阿拉斯泰爾·唐納德，張燁

引言

未來的城市將何去何從？城市是持續(xù)加速擴張，還是衰落、被遺棄以至滅亡？城市將是文化創(chuàng)新與繁榮的中心，還是將因污染擁擠而個性全無？城市將是社會性的，還是反社會性的？

誠然，百家爭鳴各持己見。然而，在某種意義上，今天在經(jīng)濟危機之后，西方世界關(guān)于未來城市的討論卻幾乎被焦慮所主導(dǎo)。關(guān)注的焦點集中在城市空間的衰落、社區(qū)的瓦解以及城市的萎縮，更有許多學(xué)者對發(fā)展中國家大城市的飛速膨脹深感憂慮，并擔(dān)心未來的世界將最終被城市所吞噬。

筆者于2009年末在劍橋大學(xué)召集了以“最小或最大城市”為主題的研討會，試圖對圍繞城市未來發(fā)展的焦慮看法進行探討。評論家們一方面將經(jīng)濟危機作為城市蔓延的終結(jié)而大加褒獎；另一方面又在質(zhì)問增長和發(fā)展的可能性，會議的目的皆在挑戰(zhàn)這一影響著西方城市界的局限觀念。西方諸多的建筑師已然不自覺地接納了對人類活動如交通和能源使用的諸多限制，我們試圖鼓勵與會者們反思對環(huán)境和經(jīng)濟發(fā)展限制的教條化的認(rèn)可。畢竟，回顧歷史，人類的發(fā)展極大地得益于突破環(huán)境的限制以及以城市化為代表的人類實踐活動的擴展。

憂患未來

在今天的諸多西方國家，與經(jīng)濟復(fù)蘇共存的是一種普遍的對于未來城市與社會的強烈不確定和深刻不安。新近的災(zāi)難電影表現(xiàn)尤為明顯：羅蘭· 埃默里奇（Roland Emmerich）的《2012》圍繞著飽受火山、地震、海嘯等空前災(zāi)難威脅的人類生存的地球展開；《艾利之書》則以好萊塢視角展示了一個災(zāi)難過后滿目瘡痍的荒蕪世界；更有《末日危途》中的那對在文明大毀滅之后的暗無天日的世界中，掙扎于人類自我殘殺邊緣的父子[1]。

對于未來的悲觀情緒同樣反映在以生態(tài)危機、技術(shù)災(zāi)難和社會衰敗為主導(dǎo)的城市討論中。如著名城市評論家迪耶·薩迪奇（Deyan Sudjic）所宣稱，城市已處于“混亂的邊緣”[2]，并將隨時激起我們內(nèi)心深處“隱藏的焦躁”（Lurking Paranoia）。美國歷史頻道“2016未來城市”設(shè)計競賽的獲勝方案更是描繪了一幅正消失在茫茫海水中的曼哈頓島的場景，直接呼應(yīng)了羅蘭·埃默里奇（Roland Emmerich）之前導(dǎo)演的影片《后天》的畫面。城市理論家麥克· 戴維斯（Mike Davis）在其著作《恐懼的生態(tài)學(xué)》（Ecology of Fear）中則將南加州（洛杉磯）視作一個充滿現(xiàn)實和想像災(zāi)難的場所[3]。里克·克利佛（（Rick Kleffel）在對此書的書評中更是極力推崇戴維斯所描繪的充滿恐懼、罪惡和災(zāi)難的“想像的失控”（Virtual Mayhem），認(rèn)為其對于恐怖文學(xué)頗有啟發(fā)。[4]

電影和評論中所表現(xiàn)出的不安恰恰折射出了當(dāng)前普遍存在于西方社會思想中的一種與以往的恐懼所不同的深刻的脆弱性（Vulnerability）。西方1950年代恐怖影片中的洪水猛獸通常只是社會某一特定層面動蕩的產(chǎn)物。例如，襲擊年輕夫婦或者單身女性的外星怪物反映出的正是人們對于社會全面性解放的種種不安。然而，今天的災(zāi)難電影如《末日危途》所反映的則是一種主導(dǎo)當(dāng)前西方社會思想的無端的廣泛的憂慮，進而更傳達出了一種強烈的對自我無能為力的悲哀，以及對社會脆弱無力的無奈認(rèn)同。著名社會學(xué)家烏爾利希·貝克（Ulrich Beck）認(rèn)為，我們正身處于一個“風(fēng)險社會”[5]（Risk Society），在一個全球化的無疆界的世界，無論從時間和空間的層面，還是社會層面，我們都失去了對風(fēng)險的判斷能力。他強調(diào)，在一個混亂而缺乏導(dǎo)向的社會中，“人們關(guān)注的不再是進步和發(fā)展，而是對風(fēng)險的防范[6]?！必惪说挠^點得到了霍默·狄克森（Homer-Dixon）的充分贊同，他認(rèn)為，我們正處于一個充滿“無限的不確定”（Unbounded Uncertainty）的時代，而社會的運轉(zhuǎn)也不再以對風(fēng)險的管理為基礎(chǔ)。如他所言：“我們無法衡量（風(fēng)險的）可能性是因為我們沒有對此進行判斷的可靠基礎(chǔ)?！盵7]

人本失位

1 會議海報：最小…或最大城市/Conference Poster: Minimum... or Maximum Cities?

