Eco-System value and urban Ecology for a new sustainable and competitive emergent cities : a comparative analysis

We see a new emergent form of the city over the Fordist towns of the late 18th-early 19th centuries as a hierarchy (manufacturing and services functions) between central and peripheral structures, mediated by urban/land revenue (costs of place), that locate services in the city-center and peoples’ home in the periphery with a simple form of governance segmented by land prices and political lobbying (central location by manufacturing and services). Congestion charge and pollution are largely a result of the emergent city-form. However, the present model in the post-Fordist, post-Berlin Wall age in Europe is a more horizontal town. This model is characterized by bottom-up partnership governance, high speed transport (in-city and inter-city), and high broadband line: a collective brain sharing of a cognitive “integrated” ecology (centrality of location on the grounds of hyper-networking and invisible resources) (see Graph 1) to reduce congestion and pollution for a harmonious, sustainable, and connected emergent city. This is posited as a “happy, responsible city” involving a mix of tolerance, talent, and technologies ( à la R. Florida), maintaining strong social cohesion and extended citizenship responsibility where everyone is an intelligent user and a potential contributor to value (Pilotti, 2001, 2003).