Andrey Levkin: Cities now: horror or will we get used to it?

On September 26, Zavtra hosted the public discussion Polit.ru with the participation of the editor of the magazine Esprit Olivier Mongin , the chief architect of Moscow Sergei Kuznetsov and the director of the Moscow Institute of Social and Cultural Programs of Viktor Vakhstein . Here is one, but the main plot.

The discussion took place as part of the Russian-French cycle "mutating reality". The topic is formulated simply: how do the cities change? As usual, we will have a transcript and video of the discussion (and Kuzentsov is already on the site on the site). Here - not a brief retelling with a comment, but, or something, a separate story, which - obviously without saying a word, was jointly made by Monzhen and Vakhstein.

They, in turn, made a number of statements regarding the current meaning of cities. All these statements destroyed the traditional concept of the city. But this does not matter, since new chips are added to traditional concepts, which, in principle, can produce a new meaning in the city. But only so far they have been produced, and it is possible that it is precisely this incompleteness that will become a new idea of ​​the subject. Yes, confused, but now everything will be clarified.

Olivier Monzhen

Monzhen began by the fact that for the Frenchman globalization is economic problems. He himself adds a political component, and referring to the "explosion of technology". There is a simple morality: no one can hide and hide, no country can. Because IT technologies. The space becomes virtual, this also applies to cities.

Further: " I want to pose a problem: I am a Parisian, someone lives somewhere else. What is a city for a European? He has a deep democratic meaning. He allows people to integrate into this space ... " He had a description of the lost paradise.

The city is primarily its borders. " But now the city has no boundaries, they are in one way or another dissolve ." “Lyrics:“ To compare with the octopus, the cities are expanding, grinding all new territories under themselves, forming megalopolis spaces. The city acquires other borders. When you go from Sheremetyev, you see that they are ghostly. At least you have at least forests. But I was riding from Shanghai on the train ... There was not a single tree, where are the city structure and there is an endlessly and in the end. City space, which is no longer a city . " Uniform, in general, agglomeration.

How can such a territory be considered as a city? How to manage it? " There is a project of Big Paris, then I will tell you why it does not work ."

At the same time, the system of political management of the city does not always exist (in a heap of places of Africa there is no NKIAKH at all a project for the development of cities), so that the city cannot be determined on this side. In addition, the problem of the city’s border is connected not only with its spray: the external border becomes ghostly, but (in a bad sense) inside the city begin its divisions and internal boundaries. Yes, at least in the option of sleeping areas that are separated from the city center. Once again, the lyrics: " On the one hand, unlimited space, and on the other, is the separation. All over the world the city grow, lose their features, but are separated inside. Like the Favella, like Bidonvili and so on. Mumbai generally consists of individual quarters ."

It was a physical variant of borders, but there are mythological, "each city has its own legends." Such legends can only be in this place, so the city is indirectly determined by them. In addition, the city simultaneously " a combination of purity and what people do not show. The mythological facade and poor quarters ." In general, Monene turns out to be curious: it seems to be a real lyrics, but in the end - a harsh truth. " Not only that, there are just cities-vitrins, Astana is a vitrine city, in fact, people live there differently. Vladivostok made a window during ATES ... "

All about globalization in urban development: at the beginning of the 20th century, 8% of the population lived in cities, now - 60%. And this is only in one century: "Perhaps we somehow lose the meaning of living, we live - the eyes of an anthropologist - too fast. The issue of speed is the most important question ." In this regard, China: " Our cities grew slowly, over time, and new cities do not have time to comprehend themselves, in the same China they grow too quickly. We have an anthropological gap - and this, in principle, is a general tendency. None of the researchers already speaks of the city. Now another concept is" urban space ", the space that allows the city’s experience, no more ." And this is already everywhere, for all the difference between Europe and China.

The main difference between them is this: in China, everything is done, if only not to let in the cities of rural migrants. They need registration there, something like registration. Because it is not just a status, " being a citizen in China is to have the right to education, health care ." But when the country has more than a billion inhabitants, then the occupancy of cities must be adjusted. And in Europe and the USA, on the contrary: people leave the city. The traditional city experiences pressure from all sides, the city has become unbearable for its own. As a result, " nomads now live in the cities, the city - like Los Angeles - is something ghostly and uncertain " - it means that no one else has been settled for life, " we are all migrants and nomads there ." And the townspeople leave the city and go to some invented villages, not in the present, of course, to the post-city. In a word, everyone has differently, but the meaning goes from everywhere.

But this is no longer a lyrics from any side: the growth of the population at the same time causes the problems of warming, ecology. The process of urbanization is subject to everything - even where there is no acceptance of this case. The desertification of Africa is associated with urbanization, it is noticeable in the north of Russia.

Technologies. The world is urbanized because it is connected - the digital revolution (apparently, as follows from the following words, the manger had in mind not just digital, but also network). At the same time, in the modern city, space is organized as in the virtual world. That is, the main thing is communication issues: connection and access - airports, stations, etc. - In the city, everything is tied to nodal points. And who is not connected, he (for example, this is the very Favels in Brazil) - they live outside the connections, out everything. This is the virtual spatial organization corresponds to how the space is realized in reality.