2 憂患城市：西方世界對于大城市擴張的擔(dān)憂/Anxious City: western fears over mega city growth

3 電影《后天》海報/Movie Poster: The Day After Tomorrow

在某種意義上，這恰恰折射出當(dāng)前人性觀的衰落。事實上，并非我們無法衡量風(fēng)險發(fā)生的可能性，恰恰相反，科技知識的進步極大地增強了我們對于世界的了解和掌控，進而也使我們能夠更好地對其變化做出回應(yīng)。因此，真正改變的是我們對于人類社會的信心——對于人類推動知識進步并作用、改變世界的能力的失信。我們深陷自我懷疑的泥潭而無法自拔，這正根植于一種普遍的對于人類社會進步的文化否定。

對于人類社會的失信，或許從環(huán)境保護論對于傳統(tǒng)的人與自然關(guān)系的徹底否定中更明顯地表現(xiàn)出來。人類實踐活動向來以改變自然、推動進步為目的，而今天，自然則變得神圣不可侵，人類更是被完全視作擾亂甚至威脅自然生態(tài)系統(tǒng)的負(fù)面因素。人口增長所帶來的擔(dān)憂使得“人口定時炸彈”（Human Time Bomber）的概念在西方世界耳熟能詳；對于有限資源的顧慮則使得我們漠然于醫(yī)學(xué)進步所帶來的人類壽命的延長，卻將人口老齡化視為引發(fā)未來社會問題的癥結(jié)所在。或許正如《阿凡達》中揭示出的當(dāng)今時代的遁世思想：盡管詹姆斯·卡梅?。↗ames Cameron）因完美的三維動畫效果而廣受褒獎，電影卻將人類的破壞力盡顯無遺——一個蹂躪自然的卑劣種族，將自我的苦難轉(zhuǎn)移到另一個星球。于是，人與自然和諧相融的原始社會成為了唯一答案。

對于人類社會的全面失信使得環(huán)境保護論被教條化地理解并使用。進而人類的探索行為被簡單地視作對自然的“干涉”，而增長、技術(shù)革新甚至發(fā)展本身更是在可持續(xù)發(fā)展的信仰下被視作威脅自然界穩(wěn)定性的根源所在。正如世界著名的工程機構(gòu)ARUP所宣稱——“沒有自然的災(zāi)害，只有人類活動所引發(fā)的自然災(zāi)害?！盵8]

因此，在西方當(dāng)前保守的宿命論式的城市討論中，雄心勃勃地尋求變革的規(guī)劃方案往往被冷眼相待，而如新城市主義等理論則因其“志向的謙遜”[9]（modesty of ambition）而備受推崇。城市研討的焦點集中在保證生存以及如何形成應(yīng)對危機的“地方性彈性”（Local Resilience），而非人類的進步和發(fā)展。不同于以往城市規(guī)劃師和設(shè)計師期望通過城市化進程擴大社會網(wǎng)絡(luò)和人類活動的范圍，推進全球化進程，整合供應(yīng)鏈并形成成熟的國際化的勞動力分配體系，今天的環(huán)境保護論者以及生存主義者們恰恰試圖縮減、分割甚至脫離這一網(wǎng)絡(luò)，并極力地鼓勵地方化的資源分配以及食品供應(yīng)模式。這一主張即簡單地基于弱化人類對環(huán)境影響的觀念。正如某位環(huán)境保護論者所提倡的“使人類活動趨于無形化”。

可持續(xù)性的教條化

在某種意義上，西方當(dāng)前社會文化的轉(zhuǎn)型正源于對現(xiàn)代性和人類進步觀念的批判。環(huán)境保護論者教條化地將人類活動視為破壞性的、不計后果的和揮霍無度的，而一切的城市化建設(shè)和發(fā)展都必須符合苛刻的“環(huán)境安全”標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，由此對計劃的可持續(xù)性進行所謂的驗證。與以往將人類的獲益作為評價發(fā)展的價值標(biāo)準(zhǔn)恰恰相反，在這一悲觀的社會文化下，可持續(xù)發(fā)展的政策教條化地將對自然的保全，而非協(xié)調(diào)自然和人類的關(guān)系，簡單地作為先決條件。

