Defining and Responding to
Urban (dis) Order
Geography 3
Lesson Objective:
define urban disorder
discuss how to respond to urban
disorder
Urban Development
Urban Development
the work of planning and
organizing the city and
territory, is characterized by a
strong vocation to impose
order.
https://business.inquirer.net/files/2019/11/urban1.jpg
Urban Development
When an urban planning instrument defines what, where, when
and how it is possible to "realize" some change in the organisation
of space it ends up modifying what exists and imposing a new
kind of "order".
This order has a variety of aspects, including the indications of
“meaning” space organization produces.
Urban Development
giving order to settlement, is extremely ancient and arose with the
first settlements, even though the discipline was codified in
modern times.
from an activity without a code that responded to social, economic
and life requirements and ones based on functionality and
representation, to a discipline often based on self-determination. ‎
Urban Development
The cultural history of the discipline highlights a focus on functional
order, yet it also encompasses social structure, co-habitation,
power, culture, and sacred and profane rites within cities and
territories.
Each kind of urban order, in its divisions and construction, may
have been the source of conflicts, oppression, liberation,
marginalisation and exaltation (Indovina 2016).
Why do cities remain untidy despite
efforts to impose order?
Order and Disorder in Urban and
Territorial Issue
Cultivated Land
shows us a tidy territory
this comes directly down from
the organization of agricultural
production,
from
the
techniques used in the social
relations characterizing farming
work and orography of the
territory.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.istockphoto.com%2Fphotos%2Fcultivatedland&psig=AOvVaw2ZOvjOoymbefIg_Lg1wS3i&ust=1752677109462000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBUQjRxqFwoTCNDbupeNv44DFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
Orography
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.britannica.com%2Fscience%2Forographicprecipitation&psig=AOvVaw2RMNYYXBL8VQFrFtyKVEG7&ust=1752678135261000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBgQjhxqFwoTCNiQy5KRv44DFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
Cultivated Land
The crops compatible with the different
heights above sea-level, serves the
purpose of spatial design; its
appearance , colors, scents change
with the change of seasons or the
change in production and technology
adopted.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.istockphoto.com%2Fphotos%2Fcultivatedland&psig=AOvVaw2ZOvjOoymbefIg_Lg1wS3i&ust=1752677109462000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBUQjRxqFwoTCNDbupeNv44DFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
Cultivated Land
Basically, there is a "strength",
agricultural production, with very limited
alternatives, giving particular spatial
solutions.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.istockphoto.com%2Fphotos%2Fcultivatedland&psig=AOvVaw2ZOvjOoymbefIg_Lg1wS3i&ust=1752677109462000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBUQjRxqFwoTCNDbupeNv44DFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
Cultivated Land
"Dry walls" are practical solutions for using stones from ploughing.
Land reclamation enhances spatial construction.
Canals and ditches direct water where needed.
Rows of trees consolidate their banks.
Lanes and farm roads facilitate movement of people, animals, and
machinery based on necessity.
Spatial Order in the Country
Often admired, is the result of a
need; it satisfies that expressed by
production which presents very
limited alternatives.
Change is not excluded (crop
variation,
agrarian
science
achievements,
use
of
new
technologies, etc.); the point may
even be reached of building a new
agrarian landscape with order that
is different.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.localfutures.org%2Fagrivillages-interview-james-skinner%2F&psig=AOvVaw2kOly89Pgi05s062PUyzR&ust=1752720586523000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCIDam5KvwI4DFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
Spatial Order in the Country
Cultural movements linked with tradition sometimes
oppose these changes, harming the intrinsic nature of
the agrarian landscape, which is destined to change.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fproutglobe.org%2F2019%2F01%2Fagrarian-revolution-andupff%2F&psig=AOvVaw0uC61ukuhO5QGVD3taPHS6&ust=1752713126590000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBUQjRxqFwoTCOC4tvmTwI4DFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
Spatial Order in the Country
Needs and reduced alternatives may be considered key
categories in determining the agrarian landscape, but we
are not dealing with two categories that could be imagined
to be playing the same role in determining the urban
landscape.
In the city, needs are diverse and varied, lacking the
compelling nature found in rural settings. These needs are
compatible with multiple alternatives and different urban
organization models.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.minneapolisfed.org%2Farticle%2F2024%2Fbig-city-higherpay&psig=AOvVaw3v7YhBblVbvKgkUGyhHS5V&ust=1752715664349000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBUQjRxqFwoTCPCryPCcwI4DFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
The urban condition is defined by the organization of
production rather than its absence. Key features include:
Greater presence of diverse functions
Greater unnaturalness of the context
Integration and antagonism among functions
High concentration of people with varied characteristics,
projects, needs, and desires, reflecting differences in power
(economic, social, cultural, political) that influence urban
organization.
If each function left a "footprint" on
urban territory, it could lead to chaotic
overlaps influenced by various parties.
Although urban plans are intended to
guide
these
footprints,
their
effectiveness
is
questionable.
Additionally, the evolving needs of
individual entities, shaped by their
interactions, affect how these needs
align
with
opportunities
and
encounters among them.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.urbanismnext.org%2Fresources%2Furban-footprint&psig=AOvVaw2ZQ9RZYi7nMKY_IDedrqq&ust=1752719599292000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBUQjRxqFwoTCJCa9serwI4DFQAAAAAdAAAAABAV
It should be pointed out once more
that while for the country order is
imposed by production, for the city,
as well as production, the multiplicity
of social subjects are important, as
is the prominence of the service
functions, events, needs, etc. that
are projected onto the organization
of space."
