Socioecological systems and human wellbeing (II): …and habitable, caring cities

It is well known that the increase in human population occurred in parallel to that of cities, back feeding the phenomenon of human “demographic success” which has led to overpopulation. At present, over half humanity already live in urban centres and conurbations. In the case of Spain, the situation is extreme: we are heading towards 80%. Only in the 15 largest cities in our country we find a quarter of all Spaniards. The remaining territory (90%) is home to the remaining population (20%) who live in rural areas that are facing a severe process of change (see the first part of the summary). Originally these multifunctional, rural areas enabled provision of cities and ensured basic ecological processes to this end. We turn our back on this reality when the link between respect and harmony and the healthy rural world loses importance for the dominant urbanite lifestyle.

The fact that humans are a part of nature becomes a diffuse reality in the daily life of the average inhabitant of modern cities; a highly technical constructed ecosystem which we have gradually stripped of nature in benefit of mass utility. But however artificial modern cities may be, their success will always depend on the provision of services by the ecosystems that city-dwellers need. The fact is that, currently, the majority of these services take place far away, using production methods with a high impact and in socially unfair conditions. The reason, the irrationality of urban expansion spurred on by speculation, systematically spoils the chances of producing such services locally in the city, or in the countryside around it which is gradually devoured rather than integrated. There is a double price to pay: a biophysical price, because our demands for evermore technical and industrialised services encourage an extreme intensification of the most productive ecosystems, trying to convert them into factories while we use up the natural capital in the process; and a spiritual price, because we are beings who crave nature and are part of it and we don’t function properly unless we experience intense daily relations of respect and affection with the other creatures and elements which make up nature.

We need to rethink the link with the rural world which sustains us from the city, again a double task: one is the socioecological management of peri-urban lands to integrate these two interdependent realities, tightening the bonds of affection and economy which tie us together; the other is the ruralisation and naturalisation of the urban ecosystem, cutting out consumer and individualistic habits and desires which devour us as people, to make it more habitable, human and communal.

[More information on the Evaluation of Millennium Ecosystems in Spain (EME): http://www.ecomilenio.es]