TERRITORY AND SETTLEMENT

Winter Semester 2015

Andreea Elena Adam

Lecturer
Michael Wagner
Dipl. Arch. ETH /SIA

23.10.2015

RESPONSE PAPER
Session 2

MCGEE, T. G. (1991): The Emergence of Desakota Regions in Asia: Expanding a Hypothesis.

SIEVERTS, T. (2003): The Living Space of the Majority of Mankind: an Anonymous Space with no Visual
Quality.

Two different autors from different areas speak about a similar concept regarding the way of
expansion of the city center to a rural landscape as a phenomenon for urban developing which
took place in the latter-day. Their observations lead to the same point, to a fact which is the same
in the essence, both writings being concentrated on how the cities grew and how this urban
development affected the transformation of the landscape between big cities.
Between the asian city centers which are very dense and the rural lanscapes, it was established
a typology of this kind of region called Desakota and it is characterised by having a dense
population which is still interested and involved in wet - rice agriculture, but in the same
time there is a heavy traffic taking place in these areas in sense of goods transportation and
movement of people by being connected with the bigger cities around through a high - quality
infrastructure. The author claims that when we speak about making urban planning in the near
future, this type of region like Dakota should be taken in consideration because it is going to
have an important role for the human environment even if nowadays is quite difficult to assume
the typology of this region to another developed countries.
Zwischenstadt is a space in between, as the name says, it is formed by the area from the
expansion around the city center to the rural environment. It is important to understand that it is
characterised by both - by the city and by the landscape in the same time, but it is not properly
represented by one of this two. The definition is in principle made for the western culture,
but in the same time there is a difference between a Zwischenstadt of US developed cities, of
european industrialised ones and of a non-developed city like Mexico City, for example. The
structure of this kind of region is totally different, an important thing would be the fact that it has
no center. Without a center it has no particular identity, it looks unplanned, but they are very well
connected with the surroundings. There are also some important links between these cities even
if they have different ecnonomy or society and they were established in five clear characteristics,
like: urban-ness, centrality, density, mixed use and ecology. Zwischenstadt will also play
an important role in the future of human environment.
Regarding these typologies which have the same essence, I agree that nowadays they are
an obvious step forward in our urban developing. As we have a new type of society which
is developing because of the globalisation as one of the factors or industrialization before, I
would say that this urban developing came out as a response to our new needs. For example,
I studied last year about the way that Bucharest developed and it happened a lot during the
industrialisation period because the city center atracted agricultors from the areas around
and then, mainly because of hygienical reasons, the city had to be developed. The way that it
developed was by gaining new kinds of centers from suburbs and it became a city with many
poles of attraction. This is just an example for a small scale, but I wanted to underline the way the
new societies needs new answers in order to response to the actual needs.
In my opinion, this way of developing can answer to actual requests because our society grows
and it is somehow mixed because of the globalisation matter, it is loosing the certain identity
and a space in between can be the answer which reflects the way we are in a way because I
consider that a city defined by a certain center it has a strong identity.

contact: arh.andreeaadam@yahoo.com