Felicità futura

Urban disorder and vitality

Francesco Indovina*

In City, Territory and Architecture, 2016

Abstract

The concepts of order and disorder applied to urban and territorial issues involve complex definitions. Why do cities,in spite of the effort made to give them order, even though from time to time this order has been codified in different ways,end up being untidy? In the context in which the two concepts will be used in this paper it is not possible to imagine them as alternatives, but they are taken as dialectically constituting territorial reality. “Order” and “disorder” oppose each other but do not clash with each other. In the hectic organisation of urban and territorial reality one stimulates the other and each, in opposing, determines change. The inclination towards order (or tendency towards order) tends, on the one hand, to “repair” the disorder but, on the other, brings out the conditions for disorder to show itself again and materialise with its problems but with the vitality implicit in change. Change brings disorder but public commitment through institutions cannot but aspire to recover a level of order, hopefully, more advanced. Order and disorder are closely linked with each other, one producing the other in a circular process. The urban, precisely because of its constituent construction (social, productive and economic variability; clash between powers and options of models of society) cannot be stable, but the continuous recovery of “order” responds not only to functional needs, but also to ethical options: we should not consider all urban “order” as positive, compared with negative disorder; there are

experiences of oppressive and coercive urban order. It is always disorder that determines better levels and quality of order. Though it may be the dynamic factor of every urban condition, we must remember that it always requires new order from which to start out again. Disorder, however it is identified, constitutes a permanent fact, inherent in the urban condition; it is neither the result of wrong planning (sometimes also this), nor of a perverse will, but rather of the dynamic mechanisms of the city itself.

Keywords: Alternation between order and disorder, Urban space organisation, Vitality

© The Author(s) 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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and indicate if changes were made.

*Correspondence: indovina@community.iuav.it

Department of Architecture, Design & Urban Planning, University

of Sassari, Palazzo del Pou Salit, Piazza Duomo 6 Alghero, 07041 Sassari,

Italy

Indovina City Territ Archit (2016) 3:18 Page 2 of 7

Urban development, the work of planning and organizing

the city and territory, is characterised by a strong vocation

to impose order. When an urban planning instrument

defines what, where, when and how it is possible to

“realise” some change in the organisation of space it ends

up modifying what exists and imposing a new kind of

“order”. We tend to think of “physical” order but actually,

it is a case of order that has a variety of aspects, including

the indications of “meaning” space organisation

produces.

Urban development, giving order to settlement, is

extremely ancient and arose with the first settlements,

even though the discipline was codified in modern times:

from an activity without a code that responded to social,

economic and life requirements and ones based on functionality

and representation, to a discipline often based

on self-determination.

In the cultural history of the discipline certain traits

can be picked out in which an interest for functional

order seemed to prevail, though in fact the attention for

the city and territory that this activity has adopted is the

overall one involving functionality but also social structure,

co-habiting, power, culture, and sacred and profane

rites. Each kind of urban order, in its divisions and construction,

may have been the source of conflicts, oppression,

liberation, marginalisation and exaltation (Indovina

2016).

The question that forces us to reflect is very simple:

why do cities, in spite of the effort made to give them order,

even though from time to time this order has been codified

in different ways, end up being untidy?

Open Access

The concepts of order and disorder applied to urban

and territorial issues involve complex definitions, and to

understand them it is worth referring to some facts.

Cultivated land shows us a tidy territory, and it is

immediately understood that this comes directly down

from the organisation of agricultural production, from

the techniques used and the social relations characterising

farming work. The orography of the territory, too,

with the crops compatible with the different heights

above sea-level, serves the purpose of spatial design; its

appearance, colours and scents change with the change

of seasons or the change in production and technology

adopted. Basically, there is a “strength”, agricultural production,

with very limited alternatives, giving particular

spatial solutions. “Dry walls”, which surround fields or

enclosures and which we marvel at, are also a rational

and reasonable solution for the use of stones unearthed

by the plough; land reclamation gives substance to spatial

construction. Just as canals and ditches serve the purpose

of taking water where needed, while rows of trees consolidate

their banks, and lanes and farm-roads aim at the

movement of men, animals and machinery, depending on

the need.