以英國為例，這一價值標(biāo)準(zhǔn)使得大量的城市基礎(chǔ)建設(shè)，如發(fā)電站、機場、公路以及鐵路等，都被迫納入了一個似乎無止境的風(fēng)險評估過程。譬如，核電站的建設(shè)在可持續(xù)發(fā)展的擁護者們關(guān)于污染、恐怖襲擊、廢料處理，以及對于生態(tài)多樣性的威脅的反對聲中依然停于紙端。而能源問題的焦點更是從能源的供給，完全轉(zhuǎn)向了通過法令、制度以及提高價格來減少個人的能源消耗。再者，英國交通設(shè)施的發(fā)展也十分緩慢，大部分使用中的高速公路均建于半個世紀(jì)之前，而新興的高速鐵路計劃也因為其對鄉(xiāng)村的入侵而被迫擱淺。最后，倫敦泰晤士河上一座簡單的公路橋項目更是夭折在近1/4個世紀(jì)前的規(guī)劃中，環(huán)境保護論者們抵制交通聯(lián)系的加強所帶來的社會價值，并抗議隨之而來環(huán)境污染和沉重的交通負(fù)擔(dān)[10]。

悲哀的是，就風(fēng)險管理而言，可持續(xù)性的教條化恰恰鼓勵著對于發(fā)展中可能出現(xiàn)的最差結(jié)果的無端推測，而發(fā)展項目的反對者們正好借此放大對環(huán)境的負(fù)面影響和安全隱患，進而阻止項目的進行[11]。恰如一位研究者所言：“激發(fā)憂慮的信息會使得行動格外敏感”[12]。然而，更為嚴(yán)重的是，對可持續(xù)發(fā)展的教條化理解會導(dǎo)致一種僵化的城市發(fā)展觀念，因為對風(fēng)險的放大本身就具有麻痹性的效果——一種自滿和自得的情緒會通過那些假想風(fēng)險并聲稱采取安全負(fù)責(zé)的行動的人們而衍生并擴散[13]。令人擔(dān)憂的是，這種對于理性思考置之不顧而簡單升級風(fēng)險等級的方式，不恰恰是對人類知識的拋棄和對直覺的簡單片面地依賴嗎？而真正成功的規(guī)劃與設(shè)計卻正是以人類堅實的知識為基礎(chǔ)的。至此，我們不禁要問，設(shè)計師將如何逃離這一墮落的漩渦呢？

重審城市和文明

人類歷史上最為經(jīng)典的城市設(shè)計和規(guī)劃大多產(chǎn)生于弘揚人性，尊重人本，鼓勵人類探索世界，理解世界并且改變世界的時代。自文藝復(fù)興的人性解放以來，人被視作宇宙中心和萬物之本，宇宙學(xué)、天文學(xué)以及生物學(xué)等領(lǐng)域的重大突破均極大地擴展了人類對于自然的了解，更增強了人類發(fā)展未來社會的自信。正如城市理論大師彼得·霍爾（Peter Hall）所言，佛羅倫薩的天才們的本質(zhì)便是孜孜不倦地實驗、進取和改變[14]。佛羅倫薩也由此被廣泛地作為文明進步的同義詞。

4 電影《2012》海報/Movie Poster: 2012

5 電影《末日危途》海報/Movie Poster: The Road

6 人口定時炸彈：西方世界對于東方人口增長的擔(dān)憂/Human time bomber: western fears over population growth in the East

然而，哲學(xué)家約翰·阿姆斯特朗（John Armstrong）在其著作《尋找文明》中卻指出，“文明”（Civilisation）的概念在今天已經(jīng)變得愈發(fā)沒落[15]?！拔拿鳌币辉~的語源是拉丁語的“城市“（civilisatio）、”城邦”（Civitas），而“城市”、“城邦”又都是“市民”（Civis）一詞的派生。他認(rèn)為，除了“上帝”這個概念之外，“文明”的概念或許是人類迄今為止最為偉大的創(chuàng)造，其與“貴族”、“理想”、“美觀”、“真實”等經(jīng)典概念聯(lián)系緊密。建筑與城市設(shè)計從來都被作為貴族藝術(shù)，而城市空間更是得益于對基于文明理想之上的精神繁榮的追求。

阿姆斯特朗更指出了思考未來城市發(fā)展的關(guān)鍵。他認(rèn)為，文明的進步需要物質(zhì)與精神兩個層面——精神繁榮建立并結(jié)合在對物質(zhì)繁榮追求的基礎(chǔ)上。兩者相輔相成的案例不勝枚舉：文藝復(fù)興時期的佛羅倫薩是歐洲最富有的城市；金融服務(wù)業(yè)和銀行業(yè)的改革為奧斯曼的巴黎林蔭道和街道生活的出現(xiàn)提供了重要支持；而高層建筑和城市公園更是誕生在作為美國資本主義發(fā)展前沿陣地的芝加哥。今天的西方思想恰恰忽視了與文明緊密相連的物質(zhì)繁榮，將人們的“幸福感”作為關(guān)注的焦點。具有諷刺意味的是，這一“診斷性概念”（therapeutic concept）提出的同時，人們卻無知并漠視物質(zhì)繁榮的價值。然而，對于文明的追求遠(yuǎn)不止是幸福感或者內(nèi)心滿足的狀態(tài)，阿姆斯特朗提出了一個更加積極的概念“人性繁榮”（Human Flourishing）。那么，我們又應(yīng)當(dāng)如何看待這一聯(lián)系城市和文明的概念呢？

