GGRA03H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Path Dependence, Urban Ecosystem, Urban History
Document Summary
5 main themes/conceptual frameworks of ggra03: cities as the human environment, why history is important, understanding long- term patterns. The city // nature dualism is mistaken, and the term environment" does not equal. The environment and nature include cities and people. Now cities are increasingly seen as complex ecological systems, in which economic, social, natural, and political systems interact. A major goal of this course is to learn to understand cities as human environments: More on this in lectures 2, 3 and 4. Urban systems are rapidly growing more complex, but most contemporary urban systems, structures, infrastructures, are built incrementally on prior systems. Urban change is gradual and incremental. What is the language that cities speak: cities are a sensitive reflection of our social, economic, political and cultural choices. As the setting of everyday life, cities appear to embody normal patterns that just are the way things work.
