The Ecology of the City

Author(s): Ian McHarg

Source: Journal of Architectural Education (1947-1974) , Nov., 1962, Vol. 17, No. 2, The
Architect and the City. The 1962 AIA-ACSA Seminar Papers Presented at the Cranbrook
Academy of Art. Part I (Nov., 1962), pp. 101-103
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of Collegiate Schools
of Architecture, Inc.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1423923

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 Another
Anotheraspect
aspectofof
our
our
Contemporary
Contemporary city city
land-land- which
which show
show
few signs
fewofsigns
disappearing.
of disappearing.
The modem The modem
scape
scape that
thatresembles
resembles thethe
Baroque
Baroque
is a is
fresh
a fresh
em- em- city
cityremains
remains
divided
divided
into many
into
distinct
many quarters,
distinct quarters,
phasis
phasisononthe
thespectacular,
spectacular,
thethe
representational.
representational. each
eachwith
with
its own
its type
ownoftype
activity.
ofThere
activity.
are many
There are many
The
The impact
impactofofadvertising
advertising
is by
is no
by means
no means
confined
confined critics
critics of the
of urban
the urban
landscapelandscape
who deplorewho
this deplore this
to
to the
theprinted
printedword;
word;it not
it not
only
only
lineslines
our highways
our highways compartmentalization,
compartmentalization, but it seems
buttoit
be seems
stronglyto be strongly
with
with billboards,
billboards,it it
lines
lines
ourour
streets
streets
withwith
elaborate
elaborate entrenched
entrenched in the
inmodem
the modem
city scheme.
city scheme.
commercial
commercialororpromotional
promotional architecture
architecture
institu-
institu- The
Theother
other
is the
isfeeling
the feeling
for the sanctity
for theof the
sanctity of the
tionalizing
tionalizingcommercial
commercialfirms
firms
andand
humanizing
humanizing
pub- pub- individual and the individual environment ex-
lic institutions. pressed in the fact that half of the population of
Finally, there is a growing revival of mass this country now owns its own home.
pageantry-world's fairs, monster rallies and It remains for the future to reconcile these two

sporting events. I question the possibility of re- very different tendencies: the neo-Baroque desire
viving the Baroque street scene in the USA be- for public amenities and socially directed design
cause the public is no longer the same. For better and the Romantic desire for the isolated experi-
or for worse, the average European or American ence in the isolated environment.

has become largely independent of the street. The An analogy to the biological theory of differ-
notion that we can lead any significant part of our entiated and integrated animal societies suggests at
lives in public is an agreeable one but unrealistic. least two of the choices in urban philosophy which
This is not to say that public gathering places are confront us now. The virtue of the differentiated

not needed, but they must be adapted to our less
extrovert society.
The solution as I see it is not a series of pedes-
trian malls or more parks or sidewalk cafes or
shopping centers or any neo-Baroque revival but
a totally new kind of public gathering place. We
are not a homogeneous group; we do not derive
pleasure from people as such, but rather we tend
instinctively to form groups of compatible persons.
I strongly suspect that the new kind of public
gathering place will be highly specialized, enclosed,
well-defined areas, excluding by some kind of
psychological barrier the enormous heterogeneous
public.
There are two aspects of our Romantic tradition
society is order and beauty and power; the chief
virtue of the integrated society is simply that it pro-
duces more and better individuals. It exists not as
an end in itself but to improve the conditions of
life and the possibilities of self-fulfillment.
There is nothing new in this concept of a society
of specialized beings. This has been the one in-
creasing purpose of our history: to grow in self-
awareness and to acquire a richer identity. It is the
role of the contemporary city to carry the process
one step further: to show that it is only within
a humane social order that the individual can
achieve self-fulfillment, not in Romantic solitude,
not in Baroque subjugation to the common will,
but through an active relatedness to others.

