"...mein Acker ist die Zeit", Aufsätze zur Umweltgeschichte - Oapen

City and Nature (2007)
type of subsidization is possible only by using the market as an exchange place to
transform matter or money into energy or energy equivalents respectively ( e.g.
medieval Florence, since Tuscany could not produce sufficient grain for the subsistence
of the town population for the whole year). For transportation, cities rely on
traction power provided by domesticated animals (donkeys, oxen, horses, camels).
If such animals are not available, the development of cities is strongly hampered
(Precolumbian North America, Africa).
2.5 Information
Information (in any form, be it encoded in oral tradition or written sources or in
technical and manufacturing processes) is the clue to understanding the “nature”
and the “success” of cities as structures for organizing human issues. Cities should
meet those expectations first by their localization in the landscape, second by their
integration into city networks (the central place theory of Christaller 208), and third
by their interior organization. Cities should be accessible (with the exception of
defensive fortifications) for the purpose of informational exchange, which is provided
by connecting streets. (The improvement of arterial road constructions occurs
with strongly centralized kingdoms/empires (informational exchange) and an
increase in city populations (matter and energy flows).)
The female figures in Lorenzetti’s famous fresco in the town hall of Sienna, an
allegory for “life in the city,” represent peace, fortitude, prudence, magnanimity,
temperance, and justice, all being positive characters describing favorable living
conditions in a well-governed city. As an effect of the good government inside and
outside of the town, his fresco also allegorizes prosperity, happiness, security, and
orderly commerce. All these qualities result from informational processes between
city inhabitants and the principles of how they regulate living together.
Because of the high informational exchange and throughput (education) per
capita and per life history, cities are centers of research, innovation, and excellence.
The development of notation systems is linked to the emergence of cities. The
attraction of cities is based on the variety of and access to these information processes.
Obviously, cities are constantly remodeled in their infrastructure in order to
fit the required informational demands. Since early modern times cities have built
up archives of nature (e.g. the colonial archives of Seville and natural history museums)
and thus offered another possibility for decoupling cities from nature by
handling and processing information about natural entities by studying them off
site and – with the rise of sciences – increasingly “in vitro”.
Life in cities may benefit from informational processes (including judicial privileges)
but it might be endangered at the same time by the adaptability of the biological
information (i.e. genetic variation) of other organisms, since high popula-
208 Walter Christaller, a German geographer, outlined the influential “Theory of Central Places“ in
1933.
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