Spatial order in the country, often admired, is the result

of a need; it satisfies that expressed by production which

presents very limited alternatives. Change is not excluded

(crop variation, agrarian science achievements, use of

new technologies, etc.); the point may even be reached of

building a new agrarian landscape with order that is different.

Cultural movements linked with tradition sometimes

oppose these changes, harming the intrinsic nature

of the agrarian landscape, which is destined to change.

Needs and reduced alternatives may be considered key

categories in determining the agrarian landscape, but we

are not dealing with two categories that could be imagined

to be playing the same role in determining the urban

landscape.

In the city it is not possible to pick out such a binding,

decisive need, or, rather, there is a great number of

highly diversified needs and they express inhomogeneous

content and justification; not only, but they are needs

that are not compelling like in the country, as each one is

compatible with various alternatives, therefore with different

models of urban organisation. The urban condition

is characterised not by the absence of production but,

rather, by the organisation of this production, by a greater

presence of functions, greater unnaturalness of the context,

the existence of functions integrated with each other

and, at the same time, of functions that are antagonistic

or incompatible, but above all by the high concentration

of people with characteristics, projects, needs and desires

that are different from each other. Differences that are

also manifested as an expression of power (economic,

social, cultural, political, institutional, etc.) able to leave a

footprint on urban organisation.

If each function were free to leave its own “footprint”

on the urban territory, it is clear that the result could not

but be a sort of marsh where footprints overlapped and

depended on the weight of the bodies (the interested parties)

creating them. Presumably, however, footprints have

to follow rules (we might say the “plans” or any other

instrument managing the territory), but it is only an

assumption that rules can accurately steer the bodies and

therefore the respective footprints. The doubt is not suggesting

the fact that rules can be slack (this, too), or that

bodies move deliberately opposing the rules (this, too),

but the fact that the “needs” of the single bodies change

over time in a process of interrelation between them, and

that the possibilities offered account for the needs of the

single body and the encounter of various bodies.

It should be pointed out once more that while for the

country order is imposed by production, for the city, as

well as production, the multiplicity of social subjects are

important, as is the prominence of the service functions,

events, needs, etc. that are projected onto the organisation

of space. Urban space organisation requires a spontaneous

directive; agricultural order, we might say, is

given, while urban order has to be constructed. Urban

order contemplates: the need to guarantee hygiene and

the best exposition as regards the climatic situations of

the place; the possibility of carrying out and developing

productive and economic activities; “power” representation;

the citizens’ life needs; the intention to differentiate

places by the presence of different social strata; the development

and localisation of services; the need to avoid

mixing functions little or not at all compatible with each

other, and so on.

Contemplation that is not always consistent, not always

progressive, and not always attentive to the general

interest.

The history of the city teaches how changeable it can

be, in its shape and organisation, and how the change is

the fruit, mainly, of change in social structure, production

organisation and power organisation itself. Urban

space organisation appears as a “passive” outcome of

these changes, not as being determined by a factor that

imposes change. The dynamics (the change) of the city

and its organisation have to take into account its “hard”

part: the built city, its history and its works: each new

order does not wipe out the past but fits into an existing

context (hopefully, respecting it), perhaps giving it a

purpose (from various points of view, including social) in

the new reality. Change is at the same time destructive

and protective; the present also has elements of the past

and, fortunately, elements of the future (which we are not

perhaps able to recognise).

Indovina City Territ Archit (2016) 3:18 Page 3 of 7

Urban organisation actually undergoes the effects of

continuous alternation between order and disorder. In

the context in which the two concepts will be used in this

paper it is not possible to imagine them as alternatives,

but they are taken as dialectically constituting territorial

reality. “Order” and “disorder” oppose each other but

do not clash with each other. In the hectic organisation

of urban and territorial reality one stimulates the other

and each, in opposing, determines change. What we

mean to say is that the inclination towards order (or tendency

towards order) tends, on the one hand, to “repair”

the disorder but, on the other, brings out the conditions

for disorder to show itself again and materialise with its

problems but with the vitality implicit in change.

Order and disorder are closely linked with each other,

one producing the other in a circular process. They are

like Siamese twins: one takes pains to find the most

comfortable position for itself, but this does not mean

it is comfortable for the other, too; the latter reacts and

achieves a more comfortable position for itself but

uncomfortable for the other. This metaphor might make

clear how the dynamic relation between order and disorder

is continuous, not linear and may never find a point

of stability.