THE ECOLOGY OF THE CITY

by lan Mc Harg

Chairman, Dept. of Landscape Architecture, University o

101

Cities
Cities are are
probably
probably
the most inhumane
the most en- inhumane
diminish them as en-
determinants, but certainly they
vironments
vironments ever made
everby made
man for by
man.man
It is taking have to
for man. Itbeisqualified
taking by others as well. In looking
the best efforts of modem medicine and social for other determinants of urban form, I have
legislation to ameliorate the abuses which the
found the views of the natural scientist, particu-
physical environment imposes upon us. larly the ecologist, most illuminating.
With all the improvements which have occurred The ecologist is concerned with ecosystems:
during the last century in the social environment, functioning interacting systems composed of or-
the physical environment has not proportionallyganisms and their environment. The ecologist has
improved but has absolutely retrogressed. We plan
developed the conception that we are covered by
with a surfeit of economic and social determinism a web of life, a biosphere, with all life on the
and not enough other criteria. I would not planet interacting. One can think of the entire

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 The AIA-ACSA Seminar Papers at Cranbrook

world as a world-life body in which all organisms, sand dune. The entire process from beginning to
all species, have a role, which is comparable to the mature dune covers only about twenty-five years.
cell and to the organ within the human body. The When the beach has an inclination of five to ten
minute one takes a view of this sort, one is im- per cent, wave action will deposit particles of sand.
mediately proscribed from gouging, hacking and A sand bank, or island, is gradually formed and
destroying because the conception of the whole when it reaches a height of nine or ten feet, mar-
world-life body as being interacting somehow in- ram grass volunteers. The dune is progressively
duces some restraint in self-mutilation. stabilized by a succession of vegetation, sometimes
Such restraint is supported by the knowledge including live oak and pine. The ecologist can
that all organic systems are by themselves de- identify all the elements of vegetation in terms of
pletive. Any single organic system would simply the limitations within which they can exist
deplete the resources of the world and be ex- (salinity, brackish water, exposure, etc) the
tinguished. Man, of course, is a depletive organic environments to which they have adapted, the
system. In order for organic systems to work, there association of these plants and also their succes-
must be reciprocity. Somebody's waste is that sion. Here is something which seems to me has
which you consume, that which you dispose of as absolutely enormous relevance. One can see in
waste is that which something else consumes. This the function of all of these variables, a form which
is called symbiosis. is totally expressive.
The ecologist is further concerned with succes-
sion, ie, a development and adaptation in time. Examination of a Region
The ecologist has the possibility, as an inheritor of There is one larger process which is less com-
the Darwinian-Wallace tradition of evolutionary plete than the examination of the dunes; i e, the
biology, to see the relationship between process examination of a region. Confronted with the
and form in a clearer way than anyone else. Archi- necessity of land-use planning for the Delaware
tects used to say, "Form follows function." This River Basin, our study group selected the cycle
was a kind of a manifesto, always illustrated by in- of water as a device for examination. Besides the
organic systems like utensils and planes and rock- cycle of evaporation and precipitation, one can
specify places where horizontal movement of the
ets. This was all right as far as it went, but if one
notes that this was being proclaimed at a time when water occurs. The intrinsic functions of the for-
Darwin had existed for almost a century, and ested upland sponge, the agriculture piedmont, the
sciences like morphology and zoology and biology estuary marsh, the underground aquafer, the aqua-
and botany had been well advanced, it was, in fer recharge area, the rivers, the streams, the flood
retrospect, a kind of infantilism. plains and the riparian land can be identified,
If one looks at organic systems, I think one their areas can be demarked. Each is expressive
would have to adapt the statement and say, "Form of its particular role or process. One could im-
expresses process' or better still, "Process is ex- mediately conclude something about the degree
pressive." Zoology, morphology, botany and of permissiveness or nonpermissiveness of these
biology are all based on the presumption that the particular functions, relative to other functions.
adaptation of the species, the role of the species If you take an area like the Delaware River
and the location in terms of the environment can Basin and locate all of these areas, suddenly you
be determined from the aspect of the species andfind that you have covered something in the nature
its adaptation to the environment. of fifty or sixty per cent of the whole region and
102
One of the most beautiful examples is a simple you also find that you have produced something
deciduous forest. The distribution of the plants, like a negative development map. Before you
the shape of the plants, the relative size of the locate new towns and developments anywhere you
plants, the periodism at which they flower and like on the basis of some economic determinism,
fruit is vastly expressive. Indeed one could deter-let's add this parameter to your planning! Look
mine almost all the important things about the and see what intrinsic functions actually occur in
distribution and flowering periods of the plants this supposedly undifferentiated green space and
by their actual shape. That which tends to be seensee the degree to which these intrinsic functions
as a sort of undifferentiated green has specificitycan co-exist with the development which you pro-
and is an extraordinarily expressive statement ofpose.
a highly ordered system. I have a sense that if the best common knowl-
A compressed example where process is ex- edge of biology, ecology and oceanography, which
pressed very clearly in form is the formation of a has permeated landscape architects like myself,

