The City as a Network

Abstract
The hypothesis in this paper is that the ideas and principles of linear cities, emerging in late 19th century and developing during the first half of 20th century, can be looked upon in a forward looking perspective as contributions to contemporary urban strategies.

Throughout the 20th century, the major tendency has been the population’s relocation from the country to the city. In developing countries, the development has clearly been towards major cities while growth in industrialised countries has spread out through the entire urban system, including minor urban developments. A key consideration for whether architecture contributes to sustainable development will be proper localisation. Localisation and globalisation are closely connected through the concept of sustainable development – and the global perspective is at the same time the terms and the objective.
Architecture, its localisation and urban development in the wealthy industrialised countries is today characterised by what could be called excessive relative urbanisation: density primarily achieved through communication and transport – and to a lesser degree by way of suitable localisation of architecture. This relative urbanisation is highly resource demanding and a crucial part of the problem with regard to sustainable development. In developing countries, the situation can be called excessive absolute urbanisation: a simple accumulation or build-up in space of e.g. population. Here density is created through an increasing concentration of people in a smaller area, without necessarily being followed by increased interaction by way of increased infrastructure. Both situations are interdependent through globalisation and in the long term, neither situation is sustainable.
The relevance of discussing linear city principles today concerns the need of flexible urban structures, saving land, transportation and energy. The ideas of linear cities can be seen as a compromise between concentrated cities and garden cities, making coherence between public transportation and the physical lay-out of the city.
The paper will submit on two levels: the first level will investigate linear city contributions from modernism, especially the circle of CIAM and Le Corbusier, and discuss sustainability through localisation. The second level will propose principles, models and diagrams of new urban development viewed upon as strings and nets, based on flow and connections. Like the flow of the city – traffic, streets, cables, rivers – has always been a net, it is proposed that the city itself takes the form of a net so as to optimize urban, dense city relations and transportation lengthwise and, crosswise, to optimize green area relations.