaten to split it in to two-the smaller
but powerful rich part and the larger voiceless poor part. In the emerging
economies like China and India there is the third emerging category of the
‘middle class’, resenting years of deprivation and a burning desire to catch up
with the rich, which essentially means flaunting a large part of the income
purchasing consumable goods.
This consumerist society has ignited the debate on ‘sustainability’. The planning
focus today is on ‘sustainable’ development. The concept of sustainable
development by its very definition includes a fare measure of ‘space time’
relationship. Though the central concern in sustainability is that of the ‘future’
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of non renewable resources (land, water, air), it draws upon the wisdom of the
knowhow gathered in the ‘past‘. The successive global declarations recognizing
‘sustainability’, the UN General Assembly declaration (1987), the Report of the
Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future, and sustainable development is
development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two
key concepts: one the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of
the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and two the idea
of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the
environment’s ability to meet present and future needs. Followed by the
Stockholm Conference (1972) on the Human Environment, the Rio Conference
and the Kyoto Protocol (1997), the major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that
it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community
for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This amounts to an average of
five percent against 1990 levels over the five year period 2008-2012. They all
have one thing in common. They are all committed to a specific time period.
Also with the first principle objective “Human beings are at the centre of
concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and
productive life in harmony with nature” comes the understanding that the
force of development will not be permitted to produce ‘random’ results as in
the past but that development must be ‘in harmony with nature’ (Castells,
2000). It is a conscious modulation of time and space.
5.
CONCLUSIONS
We are surely headed for difficult times since the future promises to be so
much different from the past. While it was industrial development that followed
the industrial revolution (the first wave), and consequently triggered urbanization
in the past, the future clearly belongs to the service provider (the third wave).
Information, communications and entertainment have emerged as some of the
biggest business enterprises, capable of changing the way we think, work and
live. Technology and the internet have ushered in the era of ‘cyber space’.
Cyber space, like time does not differentiate between users on any count. Real
space is however subject to location and distribution subject to disposition of
economic and political power. In specific cases the idea of cyber space has
confronted the perception of conventional space. Banks, airline offices and
some other traditional services have either closed shop in the city or moved out
to make way for the ‘cyber’ contact between the citizen and the service
provider. The time space continuum has transformed the city from a ‘place’ to
a process. In specific fields the ‘virtual’ is challenging the ‘actual’. Education
courses are being conducted on line reducing the need for real space for schools
and colleges. Telecommunication has blurred the line between the place of
work and home. The tele-integration of the home as a work place in to the
global network is an economic reality today. “… secluded individualistic homes
across an endless suburban sprawl turn inward to preserve their own logic and
values, closing their doors to the immediate surrounding environment and opening
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their antennas to the sounds and images of the entire galaxy” (Fergusen,
2009).
The speed and reach of the idea of ‘tele-democracy’ has helped engineer
national revolutions in Egypt, Libya and others are on the way, which would
have taken decades if at all.
Importantly, Einstein’s work shows us not only that space and time are, in a
fundamental sense, observer dependent, but also that space and time must be
treated together, rather than as two separate mediums. The notion of a purely
spatial separation between events is ambiguous since any such distance will be
measured differently by observers in different states of motion and, likewise,
the time elapsed between two events will also depend on the observer’s state
of motion. The universe in fact represents a continuum with both spatial and
temporal dimensions—space-time—according to Einstein. This insight prompted
the mathematician Minkowski to make the well-known pronouncement that:
“Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, is doomed to fade away into
mere shadows, and only a kind of union between the two will preserve an
independent reality” (Newman, 1956).
The geography of globalization has already rendered the region as a placeless,
distanceless and borderless – super territorial entity. How long before the cyber
city follows suit?
REFERENCES
Bryant, R. (2001) What Kind of Space is Cyberspace? Minerva - An Internet Journal of
Philosophy, Vol.5, pp.138–155.
Carmona, M., Heath, T., Oc, T. and Tiesdell, S. (2003) ‘Public places, Urban Spaces: The
dimensions of urban design’ in Mathew Carmona, Tim Heath, Tanner Oc, Steven Tiesdell
(Eds.), Architectural press, London.
Fainstein, S. and Campbell, S. (2002) Readings in Urban Theory, Blackwell, London.
Fergusen, N. (2009) The Ascent of Money, A Financial History of the World, Penguin Books,
London.
Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (2000) The Social and Cultural Life of the City, in Malcolm
Miles, Tim Hall, Iain Borden (Eds.) The City Cultures Reader, Routledge, London.
Hall, E.T. (1976) Beyond Culture, Random House, London.
Jackson, W. (1997) The Biblical Concept of Time, Christian Courier.
Newman, J.R. (Ed.) (1956) The World of Mathematics, Simon and Schuster, New York.
Newman, P. Beatley, T. and Boyer, H. (2009) Resilient Cities: Responding to Peak Oil and
Climate Change, Island Press, Washington.
Redfield, R. (1953) The Primitive World and Its Transformation, Cornell University Press,
Ithaca, NY.
Rosler, M. (2000) ‘Fragments of a Metropolitan Viewpoint’, in Malcolm Miles, Tim Hall, Iain
Borden (Eds.) The City Cultures Reader, Routledge, London.
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Zukin, S. (2003) Whose Culture? Whose City, Routledge, London.
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