The Pattern of Independent Regions
In Christopher Alexander’s “ A Pattern Language”, the first
Ninety-four patterns deal with the large scale structure of the environment.
20th Century Urban planning revolved around the idea that the architect was the master controller of the city; he had the power and the authority to oversee all the operations that happened in a town; therefore, a top-down planning system is what was used.
The idea was that “we the architects know what we are doing and you, the rest of the masses, should do what we say.”
And thus, this top-down design theory led to many ideas of what a Utopian city would look like.
Pattern Language rejects this notion and withdraws from enforcing a “master plan” that needs to be followed to the latter, in favour of proposing a bottom-down approach that covers the needs of inhabitants and settles itself from the ground up.
It’s a patient, piece-meal growth. They are designed so that every individual act builds upon creating these larger patterns.
Therefore now we look into the independent pattern regions.
“Metropolitan regions will not come to balance until each one is small and autonomous enough to be an independent sphere of culture.”
These independent regions are smaller decentralised areas that come together to form a “WORLD FEDERATION: A THOUSAND STATES.”
According to Alexander, the limits of the effectiveness of a region have been reached as the population hits 2 to 10 million.
This size, if surpassed, people are far removed from the large-scale processes of the government.
Contrary to what we see today with nation-states with populations of over tens of millions, Alexander argues that they do not have the balance between the needs of the towns and communities. Moreover, the needs of the world community as a whole.
This kind of system, if it gets too big, concentrates the power to the top and even represses local culture and its local needs.
Almost like a tyranny.
The region requires several million people to have a seat in the world government.
And each of these regions needs to be self-governing else they may not be able to solve their environmental problems.
Furthermore, human cultures within a city can openly flourish when they are at least partly separated from neighbouring cultures.
The regions of the earth must also keep their distance and their dignity to survive as cultures.
Almost like Italy during the renaissance with its various city-states and cultural significance.
Going deeper within these patterns, these are what you will find.
2- The distribution of Towns
3- City Country Fingers
4- Agricultural Valleys
5- Lace of Country Streets
6- Country Towns
7- The Countryside
Towards this new paradigm, patterns shall explore these further.