The dialectic of the Siamese twins applied to the relation

order/disorder is easy to share, but in fact presents a

large number of aporias and many consequences. A comfortable

position for one of the children, as we said, risks

being uncomfortable for the other, and when the former

achieves a better position, it affects that of the other

child. No position exists that meets the demands of both.

On the one hand, imposed order presupposes within

itself a principle of stability; we could say that the

enforcement of order does not have aims that are just

immediate but also future ones, but, as has been seen,

this claim appears to be contradicted by the character

of the territorial processes that are by nature dynamic,

featuring changes and movements not always predictable.

The economic, social, demographic, cultural, technological

and power mechanisms involving the city and

territory are of such an innovative impact that they cannot

but cause change, i.e. a challenge to the pre-existing

order. But there is more, the irruption of change, namely

disorder, should be taken as positive or at least inevitable.

If we were to assume that the enforcement of order

were aimed at improving the organisation of the city and

territory and ultimately at improving the living conditions

of those inhabiting and “using” that territory, we

would need to consider any challenge to order as a prospective

worsening of those living conditions. But it does

not seem to be like this, not only because disorder arises

round those who have settled in the city or territory and

use it, with the prospect of improving their condition, but

above all because the inevitable innovation, may, in general,

be considered ameliorative.

Highly complex economic, social, political and cultural

designs are projected onto the city and its transformations.

It is impossible that the city be domesticated and

dominated by a single interest, even when this appears

as strong, and when it avails itself of the strength of economic

and political power. The overall design always

seems incoherent or, rather, is the outcome of compromises

between different interests and strong points. But

from these strengths, their compromise, their agreement

or disagreement, from the conflicts, the city takes

shape and gives itself organisation, a type of order. Order

that seconds evolution but, at the same time, creates

contradictions.

Fundamentally, urban order is not independent from

the requirements of various kinds (economic, social, cultural

and of life) that the city produces; but none of these

needs tends to fully prevail, precisely due to the opposing

dialectics of the various requirements; urban order is not

the outcome of mediation between the various requirements

but, rather, gives rise to a solution that includes

spaces for the interests of each to be realised, whilst

simultaneously leaving antagonistic spaces.

Whatever meaning we wish to give to these statements,

we cannot ignore the fact that men and women occupy

“space” and organise it according to material and intellectual

needs. The reality that springs from it is neither

fortuitous or spontaneous; its content is different in proportion

to the growth of knowledge and the type of coexistence

chosen (or imposed), to the regime regulating

production relations, but also the phase of culture. What

is seen around us, from the cities to the country, represents

what has come down to our times from thousands

of years of work on constructing, adapting, destroying,

reconstructing, modifying and enlarging, to which the

species has applied itself so as to overcome all obstacles

that, on the one hand, “stepmother nature” has placed

against the achievement of the welfare of the species and,

on the other, power (economic, but not only) that has

continued to hinder the achievement of freedom.

Each change, however, rapid or slow, does not wipe out

the past organisation of space, but there are phenomena

of continuous transformation and adaptability. The

organisation of space is a continuous task of conservation-

destruction-innovation-construction: what is preserved

is not always appreciated; often what is destroyed

produces criticism, regret and the quest for revival; innovation,

though real, is presented not rarely as an illusion;

what is built seldom gains general approval. It is certain,

however, that a static state does not exist; were this manifest

it would be the sign of a remoteness from the continuous

flow of evolution and innovation.

Indovina City Territ Archit (2016) 3:18 Page 4 of 7

The field of spatial order is not one of “rational” choices

(depending on epochs) but rather of “political” choices.

The city and territory are a field of tensions and conflicts;

however much the species is civilised it remains divided

by interests, often contrasting, that aspire to “appropriating”

space, and spatial organisation that bears witness to

their power (or absence of power). This is social “typology”

that is projected onto the space: its conflictivedemocratic

or rather pacified-authoritarian features (or,

more to the point, where the conflicts are repressed) find

their configuration in space organisation (Fregolent and

Savino 2013).

In modernity the instruments for giving order to space,

apart from being refined, are a way of reducing discretion,

namely the will to overcome, or more simply the

achievement of the interests of one party to the detriment

of those of the collectivity or of other single individuals.

