Manifesto Revised: The Inverted City

To help update the Re-Brief Plates and figure out what this Plan will look like for next Tuesday, I've been revising my Manifesto.  I know it's far from clear, but hopefully there'll be some good criticism from the Jury - I'll need the direction!  Anyhow, here it is (I'll post the revised Re-Brief tomorrow);

The Inverted City.  Folding the Periphery to Centre to create a hyper dense, three-dimensional metropolis and reverse the growth of urban sprawl.

Context: A city is a virus; spreading a global plague of consumption on a planet unable to react. This year, half of the world's population live in a city, consuming three quarters of the world's resources from beyond the city and defecating the waste back again. A figure, which will only increase over the next 40 years.

Conflict: A key contributor, is the growth in urban sprawl; the growth of periphery over centre.  These low-density suburbs consume more land, and the occupants consume more resources, than the city itself.  The complete failure to unite programme segregates community cohesion, prohibiting tolerance.  The sprawl also creates a barrier, segregating the urban habitat with the rural habitat. A segregation that only promotes consumerism and a failure for mutual understanding between these habitats.

Strategy: To fold the periphery to centre and create a dense, three-dimensional metropolis and reverse the growth of urban sprawl.  Infrastructure will be local, not distant. Programmes will be united, not segregated.  The rural and urban habitats will be fused, not isolated.  Growth will be reversed; the rural will envelop the periphery, returning the land to a virgin state.  The City will be Inverted.  A model that will thrive throughout the World

Solution: A Generic City will be identified with prolific urban sprawl. Potential centres throughout the sprawl will be located. The radial sweeping of all programmes in the infected area around this new centre, will result in a reduced ratio of density between centre and periphery.  This strip will then be folded inward, creating a new hyper dense centre.  The planar city of old will become the volumetric city of new. Programme will be rearranged. New adjacencies will emerge. Micro communities will form.  The Centre of this Inverted City will be a Forum, that will proliferate its influence throughout this new city; bonding the programmes into a unified single centre.  The Inverted City.