Abstract
The Anthropocene is defined by the overwhelming human activity on the natural world and the challenges posed to the safe operating space of the planet and the global ecosystem. It ponders on the causes of the current state of the world identifying the mechanistic paradigm and the Great Acceleration as the essential issues underlying the phenomenon of global change initiated with the Industrial Revolution. It discusses the Earth scientists’ call for an urgent action to limit economic growth, presenting the Planetary boundaries framework and the need for deceleration, advocating for a different understanding of economic development that embeds social justice, respect for the regenerative capacity of nature and the integrity and resilience of Earth’s systems. In regard to the built environment, the chapter reviews two urban utopias that emerged in the early 1900s aiming to improve unhealthy living conditions in cities caused by the huge increase in population. Both the Garden City and modernist planning are described, and their critiques are analysed, focusing on the social and psychological effects resulting from the fragmentation of urban fabrics and the progressive elimination of the street as a generator of urban form and life.
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Zingoni de Baro, M.E. (2022). The Anthropocene and the Urbanising World. In: Regenerating Cities. Cities and Nature. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90559-0_2
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