積極的人類實踐

“文明”（civilisation）一詞在18世紀(jì)啟蒙運動時期的英法等地被廣泛使用。在當(dāng)時，人類文明即代表著世界的進步，代表著事物發(fā)展的方向，由此也反映出了以人本為中心的社會思想形態(tài)。在這樣的社會中，人類對于改變自然推動發(fā)展的信心不斷增強。

誠然，在人類歷史上，我們不斷地調(diào)整自我以適應(yīng)自然，我們學(xué)會了在惡劣的環(huán)境下生存，甚至適應(yīng)無論冷熱干濕的極端條件。然而在我們知識有限、對于自然資源利用不足的時代，自然環(huán)境在更多的情況下成為人類進步的“阻礙”。

社會和城市的“繁榮”（flourishing）正是建立在人類更多地了解自然、掌控自然、利用自然的基礎(chǔ)上。譬如，我們修建引水渠和灌溉系統(tǒng)以收集并保存水源，進而有力地推動了城市的發(fā)展。隨著文明的進步，這些工程的意義更是遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超出了滿足當(dāng)時實際功能需求的價值。作為人類文明工程的璀璨結(jié)晶，橫亙在法國南部鄉(xiāng)村的引水渠以及伊斯坦布爾的地下貯水宮殿，無不映射著人類社會對于如何使自然適應(yīng)自身需要的強大信心。

在歷史上，我們不僅“引導(dǎo)”（Channel）自然，更“改變”[16]（transform）自然以推動文明的前進，這尤為突出地體現(xiàn)在芝加哥的城市發(fā)展進程中。經(jīng)濟大蕭條之后的1933年，以“一個世紀(jì)的進步”為主題的芝加哥世博會，不僅是一場歡慶科學(xué)進步與工業(yè)發(fā)展的盛會，更展現(xiàn)了一個不斷克服重重自然困難和挑戰(zhàn)、推動社會進步的充滿樂觀主義的城市形象。當(dāng)建于濕地之上的城市逐漸下沉?xí)r，建筑從困境中得以拯救；當(dāng)密歇根湖的洪水向城市襲來并污染城市供水時，運河的開鑿，長達176km的疏水系統(tǒng)的修筑逆轉(zhuǎn)了河水的流向；當(dāng)城市毀于1871年的大火后，升降電梯技術(shù)的出現(xiàn)促使摩天大樓拔地而起。誠然，筆者在此并非要褒揚人類對于自然的征服，也絕非回避或者否認(rèn)上述進程中的負(fù)面效應(yīng)，或許改變最初的城市選址便可避免其中的許多問題。然而相比較于今天城市探討中人本的失信，芝加哥城市發(fā)展中所體現(xiàn)出的人性“繁榮”無疑對現(xiàn)在是具有啟發(fā)意義的。香港赤臘角新機場的建設(shè)更是一個重構(gòu)自然而推動發(fā)展的成功案例，其已成為全世界最為繁忙的貨運港口，并且在珠江三角洲的區(qū)域發(fā)展中扮演著極為重要的角色。機場建于包括原赤臘角島、欖洲島以及部分填海工程所形成的人工島上，并建設(shè)了多條公路以及鐵路通道連接九龍、港島以及新界，其中便包括世界最長的懸索橋——青衣大橋。

在今天西方社會看來，如此雄心勃勃的規(guī)劃方案不免要被貼上標(biāo)榜人類傲慢的標(biāo)簽。雷切爾·卡森（Rachel Carson）在其著作《寂靜的春天》（Silent Spring）中，開篇便描述了一幅在美國腹地的萬物和諧的小鎮(zhèn)景象[17]。然而，我們不禁要問，農(nóng)業(yè)和城市的發(fā)展不恰恰是人類利用、控制并改造自然的實踐活動嗎？著名作家阿蘭·德波頓（Alain de Botton）曾頗為極端地說到：“自然之道即腐化、融化、軟化、銹化，與我們賴以生存的法則背道而馳。”他更在其著作《幸福的建筑》（Architecture of Happiness）中強調(diào)“秩序與生命殊途同歸”[18]。暫且不論德波頓的極端觀點，然而需要承認(rèn)的是，社會整體有效的應(yīng)對風(fēng)險的能力，卻并不因為我們對自然的“敬重”或者對于可能出現(xiàn)的災(zāi)難后果的“放大”而提高。應(yīng)對危機的彈性（Resilience）更源自我們從積極的實踐活動中積累的經(jīng)驗。在一定意義上，人類實踐活動的本質(zhì)便是對自然的改變，也正是在人類對自然的認(rèn)識和掌控的不斷提高的過程中，社會的價值得以強化，其最基本的形態(tài)便表現(xiàn)為人類在城市的聚集。筆者在此絕非與自然為敵，只是一旦我們否認(rèn)了人類對自然的實踐活動，便意味著我們放棄了探索和改造自然所能帶給我們的利益。

