ABSTRACT - W.I.R.E - The Wire

Restoring
the Urban-
Rural
Relationship
Cities have always depended on the countryside and the relationship
has been one of extraction and depletion. This reflected
a mindset that was rooted in the belief that humans
could ultimately conquer nature. New approaches such as
biomimicry offer the potential for a reconciliation with nature
and a restorative approach to the land.
By Michael Pawlyn
Cities became possible when agriculture had advanced to
produce a significant surplus and increasing numbers of
people were released from the drudgery of food production.
Urbanism therefore has always depended on the
countryside and, for most of the last two millennia, that
relationship has been based on a highly extractive model of
land use. Perhaps the most striking example can be found
in Julius Caesar who, after exhausting the fertility of the
land within the empire as it then stood, embarked on a militarised
shopping trip to North Africa. What he found was
a wooded landscape covered with cedar and cypress trees.
Over a short period the forests were cleared and farms established.
For the next 200 years North Africa supplied the