It is obvious that discretion is founded on power,

and also in advanced democracies power (especially

economic power) is not eliminated, but the “rules” that

dictate space organisation, which should be valid for everyone,

certainly put ties on or at least hinder the success

of single powers. At least, this is their intention (doubts

and criticisms may be put forward on the respective

realisation, but everything depends on political will or

weakness).

We mean to maintain that in order to achieve urban

order (however defined) the existence of a set of rules is

taken for granted, which indicate the ways in which the

city is organised so as to enable its efficient and effective

functioning, with the satisfaction of everyone or preferring

some (this is a variable of politics). While it is obvious

that these rules vary over time and in space, it should

be emphasised that their application is a manifestation of

politics or, if preferred, a way of governing. It seems misleading,

in effect, to believe that the existence of “good

rules” can guarantee space organisation coherent with

the (abstract) aims of the said rules. The rules relating

to space organisation have ambiguous features, they are

both perceptive and programmatic, and this ambiguity

can in no way be eliminated given the way they are

applied. The guarantee of the results proves closely linked

with the expression of a specific political will (an intention)

and the management of transformation processes

(another aspect of political will). But the ordered condition

is only temporary; disorder tends to emerge from the

tidy mesh.

When the variation (the urban dynamics) is complex,

of considerable size and speed, this cannot but cause disorder

(with respect to the previous order). In short, the

characteristics of urban transformations that determine

disorder are: quantity, i.e. the size of the changes compared

with the size of the city; speed, i.e. transformation

time is a very important feature; density, also understood

as the concentration of change phenomena.

In recent times, with the establishment of liberalism

also at the level of organisation of the territory, so that

organised spaces may seem like a conflict between individuals

(the other side of the coin is collaboration), it

has not been possible to deny the existence of processes

of exchange, integration, collaboration and competition,

and conflicts between individual interests. At the same

time, it must be acknowledged that stakeholders (very

powerful groups) exist and that the struggle for space

appropriation is not only interpretable as the result of

“competition” between individuals but, rather, as a political

clash between more or less codified interested parties,

while social conflicts appear as the initiative of the social

forces (economically the weakest) to defend the general

interests (Belli 2016).

By this we do not mean to ignore the strength and

importance of the individual and along this path the possibility

of partial processes of self-organisation (well-tempered

individualism can be good for space organisation,

too), but just to emphasise once more that space organisation

responds to requirements of a collective, social,

functional and cultural nature, and that as such, space

cannot but be organised according to collective (planned)

political processes. And that if self-organisation processes

go beyond aspects of little importance they determine,

even if not intended for this purpose, breakdowns

in the collective organisation of space.

As we have already said, disorder, as considered here,

can take on different aspects but is nevertheless characterised

by the “rupture” of an order that corresponds to

a society’s systems. It cannot be picked out as an exclusively

negative element, for it actually represents positive

distortions, too, of the systems set up, and can introduce

elements of dynamism and innovation and translate

social transformations into spatial terms also; in a certain

sense it corresponds to the vitality of a specific urban

condition. From this point of view it should not only be

considered the establishment (against the collectivity) of

specific, easily identified individual interests (often speculative

on the economic plane, “degrading” on the social

plane, and frustrating from a cultural standpoint) but,

rather, a “composition” of many things, the expressions of

the (precarious) equilibrium that society has achieved in

a particular phase.

We thus need to think that the phenomena that

encourage disorder belong both to the exogenous and

the endogenous categories: new technology may require

changes in the organisation of the city (namely: new

order), but “requests” may be seen to emerge directly

from the citizens and the organised social forces that

require changes in urban order to improve their specific

Indovina City Territ Archit (2016) 3:18 Page 5 of 7

urban life condition. The political nature of this demand

places it on the terrain of the comparison and strength

relations.

The city (and the territory) are no more than an exercise

field for various options maintained by different

forces, often with alternative objectives; it is indeed due

to the presence of opposed forces that the city, in general,

and up to now, has never completely responded to

the interests of one party. Just as the Siamese twins seek

but do not find a position that is comfortable for both,

the city moves continuously between order and disorder,

between ruptures and recomposition.

