Awakening to the urban tsunami 345means continuing in a downward or worsening trajectory. ‘‘Entropy increases.”
‘‘ The second law is after us.” The region is maintained by regulations and laws
at the wrong scale, by indifference or lack of understanding, and by absence of
vision. No implementable big idea or vision appears to fight entropy. Like the
four giants above, the trajectory points toward crisis. Shadows creep across the
land.
Twoalternatives offer promise. Many people in their life want toimprove the
worldabit.Incrementalism, resulting from lots of people over time doing this,
can produce useful results. What are the likely results? The first is illustrated
by the reported responses of two leading environmentalists, when separately
interviewed (shortly before they died) about their major career accomplishments.
After brief reflection, each gave essentially the same response: ‘‘I think I slowed
therate of environmental degradation.” They did indeed. A more ambitious goal
would be to level off the trajectory of degradation so the world gets no worse.
Or better still, turn things around so the trajectory is positive. Most ambitious
would be to see a positive world. Incrementalism, while salutary, seems unlikely
toachieve these ambitious goals.
The second alternative for improving the world is a newvisionor vision-
ing approach, occasionally used in planning exercises. One outlines a tangible
vision of a positive future (e.g., for an urban region). Later the varied trajectories
togetfrom here to there can be considered. The vision is spatial, so planners,
decision-makers, and the public can all envision it. But the vision is outlined
in generic form without details. Sketching out a vision is hard, requiring clear
thought, broad perspective, and a big-picture solution. After undertaking the
vision approach once, I added scattered clouds superimposed over my outline
sketches to emphasize the difficulty in perceiving and portraying an optimal
future. The vision approach is strengthened by several or many people repre-
senting diverse fields and cultures, each outlining a vision and then comparing
and evaluating the results. Society should welcome the opportunity to select
among competing visions. Indeed the public often follows people with vision.
Periodically in this book we have met a rhino in the restaurant, kangaroo in
thekitchen, and bats in the bedroom. These beasts were rampaging about, while
wecarefully adjusted a rug here, wiped clean a spot there, and rearranged our
favorite trinkets. In our urban regions, a life-support system, the natural systems
upon which we depend daily and for our future, is being ravaged. Meanwhile
society concentrates on a housing development here, a new road there, or an
economic development project somewhere.
How could we miss the big picture before us? A giant bulldozer on automatic
rampaging over our most needed land. Scarcely a speck in the urban tsunami...