無疑，未來城市的發(fā)展是可能從人類實踐的探索中大大受益的。悲觀地說，當(dāng)前針對自然系統(tǒng)開展的大量深入的研究，是對于人為的全球氣候變化的反面肯定，然而更為重要的是，這一過程無疑將大大加深我們對于自身發(fā)展對氣候影響的認(rèn)識——從工業(yè)革命時期快速擴張下的無意識破壞到現(xiàn)在的有意識控制。在此意義下，以核能、氫能、風(fēng)能、太陽能以及潮汐能為代表的新能源的開發(fā)，將不僅僅是對“低碳”的有效貢獻，其更以大型的人造工程昭示了包含氣候在內(nèi)的自然世界能夠在人類的控制下得到長足的發(fā)展。

探索未來

著名城市規(guī)劃大師埃德蒙·培根（Edmund Bacon）在其著于1960年代末的《城市設(shè)計》中首先便將城市作為人類文明的最高抱負(fù)的表現(xiàn)。他指出，當(dāng)我們思考城市時，一個最為關(guān)鍵卻往往被忽略的概念便是：未來是我們創(chuàng)造的。通過回顧自雅典以來的城市發(fā)展歷程，培根展示了設(shè)計師如何一次次地發(fā)展、檢驗并提煉思想，進而創(chuàng)造適合人類發(fā)展的環(huán)境——“城市作為一種意愿行動”。

他借用著名藝術(shù)家保羅·克利（Paul Klee）的“內(nèi)向人”（Ingrown Man）和“外向人”（Outgoing Man）強調(diào)了開放的探索的認(rèn)知途徑的價值。主導(dǎo)今天西方社會的似乎正是前者。如培根所述：“內(nèi)向人顧影自憐，明哲保身，把同外界的接觸降到絕對的最低的限度……而外向人則奔放且容易介入各種事情，力量和弱點都暴露在外，明知摔跤卻躍向空中，即使易受攻擊也受之泰然?！盵19]

培根在此所表明的恰恰是一種可能阻礙我們探索并創(chuàng)造美好未來的文化意識——對人類試驗并實踐新理念，并由此將我們的觀念施加于城市之上的信心的喪失。矛盾的是，從“外向人”似乎在鼓勵我們?nèi)ブ厥澳欠N走向失敗的自信，然而明知失敗卻依然躍向空中的行動卻將一種百折不撓、勤于反思的勇氣注入到我們精神思想。□

Introduction

What is the future for cities? Are they expanding at an ever-increasing rate or are they being abandoned and shrinking into oblivion? Are cities dynamic centres of innovation and culture or are they polluted, overcrowded and anonymous? Are they sociable or anti-social?

Well, the answers differ depending on who you read. But throughout the Western world, discussion of the metropolitan future is shot through with confusion and anxiety. Some point to decaying urban spaces and fragmenting communities in western cities, while others fear a culture of urban shrinkage; many fret over the dynamic growth of megacities in the developing world and worry that the future will be one where the city will have finally swallowed the world.

At the University of Cambridge, the conference,Minimum... or Maximum Cities?, was convened to explore emerging attitudes and anxieties over the metropolitan future. Given some commentators celebrated the recent recession as a way to curtail a supposed Age of Excess, and others have questioned whether growth is still possible, the aim of the conference was to challenge the low horizons that infect western discourse. While many western architects now accept that restrictions should be placed on human activities such as travel and energy use, we encouraged our contributors to challenge the idea that designers should accept environmental and economic limits. After all, history suggests that humanity has benefited enormously from freeing itself from environmental limits, and instead expanding human networks through ambitious programmes of urbanisation.

Fearing the Future

In early 2010, even as most western countries emerge from the recession, there remains a powerful sense of disorientation, and a deep sense of unease about the future of society. Perhaps this is most apparent from the recent popular releases in cinemas.2012, the latest sci-fi epic from Roland Emmerich,revolves around a scorched earth that threatens human survival. In The Book of Eli, America, seen through Hollywood eyes is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, while in The Road the survivors of an unnamed catastrophe negotiate mindless violence and cannibalism in a landscape devoid of sunshine and covered in thick grey ash[1].

This fearful outlook on the future is also present in recent thinking on cities where the imagination willingly hovers over the prospect of ecological catastrophe, technological disaster, and social decay.The respected urban commentator Deyan Sudjic, for example, argues cities are on the “edge of chaos”and can bring out our “l(fā)urking paranoia”.[2]The winners of the US History Channel competition to design the City of the Future 2106 show the towers of Manhattan Island disappearing under flood waters in a clear reference to Roland Emmerich's earlier filmThe Day After Tomorrow. And for the urban theorist Mike Davis, the Southern California landscape provides a setting for real and imagined disasters[3], prompting one reviewer to recommend the ‘virtual mayhem’ of these “entertaining travelogues in fear, crime and disaster” as useful material for horror writers.[4]

