A Report on the Problems of City

Structural Uniformity and its

Solutions

2017311536 Jang Sin Uk

 Introduction

The term "globalization" is considered to be the most familiar word not only in

politics and economics but also in everyday life. However, the concept of

globalization has not been established yet, and the use of the term has been made for

convenience according to its subject or content. Some interpret globalization as a

simple Westernized concept, or as an American or a McDonald's concept.

Globalization is interpreted as a sign of uniformity in which national divisions are

disappearing, whereas it is taken as a deepening of diversity and heterogeneity. As

globalization progresses, uniformization is being carried out in a number of areas,

including standardization of culture and standardization. This report will focus on the

structural uniformity of the city.

Some of the cities that were created before the existing globalization include

the Spanish Square in Rome, the historic district of Paris, Shanghai, Central Park,

Kyoto and Pez's Shores, a steep slope in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, the dizzy

stairwells

of Jaipur,

and the Arch

Bridge of

Venice.

These places have the characteristics of each city and have a lyrical atmosphere.
 However, cities that have spread across six continents (New York, Tokyo,

Seoul, Sejong, etc.) in the 20th century do not find attractive features such as old

cities, and all have a very same feeling because they are designed in a similar

landscape. Even, it's hard to notice the difference in each city when you go to any of

them.

Reasons of the City Structural Uniformity

There are three main reasons why the city's architectural uniformization has
emerged around the world. The first is mass production. As industries developed after

the third industrial revolution, construction goods such as glass, steel, concrete,

asphalt, consumer goods and chains, were mass-produced and scattered around the

world. At the same time, many countries that developed cities designed and built cities

with the same building materials. Considering the construction materials of roads and

buildings in all the emerging cities of the 20th century, each area was constructed with

mass-produced glass, steel, concrete, and asphalt.

The second is regulation. City-related building regulations were created to

reduce the risk within the city, but they are a big reason for unintentional contribution

to urban uniformity. An example is regulation of cars. Since the 20th century, the use

of cars on a large scale has been considered as the biggest change maker in urban

design and has had the greatest impact on urban structure. Roads and sidewalks were

separated, pedestrians had to be placed on sidewalks and cars had to be divided from it

for safety. Also, the city was designed mainly considering the cargo area and the

slope, which led to the division and separation of the city's landscape.

Also, if you think of a fire truck, the city's fire trucks are so huge that they
need a large turning radius, so you have to put a huge amount of road packaging and

asphalt on the road to accommodate them.

Consider an apartment as an important example. At past, when there were no

regulations considering the safety, the staircases, as shown in the figure, were

designed to be met by people in the elevator, and apartments with this type of design

has communal elements. However, safety regulations, which were extended after 20c

with globalization, have to connect many elevators and many exits to a long, bland,

stark corridor eliminating the communal elements.

Also, the architects confronts the cost problem when they construct buildings.

Constructing the buildings with same materials would cost the architects to expense

less money, and make construction process more economical. It makes them to gain

more profit so they build huge buildings which are dreary and identical across cities

all over the world.

The third reason is the psychological cognition

of city builder, the ‘Fear of difference’. City builders struggle to escape the traditional

monolithic structure of the city, but they are afraid that new ideas will be considered

as ‘out of control’ and ignored by people. City builders think it's better to be safe than

trouble, so they follow the old design again.

There are many reasons besides these three reasons: the flow of capital, the

imitation of the Western civilization development model, and the view of the key

point of urban construction as economic development, but three reasons above are the

most direct and fundamental causes that actually make similar characteristics of cities

around the world.

Problems of the City Structural Uniformity

The uniformization of cities has many problems. First, as cities around the

world are organized in the same structure, the loss of diversity and the loss of regional

characteristics are similar to the problems of other types of globalization, such as the

standardization of culture and the uniformization of goods. But the problem with

urban uniformity is not only the loss of diversity.

