{"id":12339,"date":"2012-10-21T15:52:44","date_gmt":"2012-10-21T19:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/challengedetroit.org\/blog\/jasonzogg\/?p=31"},"modified":"2012-10-21T15:52:44","modified_gmt":"2012-10-21T19:52:44","slug":"an-approach-for-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/an-approach-for-success\/","title":{"rendered":"An Approach for Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is fifth in a series: 5 Key Elements of Great Cities<\/em><\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

An Approach for Success<\/strong><\/p>\n

This five part series identifies and explores the 5 key elements of great cities. Not good cities or\u00a0mediocre\u00a0cities or predictable cities, or normal cities, but great<\/span> cities. So far I have explored a Framework for Understanding Cities, A Vision for the Future, A Mindset for Greatness, and Assets for Strength.\u00a0None of these elements are inherently useful in isolation without all of the rest. The 5 elements of great cities are highly interdependent.\u00a0Assuming a city is able to excel at the first four of these key elements, what is its approach, or\u00a0implementation\u00a0methodology that will result in success? What is its process?<\/p>\n

In one word, Ekistics<\/strong><\/a>. Great cities may not have explicitly called their approach or implementation\u00a0methodology\u00a0Ekistics<\/em>, but that is\u00a0inherently\u00a0what great cities do over time.\u00a0Ekistics is a science developed by Constantinos A. Doxiadis<\/a>, an influential international architect and urban planner from Greece in the mid 20th century.\u00a0Ekistics is defined as the science of human settlements. It is a comprehensive method of viewing and analyzing human settlements from every possible level of analysis\u2014all scales of human habitation.\u00a0Ekistics is an often overlooked method of stepping back and re-evaluating large systems in an effort to understand how everything may optimally function together and better relate to eachother. The Ekistics approach can be applied to problems both in planning and adapted to other disciplines too.\u00a0\u00a0Each level of analysis gave Doxiadis a better understanding of the whole picture. Doxiadis approached every project with this holistic perspective, looking at every aspect, every human interaction, and every interrelationship.\u00a0In Ekistics, there is no scale of analysis too large or too small. Doxiadis developed a 15 level Ekistic Logarithmic Scale from which he analyzed most of his projects. Great cities are able to\u00a0effectively\u00a0use an Ekistics approach to step back and evaluate each of these scales of analysis and understand how each of components discussed in the\u00a0first post of this series<\/a>\u00a0(social, economic, political, and physical – [both natural and built]) interact with each other at each Ekistics scale, and across scales.<\/p>\n

The five basic levels of Ekistics analysis are: nature, anthropos (humans), society, shells (buildings) and networks<\/em>, and each of these are further divided into more specific scales. Specific scales of analysis relevant to most 21st century planners include: Anthropos (humans), room, building, streetscape, building group, neighborhood, polis, region, and megalopolis\/ecumenopolis.<\/em> A megalopolis is defined as a thickly populated region centering in a metropolis or embracing several metropolises. Doxiadis coined the word Ecumenopolis to describe the eventual fusing of worldwide megalopolises into a singular continuous global city surrounding \u201cUtilidors\u201d of transportation, communication, and utilities.<\/p>\n

Doxiadis went further by noting that:\u00a0\u201cIn shaping his settlements, man has always acted in obedience to five principles: In the fifth principle, man organizes his settlements in an attempt to achieve an optimum synthesis of the other four principles<\/em>….When he has achieved this by creating a system of floors, walls, roofs, doors, and windows which allows him to maximize his potential contacts<\/em> (first principle) while minimizing the energy expended<\/em> (second principle) and at the same time makes possible his separation from others<\/em> (third principle) and the desirable relationship with his environment<\/em> (fourth principle), we speak of “successful human settlements<\/strong>“. What we mean is settlements that have achieved a balance between man and his man-made environment, by complying with all five principles.\u201d<\/p>\n

What if we stopped and re-thought the entire experience of human settlements (also known as cities) from the beginning to the end, looked at cities as a holistic experience which is composed of many details, using\u00a0scales of analysis from the smallest to the largest in order to\u00a0comprehensively\u00a0understand the complete interactions and interrelationships? Small piecemeal planning efforts in\u00a0silos\u00a0are produced by narrow understandings of how things relate to each other. A city is a complete working system. Ekistics is the best way to evaluate and create a series of systems which work together to form a cohesive unit, and function properly together.<\/span> Understanding relationships and roles within larger context at multiple scales can help us make better decisions, maximizing opportunities, minimizing risks, and better\u00a0fulfilling\u00a0society’s needs and wants.<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking at social,\u00a0economic\u00a0 political, and physical frameworks of cities comprehensively through the lens of ekistics is all about understanding and laying out relationships. Detroit, and all cities that have faced significant extended decline may be perfectly suited to show the practical nature of planning simultaneously at multiple scales.\u00a0With so much systemic dysfunction among social, economic, political and especially physical systems in Detroit, it is clear that the way Detroit was originally designed or the way Detroit has always done things is not working, and massive change is necessary. This very need, or opportunity calls for a total approach. Thankfully, there is an impressive entity that is utilizing this total approach, although not calling it Ekistics, and that is the brilliant planners at the DetroitWorks Project Long-Term Framework Plan<\/a>.\u00a0“This will\u00a0be an action-oriented Strategic Framework Plan for decision-making that includes a physical vision, public policy suggestions, strategies and implementation responsibilities. It will help guide our community with strategy recommendations that can transform our weaknesses into strengths and build upon existing assets in all areas of our city over the next\u00a05-to-20-years.” It\u00a0will serve as Detroit’s official framework plan that will help guide businesses, investors, neighborhoods, community organizations, philanthropic groups, and other NGO’s in their decision making, funding, and actions for the next 5-20 years.<\/p>\n

What are the outcomes of an Ekistics approach?<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0An Ekistics approach to problem solving results in social, economic, political and physical systems which are more comprehensive, resilient, effective, efficient, attractive, accessible, balanced, purposeful, non-rivalrous, deliberate\/intentional, sustainable, economical,\u00a0desirable,\u00a0reliable,\u00a0expeditious, optimized and of course\u00a0successful.<\/p>\n

In a sense, Ekistics highlights the very basic definition of planning: understanding optimal relationships. Planning is all about relationships: between people and public space, relationships between one\u00a0transportation\u00a0mode and another mode, relationships at the borders of communities, relationships between land development and the environment, relationships between land use and transportation, relationships between natural resources and public policy. Ekistics is at the heart of planning<\/em>.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

In Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

I will end this initial series which deeply explored “5 key elements of great cities” with a quote from Constantinos A. Doxiadis, one of the greatest urban planning minds of all time, and perhaps one of the only truly global planners, a quote I have always found to be an inspiring summary of what planners aspire to:<\/p>\n

“What human beings need is not utopia (‘no place’) but entopia (‘in place’), a real city which they can build, a place which satisfies the dreamer and is acceptable to the scientist, a place where the\u00a0projections\u00a0of the artist and the builder merge.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is fifth in a series: 5 Key Elements of Great Cities ______________________________________________ An Approach for Success This five part series identifies and explores the 5 key elements of great cities. Not good cities or\u00a0mediocre\u00a0cities or predictable cities, or normal cities, but great cities. So far I have explored a Framework for Understanding Cities, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts-on-cities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}