The anxieties captured recently in books and films reveal a deep sense of vulnerability that has a very different character to past fears in western societies.In the horror films of the 1950s, cinematic monsters were often the product of specific aspects of societal unease. For example, the aliens or monsters that attacked young couples or single women reflected the fears of a society anticipating the coming sexual revolution. Today, however, the cinematic apocalypse in films such as The Road reflects a more unfocused and diffuse angst Such works convey a strong sense of powerlessness, of a society that perceives itself as brittle and vulnerable. The sociologist Ulrich Beck for example argues that we now live in a ‘risk society’[5]－a globalised, borderless world which he argues,undermines our ability to assess risk, either spatially,temporally or socially. Given this sense that society has been cut adrift, it's perhaps little wonder that he argues“one is no longer concerned with attaining something‘good’, but with preventing the worst”.[6]Another commentator reinforces this point suggesting we live in an era of‘unbounded uncertainty’and that society no longer operates on the basis of manageable risks:“we can't estimate probabilities because we don't have any clear basis for making such a judgement”.[7]

Loss of confidence in humanity

The idea of‘unbounded uncertainty ’suggests an impoverished view of humanity has become. In reality,it is not that we lack knowledge to estimate probabilities.While we could certainly go much further, in recent times, advances in knowledge and technology that ensure we are more capable than ever before of understanding the world, and therefore of acting upon it. What has actually changed is humanity's own confidence in itselfboth in terms of its capacity to develop knowledge, and to act as a force to intervene and shape the world. We have effectively become paralysed by self-doubt, the root of which is a widespread cultural disenchantment with the progress of human society.

This disenchantment is expressed by the environmentalist outlook in which the enlightenment relationship between humanity and nature has been reversed. Where once mankind saw it as its duty to shape nature to its advantage, today the natural world is treated as sacrosanct, and humanity viewed as a burden that threatens to upset natural processes and eco-systems. Amidst fears over population growth, it has become common in the west to hear about the idea of the‘human time bomb’; and instead of celebrating medical advances that lead to increases in life expectancy, amidst fears over resource use, an aging population has now become the focus of societal fears. Perhaps it is the film Avatar that captures the misanthropic prejudices of our age. While James Cameron's has been praised for its 3D technologically sophistication, its message is that humanity is a destructive force－a vile species that rapes nature,and even exports its misery to other planets. Instead it is the primitive society which is celebrated for its apparent respect for nature.

In the environmentalist worldview, human endeavour is recast as“interference”in nature.Growth, new technologies, and even development itself are now viewed under the doctrine of sustainable development as problematic activities that threaten the stability of the natural world. In the view of the engineers Arup,“there is no such thing as a natural disaster, only human interference in the natural world,which causes problems”.[8]

7 風(fēng)險城市：專注于風(fēng)險防范的脆弱社會/Risk city: a vulnerable society that concerns preventing the‘worst’

8 奧斯曼的巴黎改造/The Hassemann Plan, Paris

9 羅馬輸水渠：人類文明進步的標(biāo)志/Roman aqueducts: symbol of civilization progress

10 1933年芝加哥世界博覽會/Chicago in World Fair 1933

11 香港赤臘角新機場/New Hong Kong airport in Chep Lap Kok

12 太陽能：新技術(shù)將幫助人類避免發(fā)展對環(huán)境的無意識破壞/SolarEnergy: new technologies that help us progress from unintentionally influencing the environment

13 保羅. 克利：內(nèi)向人和外向人/Paul Klee: Ingrown man & Outgoing man

Consequently, in the newly conservative and fatalistic western urban discourse, plans that argue for ambitious, transformational change are increasingly frowned upon, while the likes of New Urbanist movement is celebrated for its “modesty of ambition”[9].Instead of human progress, there is a sense that survival or creating ‘local resilience’ is all that can be hoped for. Indeed, where once designers sought through urbanisation to expand human networks and increase the human presence across the planet,environmentalists today fantasise about scaling down and disconnecting from large scale human networks.Instead of the maximising ambitions that once celebrated global connections, integrated supply chains, and a sophisticated international division of labour, today's survivalist mentality feeds a desire to opt out－to go‘off grid’, and to confine communities to the use of local materials or locally produced food.Underlying this approach is the desire to shrink human influence on the world, or as one environmentalist puts it, ‘to make humanity invisible’. The bestselling book The World Without Us even anticipates a posthuman future where cities are re-colonised by nature.

The Rise and Rise of the Sustainability Police

Such hostility to modernity and the notion of human progress has served to transform the culture and practice of urbanism in the West. In line with the environmentalist decree that mankind is reckless, destructive and wasteful,all aspects of development and urbanisation are now subject to a relentless series of environmental‘safety’tests that purport to establish whether proposals are‘sustainable’and therefore permissible. In contrast to the past where the starting point for thinking about development was the benefits that could be secured for mankind, for today’s sustainability police it is safeguarding natural systems that are the first and often defining consideration.

