290 Gathering the pieces
Theedge area just inside and outside the urban-region boundaryis a key zone
because sources are so close to, and effects so likely to cross, the boundary.
Boundary issues often require careful watching, as flows and movements can
quickly enter or leave a region. Often clusters of sources and flows can be iden-
tified at a number of locations around a region’s boundary that can be targeted
for management and solution (Formanet al.2004). Furthermore some urban-
region boundaries gradually expand or shrink. That may add, or remove, cer-
tain boundary issues from a region, and therefore noticeably alter the region’s
concern or responsibility for an issue.
Flows and movements originating from a metropolitan area or major por-
tions of an urban region are often more important than boundary issues. Upon
crossing a regional boundary, these flows may affect most of the edge portion
of a region or diffuse widely across the region. A particular urban region, of
course, focuses primarily on the flows entering rather than leaving. Yet, in a
broader multi-region context, entering and leaving effects are both important.
While interactions between adjoining regions are more obvious, distant
changes can also significantly affect an urban region. An economic giant that
sneezes may flood a distant region with certain goods, or open a big new market.
Agovernment policy change involving immigration or transportation type, for
instance, may strongly reverberate in a distant region. Environmental change
elsewhere may alter migratory bird patterns, livestock disease spread, public
health problems, or nature-based tourism. In short, this section highlights the
importance of three areas -- boundary edge zone, adjoining regions, and distant
regions -- for understanding the ecology and planning the future of an urban
region.Ability to extrapolate the Barcelona solutions
Ecologists generally do not count the needles on a giant spruce tree or
theeye-blinks of an eagle or the ants caught by an aardvark just to learn more
about the species. To do such analyses for even a thousandth of the species
on Earth would require eons of drinks from a ‘‘fountain of youth.” Rather, the
ecological measurements, along with the exhilaration of ecological discovery,
are mainly made to develop principles and theories that apply widely to other
species.
So it is with the detailed look at the Barcelona Region in the preceding chap-
ter(Forman 2004a). How many of the solutions outlined in it apply only to that
region? Do any of the solutions extrapolate effectively to cities around the world?
Any solution with wide applicability could be quite useful for understanding and
planning.