In his 1961 seminal publication, Jean Gottmann introduced the term Megalopolis to conceptualize the “postmetropolitan” forms of population concentration and economic activity that were crystallizing along the North-eastern Seaboard of the United States creating extensive agglomeration zones. Around the same time, Constantinos Doxiadis extended Gottmann’s concept to envision the further expansion of agglomeration zones, which would eventually create a global system of settlements that he called Ecumenopolis. But for both Doxiadis, and Gottmann, these emerging agglomeration patterns were only one side of the multifaceted urbanization process: The other was the much more extensive zones of primary production and circulation in support of these new urban forms of life. Gottmann dedicated a significant part of his Megalopolis study to investigate the specialization and industrialization of agricultural patterns that emerged in parallel with megalopolitan formations, while Doxiadis dedicated a significant part of his work on “Global Ecological Balance” to devise a land use plan for what he called the “real city of man:” the areas not just for settlement, but also for agriculture, mining, circulation, waste disposal and wildlife, the metabolic hinterlands of the urbanization process. Today, while settlement patterns – which are largely consolidated in megalopolitan formations – cover no more than 3% of the planetary land surface, these “other,” operational landscapes of agriculture, mining, forestry, circulation, and waste disposal that support urban life cover around 70% of the planetary terrain, constituting significant arenas for the development of sustainable futures. This contribution aims to revisit Gottmann’s and Doxiadis’ engagement with this “other” side of urbanization and position them as significant predecessors to contemporary debates around Planetary Urbanization, which aim to shed light to the transformation of this global hinterland.
Keywords: Planetary Urbanization|Operational Landscapes|Megalopolis|Ecumenopolis
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