The village is our home. Few of us feel happy alone, so we prefer living in towns and villages.

As far as Europeans are concerned, the megamachines of transport, industry and energy, as well as the unbroken natural corridor reserved for animals stretching from Portugal to the Arctic Ocean, are just a background, hidden tools and opportunities. They are essential means for a high standard of living, like an electrical cable recessed in a wall which the householder never sees, repairs or is even aware of. He just switches the light on. Likewise, the megamachines intrude less and less upon peoples’ lives, and even then only indirectly.

In future people will spend most of their time in surroundings that show few signs of these giant systems. The production of clean and healthy food, solar energy and advanced telecommunications will only have a passive hidden effect, just like air, which you never notice or appreciate until the lack of it causes breathing problems.

With few exceptions, tomorrow’s people will still be living in the towns and villages that already exist. However, all these environments will be transformed as a result of the huge changes in the background structure, though only indirect ones will actually show how they affect the everyday lives of people.

It is unrealistic and incorrect to think that existing towns and country villages could or should undergo revolutionary changes. It is not necessary. Buildings and streets will remain in the same place. Their use may change and their technology upgraded, but it will not be necessary to blast thoroughfares through residential areas, demolish buildings or parts of towns and build new ones. The renewal of existing cities and old villages will occur in quite a different way. Hopefully, no new cities will come into being, but new rural centres, eco-villages, will be built according to new principles. At long last we can have a look at the effect of our technological revolution on the ordinary lives of people. What would the change feel like?

ECO-VILLAGES

Indigenous people and their village community live simply and naturally, following traditions that have evolved over the millennia, and in harmony with the ecological demands of their environment. Dwellings and other products are made out of materials at hand, energy is produced from renewable natural resources, food is gathered, hunted or fished, less often grown, waste returns to natural circulation, births and deaths are in balance. Parents teach their children. Equilibrium and stability prevail, no growth or development occurs in this world.

A modern eco-village cannot function like this, though its relationship to the environment is basically the same as an Indian village hidden in the rainforest, existing in harmony with nature. An eco-village of the new industrial world will not burden the surrounding water, air, forest or land. A balance will be sought using advanced technology. Children will still be educated, the old and infirm will still be cared for, and all villagers will wish to live a full and complete life. These basic needs give rise to a number of essential details.

Salient features of an eco-village

The basic features of the new age eco-village are self-sufficiency through the new technology, and a multitude of small-scale and simple yet diverse services. The core of such an area would be a built zone with low plot density, the gross floor area of buildings being, for instance, only 5 per cent of the total plot area (Figure 130). Buildings would be single or double storey. Low density means open planning, with plenty of space between buildings for various activities. In the land use plan for Europe described above, the norm was from 700-1500 square metres per person of built area, depending on the country. The model village presented here has a built area of 1.6 square kilometres, which would be half way between the figures quoted above. The built area would naturally include areas outside the village devoted to heavy industry and roads.

Figure 130. Model eco-village

Narrow, meandering village streets like paths do not need much space, and no parking areas would be necessary. Buildings would be surrounded by kitchen gardens and orchards. In springtime these would be full of butterflies and the sounds of birds singing. The only cats would be to catch rodents in pigsties and cowsheds. Outside the built area there would be croplands, pastures and fuelwood forests. Between these areas would be alternate strips of virgin and commercial forests skirting the built area. Hares, badgers, owls and black grouse would be familiar sights in the neighbourhood. A fox might snatch the occasional chicken, but that would be looked upon with benevolent tolerance. The local chippy would replenish his stock from the forest. Part of the surrounding nature would be left in a natural state, from one generation to the next. Old trees would grow and increase in prestige with the passing of time. Fish ponds would be made when the initial earthworks are excavated.

The size of an eco-village

The size of an eco village is crucial. If it is too big, walking and cycling distances would become unreasonable. If it is too small, it is not economical providing the services needed. According to the Swiss-born French architect Le Corbusier, it is necessary to have a population of at least 1500 before building a school is justified. The same conclusion can be reached on the basis of a square population pyramid whose height is 75 years. The size of each age group would be 20, which is also the size of a primary school class. The pupils of higher forms would be taught mainly through telelearning in this modern ecological society. A school has been chosen as the yardstick for evaluating the lives and needs of 1500 inhabitants. Population size, open planning and the main principles of land use dictate the size of a new village.

Movement

Daily commuter traffic from the village would be minimal. Most villagers would be teleworking from one of the workstations dotted throughout the area as public offices, business premises, goods production and other industry are elsewhere. They are office and research workers, forwarding their finished work to different parts of the world electronically. They are process workers monitoring and controlling plants located kilometres away from their workstations. They are designers forwarding their finished drawings to a site or factory via their display unit. They are businessmen trading with others living elsewhere. They either walk or cycle to work, have lunch at home or in a restaurant, and return to work when it suits them. Their working days, weeks and years would be variable and flexible. On the way home there are pubs, billiard halls and other attractions. They meet their friends and neighbours on the high street. They could just as well work at home, but chance encounters on the way to work encourage them away.

