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

City and Nature (2007)
dynamic structure. Urban ecosystems are superimposed by “cultural” (informational)
structures (see Table 2). Urban systems depend on the hinterland (sometimes
for specific materials or energy equivalents by extreme extension of the hinterland,
i.e. extending the hinterland even into other continents).
Table 2. Ecological Character of “Natural” and “Urban” Ecosystems. Source: Adapted
from Padberg, Die Oase aus Stein (1994)
„NATURAL“ ECO-
„URBAN“
SYSTEMS
ECOSYSTEMS
system factors abiotic, biotic abiotic, biotic, cultural
self-organization of no self regulation
interrelation of producers, consumers,
and reducers
regulation processes
spatial entity spatial segregation
state of equilibrium between produc- balanced overbalance of consumers
ers, consumers, and reducers
outsourcing of producers and
reducers
material cycling closed (“recycling”) no, discharge
energy flow natural
processes to regulate material cycles
and energy flows
This ecosystemic comparative approach seems to suggest an opposition between
“natural” and “urban”. But in reality this comparison is not between “natural” and
“artificial” or “cultural”, but merely describes the differences between systems by
discrimination. Since the vast majority of humans tend to live in a specific (urban)
environment that maintains and enhances the reproductive success of the human
species, overall urban environments are not “artificial” in terms of being unfavorable
to or even against human biology or human ecological principles. On the
contrary, they support and improve human interests. Thus “cities” should be considered
a specific invention to benefit and serve human ecological demands. In this
respect, it is not decisive that urban life depends on a number of technical inventions
(cultural protheses) that help to accelerate all informational (cultural) processes
in cities. But it is decisive that the human species has been able so far to provide
such inventions to fend off many unfavorable conditions from human life –
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natural, but moderated;
also artificial, subsidised by
fossil energy
natural partly natural, but moderated
by humans
partly anthropogenic
abiotic spatial features natural anthropogenic modified
organismic community natural successions anthropogenic modified
change slow fast