Instant City: Rethinking Democratic Space
Barack Obama recently held a rally in Waterfront Park in Portland, Oregon to garner support for the upcoming primary in Oregon. Crowd estimates by the fire department show 75,000 people in attendance. The Washington Post, in their coverage of this event, considers the record crowd to be the size of a city.
[Image: Barach Obama’s rally in Waterfront Park, May 18, 2008. Courtesy of oregonianphoto.]
Their chosen unit of measurement may carry certain undertones, but it also suggests the event created an instant city. Thus, through the chosen definition of instant cities, can we suggest new forms of democratic space?
We have previously defined what constitutes a sustainable city, but what constitutes an instant city?
In China and the UAE, it might be defined by their new developments seeing cities created from scratch. In China, we see Dongtan from Arup. In the UAE, we see Masdar by Foster, Waterfront City by OMA, and Gateway Eco City by OMA.
[Image: Gateway Eco City in Ras Al Khaimah by OMA. Courtesy of Inhabitat.]
Despite the appeal of these developments as instant cities, I don’t think they evoke the meaning of instant in the manner it should be applied. They all have master plans in the range of 10-30 years. While this is extraordinary given the history of most cities across civilization, I do not want to call it instant.
In sports, we see temporary crowds over 100,000 at some football stadiums in built venues. In “natural” venues, such as a golf course, we can see up to 250,000 people over a four day tournament.
[Image: Golf crowd at the Masters’ Golf Tournament in Augusta, GA. Courtesy of Britannica.]
Similarly, we could view the temporarily displaced victims of natural disasters as an instant city due to their coincident relocation.
[Image: Hurricane Katrina refugees living in the Astrodome in Houston. Courtesy of tiger in houston.]
This gives us examples from politics, sports, and disasters, but you could also include music, protests, and many others. If we wanted to open this even further, you could consider events in the virtual sense through websites, blogs, and coordinated internet traffic. Although, I think this last consideration takes us into a much larger discussion. For now, I only want to consider these three crowd-creating events.
If we look strictly at the definition of ‘instant’ and ‘city,’ we see the following:
- instant - occurring at once; immediate
- city - a center of population, commerce, and culture
Relative to these definitions, I think it is conceivable to classify all these events as instant cities, even given the inclusion of commerce and culture into the definition. Fair enough, but why am I making a point of this?
I believe these “events” offer us an opportunity to reconsider democratic space. Now, I recognize that only one these examples exhibits the true characteristics of democratic space, but they all allow us to rethink the urban experience relative to spaces of democracy. In the way that cities are defined by their streets, parks, and other public spaces, instant cities can be thought of as concentrated occupation of these public spaces.
[Image: Union Square Market in New York City. Courtesy of Hourman.]
Democratic space is vital to urban life. It provides the means for any type of event of any size to take place. Through the appropriation by an individual or group for a given purpose, these spaces breathe life into cities. Activation happens through intensification.
Perhaps, then, instant cities can become a new method for injecting moments that become or only appear to make a space democratic into those spaces that, by definition, are not.
Unrelated Variations on “Instant City”
Archigram’s own Instant City
BLDGBLOG on Mars’ Instant City
City of Sound on Instant City, the music building game table
Recent Publishing on “Instant Cities”
Instant Cities, by Amer Moustafa, Jamal Al-Qawasmi, and Kevin Mitchell (March 2008)
Instant Cities, by Duncan McCorquodale (July 2008)
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