[p2p-research] paragraph on p2p urbanism in furtherfield interview

[Michel Bauwens]

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/lawrence-bird-interviews-michel-bauwens-about-creation-the-city-and-p2p-dynamics/2010/12/24

*One interesting question is what forms of urbanism come out of p2p
thinking. The movement is in the process of thinking this through, in fact a
definition of p2p urbanism was just published by the “Peer-to-peer Urbanism
Task Force” (http://p2pfoundation.net/Peer-to-Peer_Urbanism). This promotes,
in general terms, bottom-up rather than centrally planned cities;
small-scale development that involves local inhabitants and crafts; and a
merging of technology with practical experience. All resonant in various
ways with p2p approaches. But this statement also provokes a few questions:
It calls for an urbanism based on science and function; in fact it
explicitly promotes a biological paradigm for design. At the risk of
over-categorizing, isn’t this a modernist understanding of design — or if
not, how is it different? This document also refers to specific schools of
urban design: Christopher Alexander, and also New Urbanism. On the side of
socio-economics though, New Urbanism has been criticized (for example in
David Harvey’s Spaces of Hope); some see it as nostalgic and in the end
directed at a narrow segment of the population. Christopher Alexander’s work
on urban form has also been criticized as, being based on consensus,
restrictive in its own ways. In fact, might not p2p principals call for
creation of spaces that allow dissent and even shearing-off from the
mainstream? Might there be a contradiction built into trying to accommodate
the desires for consensus and for freedom? Contradiction can be a source of
vitality, certainly in art; but it can raise some tensions when you get to
built form and a shared public realm.*

I cannot speak for the bio- or p2p urbanism movement, which is itself a
pluralistic movement, but here’s what I know about this ‘friendly’ movement.
I would call p2p urbanism not a modernist but a transmodernist movement. It
is a critique of both modernist and postmodern approaches in architecture
and urbanism; takes critical stock of the relative successes and failings of
the New Urbanist school; and then takes a trans-historical approach, i.e. it
critically re-integrates the premodern, which it no longer blankly rejects
as modernists would do. I don’t think that makes it a nostalgic movement,
but rather it simply recognizes that thousands of years of human culture do
have something to teach us, and that even as we ‘progressed’, we also lost
valuable knowledge. Finally, I think there is a natural affinity between the
prematerial and post-material forms of civilization. The accusation of
elitism is I think also unwarranted, given what I know of the work of
bio-urbanists amongst slumdwelling communities. However, I take your
critique of consensus very seriously, without knowing how they answer that.
You are right, that is a big danger to guard for, and one needs to strive
for a correct balance between agreed-upon frameworks, that are community and
consensus-driven, and the need for individual creativity and dissent.
Nevertheless, compared to the modernist prescriptions of functional
urbanism, I don’t think that danger should be exaggerated.


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