In England such thinking undermines the building of infrastructure like power plants, airports, roads and railways which are now subjected to endless consultation and risk assessments processes. For example, a new generation of nuclear power stations remains on the drawing board as sustainability advocates talk up the risks associated with contamination, terrorism, waste disposal and threats to bio-diversity. Indeed much of the energy focus has shifted from growing energy supply to increasing regulations, laws and cost in order to force individuals to cut their consumption. Transport infrastructure has also been undermined with the UK relying on a motorway systems that was largely completed half a century ago, and new high speed train lines are threatened by those hostile to development in the countryside. Even relatively simple projects such as road bridge over the London Thames river can be trapped in planning for a quarter of a century as environmentalists reject the social benefits of greater mobility and protest that emissions and traffic will inevitably increase, as if designers are no longer capable of innovating around such problems.[10]

The sustainability framework of risk management unfortunately serves to encourage speculation on what might be the worst possible outcomes of development as those opposed to a project inflate the potential for adverse environmental and safety impacts as a means of stopping projects going ahead[11]. According to one researcher, “communication which produces high fear can lead to sensible action”[12]. Yet the more important outcome of the sustainability approach is surely an urban imagination that becomes imprisoned－as risk

inflation itself has a paralysing effect, while encourages self-congratulatory feel good factor by those who the claim to be acting safely and responsibly in the face of the supposed threats.[13]Worryingly, an approach based on setting aside rational thinking and instead cranking up the levels of fear is really an invitation to defer to intuition and prejudice rather than to rely on human knowledge－the very attribute that successful design and planning surely rely upon. So how might designers escape from this downward spiral?

Cities and Civilisation

Some of the finest design relates to periods in history when humanity prospered through a heightened confidence in its ability to comprehend the world, and through doing so, acted to improve it. From the Renaissance onwards, as mankind came to understand its place at the centre of the universe, breakthroughs in cosmology, astronomy, and physiology exerted an enormous boost to human confidence that it could shape the future of society. The essence of the Florentine creative genius, for example, was a desire for constant experiment, constant improvement, and constant change.[14]

Florence is a city that is synonymous with the advance of civilisation. However, as the philosopher John Armstrong argues in his book In Search of Civilisation,[15]the concept of civilisation has become distinctly unfashionable in recent times. Armstrong offers some important pointers as to how we might think about the future of the city. The Latin word‘civis’is, he recaps, the root of‘city’. With the possible exception of God he argues, civilisation is the grandest, most ambitious idea that humanity has

devised. His liberal use of old fashioned words such as‘noble’,‘ideals’,‘beauty’, and‘truth’remind us that architecture and urban design were once noble arts, and that urban space benefitted from a commitment to spiritual prosperity embodied in civilised ideals.

Importantly, Armstrong argues there are two sides to the pursuit of civilisation; spiritual prosperity he points out is only possible in combination with the pursuit of material prosperity. There are many examples of how these forces can work together.Renaissance Florence itself was the richest city in Europe; financial services and innovations in the banking system were an important backdrop to the emergence of the boulevards and street life of Haussmann's Paris; and in Chicago, the frontier of American capitalism, grew for its famous skyscrapers and beautiful urban parks. Today, it has become fashionable in western discourse to frown upon material prosperity associated with civilisations and instead to celebrate ‘well-being’and ‘happiness’－two largely therapeutic concepts that have emerged at a time when many are dismissive of the benefits of material prosperity. But a search for civilisation argues Armstrong requires more than ‘happiness’ or a state of inner contentment. He offers a useful alternative as the more ‘a(chǎn)ctive’ notion of human ‘flourishing’.So how can we make use of this connection between cities and civilisation?

Expanding the human footprint

Use of the word‘civilisation’came into widespread use in Britain and France during the enlightenment years of the eighteenth century. One of the key ideas of the day was that human civilisation represented an improvement on the natural world, or the way that things just happened to be. It reflected a time when human society became more confident about its role in transforming nature to its advantage.

For much of human existence, mankind has been forced to adapt itself to nature. Certainly we learnt to survive in many inhospitable environments and could even adjust to fairly extreme circumstances whether hot, cold, wet, and dry. But in times when knowledge was relatively limited, and we lacked the ability to use too many natural resources, nature tended to form a barrier to human progress rather than aid it.

Human society and cities themselves truly started to flourish when humanity gained the ability to take more control of nature and started to organise the natural world to its advantage. For example, our ability to build aqueducts and piping systems to move water away from where it happens to gather and to retain it near where we want to use it has helped cities and their citizens prosper. Sometimes these solutions are merely functional; but as civilisation progressed,often they go way beyond what is needed to practically achieve our aims. The aqueducts that march across the countryside of southern France, or the Basilica Cistern beneath the streets of Istanbul are beautiful engineering solutions devised by human societies that were becoming confident in the knowledge of how to adapt the environment to its own needs.

