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How the built environment, understood as spatial capital, governs both everyday life in cities and urban systems more generally.
In an age of social and environmental crises, we need to critically rethink the role of the built environment and how best to put it to work.
In contemporary urban studies, land has oddly lost its position alongside labor and capital as one of the three fundamental production factors in economic theory, but as Marcus shows, misconceptions of land are at the root of social and environmental crises worldwide. By defining the challenges and modeling our use of spatial form to enhance/improve land, and then synthesizing data into a unified theory of spatial capital, Marcus provides a crucial reframing of how we can best plan and design our cities for the global challenges we are facing.
List of contents
Preface
Introduction: Towards a Theory on Second Nature
Part I: Challenges—Definition of Spatial Urban Form
1 The Normative Challenge: An Operational Manual for Spaceship Earth
2 The Epistemological Challenge: The Sciences of the Artificial
3 The Ontological Challenge: Notes on the Synthesis of Form
Conclusion Part I
Part II: Measures—A Model of Spatial Urban Form
4 Modeling Space: Urban Space as Relative Location
5 Modeling Distance: Urban Space as Cognitive Distance
6 Modeling Attraction: Urban Space as Potential Density and Diversity
Conclusion Part II
Part III: Meanings—The Spatial Form of Urban Systems
7 Social Capital: Cities as Landscapes of Varied Copresence
8 Economic Capital: Cities as Landscapes of Varied Markets
9 Ecological Capital: Cities as Landscapes of Varied Biotopes
Conclusion Part III
Part IV: Synthesis—Spatial Form and Urban Complexity
10 Urban Systems: Cities as Complexity
11 Urban Processes: Cities as Space
12 Urban Form: Cities as Capital
Conclusion: A Theory of Spatial Capital
Afterword: The Order of Things
Bibliography
Notes
Index
About the author
Lars Marcus is Professor in Urban Design at Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden, and Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.