Perception of order and its advantages and of disorder

and its disadvantages is not only not immediately

clear, but can only be the outcome of a reflective process,

which cannot but bypass individuals to take on the

complete, complex urban society and its values. If it were

true, as we have mentioned more than once previously,

that (functional, aesthetic, social) order did not, in the

past evolution of the human species, constitute a spontaneous

event but the outcome of a project, then we would

need to devote some thought to this. If urban dynamics,

however defined, are on one side a challenge (partial

and/or total) for this project, then, on the other side, they

actually expect a new project at the same time.

One might ask what drives a collectivity to a sort of

Sisyphean torment, namely to the continuous repetition

of an action that is useless: to set up, work for, commit

oneself to the achievement of urban order that is not lasting.

One might maintain that this need is the only one

compatible with the possibility of survival of the species,

which has on the one hand to oppose the forces of

nature that would like to blow it away, but must, on the

other, fight the stimulus towards the disintegration of

coexistence with a counter-stimulus consisting of rules,

of norms and values that are not stable but continuously

renewed, though ever present.

To design and achieve urban order is fundamentally

an option in favour of coexistence. A project that constitutes

an attempt, not always perfect, to respond both to

demand expressed or implicit, not just of functions but

also meaning. As can be observed, even though ideas

and specific situations may drive us towards individualist

exaltation that tends to be unbridled, the species has

an imprinting that urges it towards coexistence; contemporary

life, increasingly complex, effectively imposes

greater and better regulation (in spite of different appearances),

entrusting each individual or social group once

more with full freedom in belonging to spheres previously

regulated and taking on the need to regulate new,

different spheres not considered before.

We have thus reached a crucial knot: urban order

design. Design that will resist pressure from the “powers”

(wherever located) who would like to “subject” order to

their own interests or points of view, to assert, on the

contrary, principles of freedom, coexistence, solidarity

and equality, though still leaving space for change (Nel.

lo 2012).

It is possible to return to the dialectic of the Siamese

twins: the movement of one of the two children stimulates

the other to change its place; the intervention of a

“third” party (in the case of the city, politics) may arrange

the two children in such a way that each achieves a comfortable

situation, even if it is known that it will be of

brief duration as very soon they will move.

Planning is an instrument that in a “coercive” way

defines urban order; generally, in its application it has

to overcome obstacles of meaning that end up limiting

its action, or to contrast the work of power groups that

attempt to make it ineffective, or, again, keep account of

the behaviour of citizens who evade its rules.

The statement that planning is the suitable instrument

to give answers to the problems of the city and territory

nowadays does not meet with much support. The prevalent

cultural, ideological and professional tendencies

assert the need for a drastic review of it, or even its effective

elimination. On one side, it does not seem possible

to oppose the request for a review and modernisation of

planning systems to take changes in society into account

while, on the other, we forget that attention to the

changes in society and, therefore, the respective adaptation

of the instrument of intervention, is a constituent

element of planning itself (even though in practice this

attention has not always been shown).

We are referring to good planning, which we would

define as that which pays great attention to the collective

interest and an improvement in the quality of life of

inhabitants, and is organised using suitable instruments,

having tackled the democratic encounter in its approach,

taken into account processes underway and qualified and

quantified the (negative and positive) effects of its action.

But good planning also finds obstacles ahead. The first

is a certain “doubling” that characterises the attitude of

the “citizen” and his “common sense” as regards the city.

This “common sense” is loaded with positive expectations

and requests: the territory is to be safeguarded, land

consumption reduced, the landscape protected, hydrogeological

reclamation to be carried out, the city must

function, suburban decay must be eliminated, limits and

rules for growth need to be introduced, and the environment

must be healthy, etc.

Any plan seeking to realise these expectations and

meet the requests expressed, would assert the “values”

contained in them and should be welcomed with

great approval and enthusiasm. But things are not like

this. For every public decision on urban organisation

Indovina City Territ Archit (2016) 3:18 Page 6 of 7

and reorganisation, for all regulatory action, each tie or

limit imposed, opposition and differentiation with varying

degrees of importance arise. These refusals do not

have their origin in the defence of private and individual

interests, which would be understandable, but are justified

by collective action to protect the general interest.