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had been operative on the Jersey shore, there The next bit is atmospheric ionization. All com-
would have been no catastrophe in March 1962 bustive processes produce positive ionization. In
at all. It was only the gross stupidity of breaching normal countryside it tends to be about 70/30
the dunes, destroying the vegetation and building negative/positive and in the cities almost the op-
on top of the dunes which produced the catas- posite, 70/30 positive/negative. There is no doubt
trophe. In the Delaware River Basin some con- at all that this positive ionization has physiological
ception about the demarcation and the intrinsic and psychological effects. It inhibits the capacity
functions of open space will tell you the degree of the organism to reject the carcinogenic elements
to which it is permissible to alter the existing bal- which combustion also produces among others.
anced environment.
But coming to the city is another problem. I Sensory Overload
am thoroughly scornful of that which proposes to Then there's sensory overload. Lynch and
be city planning and spend the best part of my Luckashoff showed that there are so many stim-
time indicting that which is supposed to be the uli in the city that most people simply distain them
highest and best good of civilized man and hisall. Studies at Eastern Psychiatric Hospital in
fine transformation of nature toward his own ends, Philadelphia show that many people confronted
but I'm not certain how to do any better. I havewith sensory overload respond by filtering out
only little bits and pieces taken from severalthis sensory overload to a point of suffering hal-
scientists which I believe are worthy of our con-lucinations from sensory underload. If our physical
sideration. environment is so anarchic, so disordered, that
Pathologists doing studies with rats in extensive people have to filter out in order to survive, this
environments have produced some quite astonish- is an extraordinary castigation of the form of the
ing information. They place breeding couples in acity.
superabundant environment which produce big, Then there are such things as smog, tempera-
healthy litters and they're happy, and they eat and ture inversion and the carbon dioxide cloud. We
they populate and everything is fine. Then, as themay all be increasing our tolerance to these, but
population begins to reach half its maximumhonestly, I don't know that there are so many com-
(there is a maximum determined not by availablepensating advantages to justify it. Why don't we
food and water but by density and social pressure) get rid of carbon monoxide?
"pathological togetherness" occurs. A whole lot The simple idea of South Sea Islanders, that
of subordinate animals emerge which just coweryou should plant ten trees when every child is
in corners and are bitten by other rats. The size born, makes awfully good sense for people who
of litters diminishes really quite startlingly. There depend on oxygen. The knowledge that a fountain
is cannibalism, intra-uterine resorption, and the produces negative ionization is a wonderful bit of
birth rate falls down dramatically. knowledge when one realizes we tend to suffer
from too much positive ionization. If stress is a
Diminution of Population basis for susceptibility to disease and the instance
Hardly has this been recorded when something of many diseases, then we must seek the form of
else happens. One finds the adult animals start the city which will reduce stress, with the possi-
being prey to all sorts of diseases. This is what bility of maximum tranquility and introspection.
really gives one pause, because the diseases they We mustn't subscribe to life-inhibiting proc-
get are absolutely identical in kind and in numberesses. By accepting the form of the city and the
and distribution to those of twentieth-century processes of the city that do exist today, we are,
urban man. As a result there is such a diminution indeed, doing this. I don't think it's the proper
of the population as to frequently lead to ex-fulfillment of our own role that the city can only 103
tinction. exist because of the best advances of medicine
Now man, in cities, has devices by which he and social legislation. We must be certain that
can ameliorate social pressure, but, nonetheless, architecture and landscape architecture and plan-
I think the correspondence between the kind ofning don't subscribe to perpetuating and increas-
diseases and the distribution of diseases in these ing that which is life-inhibiting. We must find a
rats (they're not dying from TB, or pneumonia, modern city that is not an eighteenth century city
or dysentery; they're dying from cancer, lung dis-
with gouges and additions and unacceptable grafts,
ease, kidney disease, heart disease and they arebut truly a modern city.
prey to neurosis) and twentieth century man is I suggest that there may be some analogy, some
startling. As density increases, stress increases;
insight and, perhaps even the possibility of finding
from that the susceptibility to disease increases;
form from process, through the perceptions of the
and reproductive capacity falls. ecologist.

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