At other times still, we do much more than adapt nature, we transform nature.[16]This process is writ large in the city of Chicago which in 1933 hosted a World Fair to celebrate the scientific triumphs of the telegraph, telephone, automobile, and airplane. Even in depths of the depression, the Fair reflected the optimism of a city that had modified nature to its advantage and in doing so conquered the forces that continually threatened its existence. Constructed on swampland, when the city started to sink buildings were literally jacked up out of the quagmire; when its topography and position on the Shores of Lake Michigan resulted in flooding and the contamination of water supplies, engineers reversed the flow of the river, built expansive canal systems, and, over time, the 110 mile long Deep Tunnel System water distribution system;after the city was destroyed by the 1871 fire, architects utilised fire proofed steel and new lift technology, to develop the skyscraper, the building typology that stands in determined defiance of gravitational forces.

One excellent example of the human ability to reorganise nature to its advantage comes in the form of the New Hong Kong Airport which has become the busiest international cargo terminal in the world and has played an important role in assisting the recent rapid growth in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region in South China. To build the airport the mountainous Chep Lap Kok and Lam Chau islands were flattened and then connected to create a whole new useable land mass within the sea that could support the new airport.Many miles of tunnels, bridges and roadways, including Tsingh Ma Bridge, the world’s longest span suspension bridge, were constructed to connect it to the mainland.

In the west today, such ambitious plans for transformation are not only notable by their absence,but very attempt to alter or control nature is now viewed as a symbol of human arrogance. At the start of her famous environmental tractSilent Spring, Rachel Carson claims there was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.[17]Yet Carson ignores the fact that agriculture and urbanisation developed precisely as an exercise in imposing human control over the natural world, modifying it in the process. As the writer Alain de Botton remarks‘nature's way is to corrode, melt,soften, stain’, and is ultimately‘opposed to the order that we rely on to survive’.‘The drive towards order’he asserts,‘reveals itself as synonymous with the drive towards life’.[18]In this sense, genuine resilience,and, more importantly, human progress, result from expanding the human footprint. Imposing human infrastructure certainly modifies the operation of nature. But it is this very process of extending human reach and control over the natural world that can bring social benefits including integrating more people into manmade networks. This is not to promote the wilful destruction of the natural world, but to recognise that giving up on the human centred project of mastering nature will leave us at the mercy of circumstances rather than able to benefit from controlling and exploiting the natural world.

However, the future city could also potentially benefit from radically new ways of expanding human influence. The extensive current research on the operation of natural systems does not merely serve to confirm anthropogenic climate change. More importantly, it boosts levels of human knowledge that could help us progress from unintentionally influencing the climate (as we have done in the industrial age),towards consciously controlling our influence. In this sense, geo-engineering and the development of new forms of energy infrastructure (whether nuclear,hydroelectric, solar, wave, wind or coal CCS), can be viewed as far more than just the means of reducing carbon emissions. Rather they represent aspects of macro-engineering advances that could help bring the natural world, including the climate, further within humanity's control.

Conclusion－Exploring the future

Writing in the late 1960’s, the American designer Edmund Bacon affirmed his belief that the city was an expression of the highest aspirations of our civilisation,But, he argued, when thinking about cities, there is a danger we are losing one of the most important concepts of mankind: the future is what we make it.In his survey of cities from Athens onwards, he reviewed how, time and again, designers developed, tested and perfected ideas that led them to humanise their environments, and illustrated that ‘the city was an act of human will’.

To promote an explorative, open ended approach,Bacon highlighted the work of the artist Paul Klee and presented the idea of Ingrown Man and Outgoing Man.It seems to us that today, Ingrown Man is the dominant figure. In Bacon's words, he‘is inward looking, selfconcerned and safe. He reduces contact with the outside world to a minimum avoiding exposure and involvement’. The alternative Bacon presents is Outgoing Man, a figure who is‘ebullient, involved,exposed in both his strengths and his frailties. He reaches for more than he has or knows, he leaps into space, aware of the possible consequences of a fail.’[19]

What Bacon seems to suggest is that the biggest barrier to be negotiated on the way to realising a better future is a cultural one－the collapse in belief that humanity has capacity to experiment with, and then implement new ideas, and through doing so, to impose its vision. Strange as it may seem, the lesson that can be drawn from Outgoing Man is that we need to rediscover the confidence to fail. To leap into space aware of the possibilities of failure signifies confidence that whatever the problems, humanity can emerge on the other side and reflect on the lessons... before trying again.□

注釋/Notes:

[1] “2012” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1190080/“Book of Eli” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037705/“The Road” http://pro.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/

[2] SUDJIC D. Cities on the Edge of Chaos[N]. Observer,2008-03-09.

[3] DAVIS M. Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster[M]. New York: Vintage, 1999.

[4] KLEFFEL R. Book Review: Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear[EB/OL]. [2010-05-10]. http://trashotron.com/agony/reviews/davis-ecology_of_fear.html.

[5] BECK U. World Risk Society[M]. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999.

[6] HAMMOND P. Media, War, Post-modernity [M].London: Routledge, 2007.

[7] HOMER-DIXON T. From Risk to Uncertainty[N/OL].Toronto Globe and Mail (2008-03-19) [2010-05-10].http://www.homerdixon.com/download/from_risk_to_uncertainty.pdf.

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