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fin.pinterest.com
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmicrodata.fao.org%2Findex.ph
Urban space organisation requires a spontaneous directive;
agricultural order, we might say, is given, while urban order has to be
constructed."
Urban order involves considerations such as:
Ensuring hygiene and climate-appropriate design
Supporting productive and economic activities
Representing power
Addressing citizens' life needs
Differentiating areas by social strata
Developing and locating services
Avoiding incompatible functions
“Contemplation that is not always consistent,
not always progressive, and not always
attentive to the general interest.”
The history of the city teaches how
changeable it can be, in its shape and
organisation, and how the change is the
fruit, mainly, of change in social
structure, production organisation and
power organisation itself."
=
Example: More young families = more
schools needed
https://www.google.com/imgres?q=more%20young%20families
https://www.google.com/imgres?q=school%20built%20in%20philippines&imgurl
Urban space organisation appears as
a 'passive' outcome of these
changes, not as being determined by
a factor that imposes change."
The dynamics of a city must consider
its "hard" aspects, such as its built
environment, history, and its works.
New developments should integrate
into the existing context, ideally
respecting the past.
Vigan City
Lingayen Capitol
. https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fphilippines.un.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fseepangasinan.com
Change is at the same time destructive and protective; the
present also has elements of the past and, fortunately, elements of
the future (which we are not perhaps able to recognise)."
Protective- it saves or improves some parts of the city (like
preserving history or building better services)
Destructive- it can remove or ruin important parts (like erasing
culture or displacing people)
Urban organization actually undergoes the effects of
continuous alternation between order and disorder.
In the context in which the
two concepts will be used
in this paper, it is not
possible to imagine them
as alternatives, but they
are taken as dialectically
constituting reality.
"Order" and "disorder" oppose each other but do not clash
with each other.
VS
Order
Disorder
In the hectic organisation of urban and territorial reality one
stimulates the other and each, in opposing, determines
change.
The tendency towards order seeks to "repair" disorder while
simultaneously creating conditions for disorder to re-emerge,
highlighting the inherent vitality in change.
Order and disorder are closely linked with each other,
one producing the other in a circular process.
They resemble Siamese twins, where
one seeks comfort for itself, which may
not be comfortable for the other. The
second then adjusts for its own comfort,
potentially
making
the
first
uncomfortable.
This metaphor illustrates the continuous,
non-linear relationship between order
and disorder, suggesting stability may
never be achieved.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fthe-amazing-american-story-of-the-original-siamese-twins1522334784&psig=AOvVaw38RRnDOKi42LT1iZCHgQIw&ust=1752759040184000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBUQjRxqFwoTCLCi8vi-wY4DFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
The Siamese twins' dialectic highlights
the complexities of order and disorder,
leading to numerous dilemmas and
consequences.
A comfortable position for one twin can
create discomfort for the other, meaning
no
position
satisfies
both
simultaneously.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Conjoined_X-ray.jpg
Imposed order implies stability and aims for both immediate
and future goals. However, this is contradicted by the dynamic
nature of territorial processes, which involve unpredictable
changes and movements.
The
economic,
social,
demographic,
cultural,
technological and power mechanisms involving the city and
territory are of such an innovative impact that they cannot but
cause change, i.e. a challenge to the pre-existing order. But
there is more, the irruption of change, namely disorder, should
be taken as positive or at least investable.
Urban Order and Living Conditions
If we were to assume that the
enforcement of order were aimed at
improving the organisation of the city
and territory and ultimately at
improving the living conditions of
those inhabiting and ‘using’ that
territory, we would need to consider
any challenge to order as a
prospective worsening of those
living conditions
https://www.ftadviser.com/investments/2024/09/12/which-cities-are-shaping-the-new-world-economic-order/
Disorder as Innovation
But it does not seem to be like
this, not only because disorder
arises round those who have
settled in the city or territory and
use it, with the prospect of
improving their condition, but
above all because the inevitable
innovation may, in general, be
considered ameliorative.
https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/street-vendors-have-a-lot-to-teach-us-about-how-urban-space-works
The City as a Complex Design
Highly complex economic,
social,
political
and
cultural
designs
are
projected onto the city and its
transformations.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/creating-inclusive-equitable-cities-snaptrude-5js9f
No One Can Fully Control the City
It is impossible that the city be
domesticated and dominated by a
single interest, even when this
appears as strong, and when it
avails itself of the strength of
economic and political power.
https://www.thoughtco.com/democracy-definition-and-examples-5084624
Order Emerges from Conflict and Compromise
The overall design always seems
incoherent or, rather, is the
outcome of compromises between
different interests and strong
points. But from these strengths,
their compromise, their agreement
or
disagreement,
from
the
conflicts, the city takes shape and
gives itself organisation, a type of
order.”
https://www.investors.com/news/management/leaders-and-success/goal-setting-how-to-reach-multiple-goals-that-conflict-with-each-other/
Urban Order is Full of Contradictions
“Fundamentally, urban order is not independent from the
requirements of various kinds (economic, social, cultural
and of life) that the city produces; but none of these needs
tends to fully prevail, precisely due to the opposing dialectics of
the various requirements; urban order is not the outcome of
mediation between the various requirements but, rather, gives
rise to a solution that includes spaces for the interests of each
to be realized, whilst simultaneously leaving antagonistic
spaces.”
Urban Order is Dynamic
Order… seconds evolution but, at the same time, creates
contradictions.
Order in a city doesn’t mean stillness or peace. It means
constant movement, change, and contradiction. A truly urban
order allows for both structure and disruption. It supports
development, but it also contains the seeds of conflict,
innovation, and transformation.
Question?