Transhistorical Urbanization

Key words: Neoliberalism/ Critical Urban Theory/ Spatiotemporality/ Planetary Urbanization

The accelerated development of communication and technological systems, and more precisely of intelligent technologies, has significantly changed the ways in which human and non-human coevolution is shaping. Implications for theoretical frameworks include broadening definitions of consciousness beyond the human, reshaping cognitive boundaries in an assemblage between humans, nature and machine agents. These changes include not only human neurological transformations, but also different dynamics of interdependence between humans and technical systems. 

The 70s can be considered a turning point in the history of the current century. The spread of neoliberalism has opened new alternatives. The emerging digitization has produced a radical change in the way space and time are conceived, even beyond traditional dimensions. World and cities have become increasingly computational, however, each set of innovations has been developed under patterns of social exclusion, capital concentration and environmental extractivism. Under these increasingly pervasive conditions of global transformations, critical social theory and critical urban theory have merged to enlighten the emergent socio-political struggles.

We are dealing here with just a fragment of the whole system. The innovations developed under these political and economic models have enabled the production of new forms of spatiotemporality. The new organization of space has massified urban growth and social displacement. The lens to analyze those urban transformations from a neoliberalism perspective constitutes just a part of a bigger and more complex system.

The stack of transhistorical and metabolic layers constitutes the conception of what ‘urban’ means. This concept is in constant mutation, being constantly changed and redefined. In the last decades this evolution has been deeper than ever; Global capitalism and market economy have shaped even the most remote places, connecting them into an urban network based on the economic logics of production and consumption. This phenomenon of planetary urbanization, implies the dispersion of urban processes on a wider scale. The impact can be defined by the concentration of capital and infrastructure in specific areas, and the expansion of urban influence beyond the city limits, affecting ‘rural’ and natural areas. 

Since the last few decades, human interventions have transformed our habitat in dramatic ways. The emergence of intelligent technologies, as a result of planetary-scale computation, has opened up the discussion to multiple dilemmas. The methodological and epistemological bases of urban studies that have supported the sociological changes in the last centuries are no longer useful for today’s debates. 

A new discussion and reconceptualization of urban terms is urgently needed. These must include the challenges produced by the anthropocene era: environmental issues, artificial intelligence, pandemic situation. The way out of these issues will no longer be found in technology itself. Anthropocene problems should be discussed from a human and non-human perspective, but also enhanced for the machine-advanced boosting creative processes. Other ways of collaborative intelligence, human-machine, could lead to an emancipatory process, a synthetic intelligence that promotes a fair distribution of benefits and resources. 

Key Concepts