Standardization of cities doesn’t have affective or comfortable feelings in an

aesthetic point of view. The rigid characteristics of buildings and the separation

between them and the landscape make people less emotional. More importantly, it

also leads to social uniformity and covers the world with uniformity, from physical

aspects to cultural aspects. Transportation convenience and fluidity of population

makes the center of the city compacted with large-capital brand companies and

wealthy people. And that's exactly what happens in every city. Uniformity makes

people not only spatially separated but also economically separated.

70~80% of the population in developed countries, and 50~60% of the

population in developing countries are living in cities, and hundreds of thousands

of people migrate to cities every year. More than half of the world's population lives in

cities, and in the next 10 or 20 years, they will be more than 80 percent of the world's

population living in cities. But, the similar structures that encourages separation

between people and landscape is a source of disease to our human soul. A landscape

separated by lines and boundaries, a structure centered more on cars and buildings

than on humans, and an enclosed structure in apartments and buildings gives a sense

of alienation and emptiness to people living in cities. These make people live in an

individualistic way of life. It also removes the attachment of space to your life, and at

the national level, you lose the community's bond.

Solutions of the City Structural Uniformity

The structural uniformity of these cities can be solved with the advanced

technology of the 21st century. With technology, you can get more physical and
cultural diversity back into your city. First of all, the starting point is to color the

world with diversity. Food is already used as a brush to color the world with diversity

by making it characterized dishes related with specific regions. We can apply these

movements to cities.

At past, technology created many problems in the 20th century. The car

mentioned earlier is an example. Automobiles were invented, and in line with this

invention, the surrounding landscape was recreated. But the result of the re-creation

was the separation of landscape, separation of communal life and standardization.

However, in 21st century, technology is used as a solution for Third World

countries’ cities to avoid those problems. If we focus on the problems of standardized

and rigid cities, we can know that using the advanced technology of the 21st century is

the solution. For example, self-driving cars. Self-driving cars can help improve the

safety of pedestrians and bicycles. Cities are constructed car-centrically, as

automobiles can cause great danger even if the driver makes small mistake or

misjudgment. However, by using self-driving cars, people can create an accident-free

traffic environment, which helps to rebuild the human-centered streets like the figure

below.
 Also, if you use drones and robots rather than large fire trucks that require

large asphalt roads at accident sites such as fire sites, you don't need to use large

amounts of asphalt to design cities. In fact, drones and robots are being used for

rescue now, too. Actually, there was an incident when boys in danger were rescued by

drones on a beach in New South Wales, Australia. Also, fire fighting drones are

already being used.

These ideas could make cities human-centered again. The boundaries of cities

will disappear, and we will be able to create streets using wood and gravel, rather than

asphalt and concrete in the 21st century. Also, it will be able to create a different city

model than ever.

Of course, there may be things that we can't solve with current technology, so
making city distinctive by using regional characteristics can be another solution. For

example, Ulaanbaatar, the city in Mongolia is able to provide sustainable heating by

using volcanoes in the downtown area, using the characteristic features of the area.

The city also features mountainous terrain, so small buildings that can look the

landscape were built at the area using local materials for construction.

By using high-tech and regional characteristics, there is a greater chance that

our souls will be filled with the emotional parts they need. It will also increase cultural

and physical diversity, and these cities will have international influence.

In globalization, uniformity may be inevitable. Because it has to be shared in

the world as something in common. But so far, globalization has been a

homogenization without considering diversity. It is time to consider globalization

regarding both, benefits of uniformed style of cities and regional characteristics

together and move forward.

Reference

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Kim soo yong. 2018. 세계화로 인한 문화 획일화(연구계획서).

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Park ji min. 2017. 획일화된 도시의 아파트 새로운 변신.

Moshe safdie. 2014. How to reinvent the apartment building.

https://www.ted.com/talks/moshe_safdie_how_to_reinvent_the_apartment_building?
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