But there is a nuance. The audience still does not come to such communication nodes, are they simply unfolding access? Where? In public spaces, to the places of cultural leisure, in hospitals, finally. The question of communication is an access issue, and this is the central topic for both virtual networks and real ones. But here is the same "Arab Spring": everyone is in the same square and it does not matter whether there is a virtual social network or it is not. This is a question of the city network, its central place of communication. Hence the need to find in the city a square, space, an empty place and this is a matter of democracy, which is inseparable from the city.

Now everything needs to be returned to the horse. Once in the Middle Ages, as Le Goff wrote, urban space was not built against, but near the village. She, in turn, realized herself in relation to the forest or desert. In the current globalization, it is necessary to re -build a city, a village, a forest, and a desert. The main thing is flows in the most important places. Private becomes more important than public due to new connectedness. But all this is inferior to the logic of separation. What can be done with this, in what way of city management? Who generally controls the city? And this is not at all the same as managing the state, it is a different model.

It should not be considered that there is a sort of “American globalization”, when everything is done everywhere-and can be done in one way. Yes, everywhere you can find similar pieces of cities, but these are only parts of the city. The showcase part, nothing more. But there are no general solutions. There is only a common problem - to reduce speed. Calm the streams. Advertess the context in a changed city. For example, Dubai is a city without context. Those who finances it themselves do not live there. The question is to recreate the city context. Probably, already local territorial communications should be considered: in France, for example, this is a small local commune. To come up with and determine the city space - this is an urgent problem.

Victor Vakhstein

He defined his Messid as the “notes on the fields” of the Monzhon’s performances and began by the fact that how exactly the cities can be meaningful, bearing in mind - how is our way of perceiving this place formed? There was a quote from Lefera, " Silence of users of space ." This refers to the thesis that "the city is a machine that constructs your gaze and hides it from you ." A little differently - the urban space forms you, hiding at the same time that it does and, in the end, it seems natural that it is not such. For example, " shops in the Central Park of New York, it seems to you that they are just so that it is convenient to sit on them-no, they are made so that the homeless could not sleep on them ." Here, I admit, I don’t even know: shops like shops, I have not seen any special obstacles to lying on them. They probably are different there, the park is large.

The second quote from Heidegger, about the swiftness of movements - the concept of "Dali" has disappeared, there were no remote places left. In principle, if there is money, then airplanes fly anywhere, per day can be reached anywhere. " But when the distance disappears, it disappears by proximity, when this disappears" terribly far away " - there is also no fact that they are truly close. They always work as an opposition ." In this, in fact, the result of globalization, the city ceases to be the space of intimacy. There is nothing left that would be constantly close.

The third quote from John Loo. An ordinary city exists in physical space, but world cities are not related to its physical, territorial place. World, meta-city are not connected with the territory around them, but with each other. Moscow, for example, is formed not where it is located. Its, as an object, forms a system of relations that lie outside its boundaries. In this sense, she lives in a double world and is not the same in the physical space. The question is - what happens to the city that loses its physical core? Is this a city too?

Hence the problems of alienation: 60% of Muscovites do not feel belonging to this place. Not only visitors, indigenous too. The feeling of belonging to this place has been lost. " Moscow is an office city. This is the central office of the country, in the end you are not where your body is located. You are in negotiations with some suppliers from the regions, in relations with relatives on Skype. You are not actually here ."

How can you re-vocalize meta-city? How to make Moscow perceived again as a city? " If you make up the cognitive image of Moscow along the routes, you will not even get the place where a person lives - he perceives it as a place where he is sleeping. He perceives the city as routes - he is not in some place, he is on the road ."

At the same time, the lack of public spaces. " For twenty years, public spaces have been eradicated - including by political will. Manezhnaya Square, altered in such a way. To destroy the space that is potentially dangerous. It was an order for the murder of a public place." Moreover, the task of turning Moscow into a place where proximity is possible again is complicated by the fact that it is impossible to use someone’s experience. For a banal reason: there is no language for this. Half of the terms relating to the public environment in the Russian language is simply not. How, say, translate Civic Center? And if there are no concepts, then there is no tool that can work.

Moreover, “ Moscow is not a city that lives in history. It is a city that intends to live in eternity, which is why it is a very utopian imagination. There are many utopias of different eras - they are imposed on each other. The history of Moscow consists of ruins of utopias, and they support everyday utopia .” At the same time, there are no assembly points of local communities - and, accordingly, there is no way to establish a relationship between the utopian imagination and the practice of these communities.

In general (this is already my conclusion), Montene was almost horrified from the lyrics: there is no context, the meaning had fallen, something needs to be done, but no one will be entrusted with the sanity of such actions. But at Vakhstein - on the contrary. Out of horror, his lyrics stems. In fact, the situation with the constant occurrence and collapse of urban utopias can console and even simply become a city meaning. If you only remember that Moscow is this this layering of naturally arising and falling utopias.

That is, the city consists not only of physical elements, but also of opinions about it, of constant seduction to its account, intermittent with mental injuries at the moments of the next break of ideas about its future there. In general, everything is simple: Moscow just became Petersburg. They always only wrote about this how ghostly, fictitious, flickering over his swamps. However, there they felt themselves Petersburgers.