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Afterword: the urban jungle or urban jigsaw?

  • Anne Power and John Houghton
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Jigsaw cities
This chapter is in the book Jigsaw cities

Abstract

This section suggests that the urban future depends on thinking of cities as the human equivalent of trees, as Gaudi had envisioned in his great basilica – dense, diverse, light and dark, self-regenerating, strong, tall and small, life-supporting, and long-lasting. It explains that trees are magical in their wealth, strength, contrasts, and energy, carefully fitting one layer of growth inside another, just as our urban jigsaw fits together within the frame of the big picture. It further suggests the problems of the cities are not problems of chaos but of ‘organized complexity’ for which new solutions will emerge.

Abstract

This section suggests that the urban future depends on thinking of cities as the human equivalent of trees, as Gaudi had envisioned in his great basilica – dense, diverse, light and dark, self-regenerating, strong, tall and small, life-supporting, and long-lasting. It explains that trees are magical in their wealth, strength, contrasts, and energy, carefully fitting one layer of growth inside another, just as our urban jigsaw fits together within the frame of the big picture. It further suggests the problems of the cities are not problems of chaos but of ‘organized complexity’ for which new solutions will emerge.

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