Considerable distrust has matured over time in any public

decision or choice that may also generate “apathy” or

indifference; the notable errors, programmatic inconsistency,

not to mention the spread of corruption of public

workers, explain this attitude, but it also originates in

the prevalence of a political culture that denies public

action true consistency and utility. It should also not be

forgotten that at the moment in which the great options

in principles turn into specific decisions, private interests

tend to emerge. Subjects do not contest the great options,

they would happily see them achieved, but possibly without

harming their own interests. Political decision-making,

and therefore planning, finds itself in the situation of

being appealed to, but at the same time rejected. It may

be stated that planning finds it enjoys generic consensus,

but also equally strong opposition.

What has previously been observed as regards urban

dynamics, the speed of change, and the increased complexity

of the city and territory, challenges planning in

itself, according to some (interest groups and scholars),

or at least the current form of planning; what is criticised

is the compulsory nature of the choice of plan.

The idea that society’s dynamism is much more rapid

and does not easily endure the ties of the plan does not

justify denying the need for the plan; greater and better

planning is actually required. The request put forward

by various parties to respond to the dynamism of society

is to develop a flexible plan; this request only apparently

seems to side with the need for planning; it is actually the

complete denial of any form of planning.

A flexible planis effectively an antithesis, for it presupposes

objectives that have not been defined or that may

be continuously redefined according to needs; but planning,

obviously, is such because it defines objectives and

a strategy to achieve them. If we were to consider the

plan process as formed of defined objectives and “policies”

(specific public actions) suitable to enable these

objectives to be achieved, in a highly dynamic situation

with unforeseen changes, continuous reconsideration or

updating of these policies—namely the means to achieve

the objectives—would be necessary and useful. These are

policies that could be considered flexible and modified,

according to needs, to achieve defined and unchanged

objectives. What is suggested, and would seem adequate

to respond to many specific situations is, therefore, not

a flexible plan but, rather, flexible instruments to achieve

predefined objectives (an adjustment able to take into

account environmental dynamics).

It is my personal experience that each action that is

accomplished, even if well targeted, may determine

unforeseen outcomes, some of which can assume a negative

value, “perverse effects”, not only negative in themselves

but also contrary to all expectations and forecasts.

Unforeseen effects, also when perverse, suggest a careful

analysis of the mechanisms activated and the responses

of the interested parties involved, and not the impossibility

of public action. Unforeseen effects, moreover, can in

some cases determine innovations.

It has been maintained that the conflict represents

a positive element in that it expresses at the same time

uneasiness and a request, provided actions exist and are

put in place to solve such conflicts.

However, in the present historic phase the conflict

appears also to show a selfish effect: Not In My Back

Yard (or NIMBY). A work (an oil pipeline, a landfill, wind

power station, street, refugee camp, etc.) deemed in some

way necessary is not wanted on one’s own territory, but

preferred on “another” territory. What seems to prevail in

these attitudes, very often justified, but not always, by the

effects these structures could cause in the local situation,

is a sort of local egoism, the child of a prevailing identity

attitude that is extremely mean and utterly short-sighted.

Obstacles to improving and renewing means and processes

of territorial planning are not thought to exist,

provided improvements and renovation are able to

increase the efficiency and public effectiveness on the

management of urban and territorial transformations. It

is not a case of stating an ideological position, but of the

awareness that the organisation of the city and territory

cannot but have a public/collective guide, able to improve

the inhabitants’ living conditions.

Disorder, however it is identified, constitutes a permanent

fact, inherent in the urban condition; it is neither the

result of wrong planning (sometimes also this), nor of a

perverse will, but rather of the dynamic mechanisms of

the city itself. Change brings disorder but public commitment

through institutions cannot but aspire to recover a

level of order, hopefully, more advanced. The urban, precisely

because of its constituent construction (social, productive

and economic variability; clash between powers

and options of models of society) cannot be stable, but the

continuous recovery of “order” responds not only to functional

needs, but also to ethical options: only the “strongest”

(from all points of view) know how to take advantage

of disorder; the weakest usually pay a high price. But at

the same time we should not consider all urban “order” as

positive, compared with negative disorder; there are experiences

of oppressive and coercive urban order.

Indovina City Territ Archit (2016) 3:18 Page 7 of 7

It is disorder that breaks up all oppressive order, and

it is always disorder that determines better levels and

quality of order. Though it may be the dynamic factor of

every urban condition, we must remember that it always

requires new order from which to start out again.

Competing interests

The author declares that he has no competing interests.

Received: 27 September 2016 Accepted: 12 October 2016

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