People walk, cycle, ski and scooter. Cycle paths are lined with flowerbeds. Trees bend over the roads forming gateways and tunnels. The elderly and disabled use cybercabs adjusted for manual control. Skis could be installed under cybercabs in winter. The only large vehicles allowed in the vicinity are ambulances and fire engines. In the centre, isolated from the rest of the village, would be a terminus for cybercabs used for traveling out of the area. A train would not come to every village. You would leave the village along a ditch-like passage with walls forming a sound barrier between the traffic lane and the residential area. Pedestrian bridges would be built over it so as not to interfere with internal connections. So long as motorcars are still being used, the above arrangements would be necessary. Once cybercabs come into general use, there will be no noise or safety problems.

Daily shopping and other goods would be carried in handcarts suited to narrow tracks and left in generally agreed places. Vacuum pipes for transporting goods would not be laid to every building in an eco-village, just to collection points situated here and there. Sledges would be used in winter. Most movement in the area would be by shanks’s pony so there would be no pollution or noise. Children could go everywhere safely, and the general quietness would only be broken by the sounds of nature. On cold winter days bullfinches perch in the trees in the garden.

Some people would only live for part of the year in an eco-village and the rest of the time in a city. In this way the summer cottage tradition of some countries would continue.

Energy

All necessary energy would be produced locally. There would be solar panels on the roofs, pipes laid down during building construction to produce geothermal heat. All buildings would be well insulated and energy saving taken into account at the design stage. The annual energy consumption of the whole eco-village would be 12.3 gigawatt hours, of which two thirds would be used for heating (Figure 131). Near to the croplands there would be fuelwood forests, harvested to dry every year. Dried wood would be used to some extent for heating buildings. In addition there would be extensive fields of solar panels and windmills, outside the built area, producing any necessary surplus electricity. On hot summer days energy for winter would be stored in extensive insulated underground earth accumulators. No energy would be bought from outside as an eco-village is self-sufficient in this respect. Villagers would not pay electricity bills to some outside utility. The village’s own power plant would pay its own workers and the price of energy would include the original investment.

Figure 131. Energy production in an eco village

Food

Most food would be locally produced. The eco-village would be surrounded by croplands and meadows, and many people would grow crops and keep farm animals. There would be chickens, geese and ducks in the gardens. Turkeys keeping villagers company returning from a pub down the high street. Pheasants would pay visits from further afield, their numbers kept down by shooting. There are small greenhouses here and there. Potatoes, carrots, peas and cabbages would be grown in nearby allotments, dotted alongside the roads going through the area. Some would specialise in growing asparagus, turnips and beets. There would be ornamental shrubs in the gardens, apple trees, berry bushes and strawberry patches. Beyond the built area would be croplands as well as pastures where the cows and sheep, goats and pigs, rams and bulls owned by the villagers could graze freely. Their sex life would be as it was in former times. There is a small abattoir in the village. Dairies could also be established and butter churned locally, but in a machine. To ensure fresh bread baked with untainted flour, there would be fields of rye and wheat around the village. Bakeries produce hot buns for every breakfast table. In wintertime, the cows and bulls would be in a cowshed, the pigs in a pigsty, and the free-range chickens in henhouses contentedly pecking real grain. Carps, eels and rainbow trout would be fished in the ponds built during the original construction stage. Crayfish are bred for the gourmet and beehives are kept on the periphery. Flax is grown and wool is shorn from sheep for local use. And the woods surrounding the villages are an inexhaustible pantry of berries and mushrooms.

In our model village, food is brought from outside and produced locally in more or less in equal quantities (Figure 132), so a certain number of animals and area of land are necessary for local production (Figure 133). The most significant item purchased from outside is grain. This would be ordered from a wholesaler electronically, delivered down the vacuum pipe to a central distribution point, and sold to the villagers in the good old-fashioned way.

Figure 132. Amounts of food produced by an eco village and purchased from outside

Figure 133. Locally produced food and area required in the planned eco-village

The last stage in the circulation of organic materials would also be true to nature. There would be no sewers in the area. The village would not be connected to a sewer network, and buildings would not be built close to each other to save sewerage costs. Each building would compost its own organic waste and use the soil obtained in the fields.

Water is more important than food production. The village would get its own water. If there is no suitable water source in the neighbourhood, a well would be drilled and ground water pumped up.

Services

The most essential local amenity is the school. The lower forms would be taught in the traditional way, but the higher ones mainly by telelearning though on certain days of the week sixth-formers would attend a higher secondary school some way off in a long line of cybercabs. Universities are of course another matter.

In addition to the school, the area needs daycare centres for 80 children under school age. People within the different age groups would mix freely, though there would be a service centre for senior citizens, where they can discuss politics, play cards and enjoy a hot rum toddy on cold winter days. There would also be a library, shop and pub within walking distance of every home. Alongside all the new technological opportunities, people would still use old-fashioned services out of preference and because they have the time. There are sporting and other recreational facilities, numerous offices where they can rent a terminal for teleworking and indulge in virtual reality environments, and hobby rooms for aspiring carpenters and potters.

The area also has its own nurse, doctor, dentist and hairdresser who can be visited by appointment. There would also be a post office with its internal postal delivery service. Financial matters, however, would be conducted via the polymedia terminals everyone has at home. All sorts of repair shops businesses would flourish; cobblers to mend shoes, dressmakers to alter clothes. A household appliance repair service would be run by the bicycle repairer. Snow clearance in winter is up to everybody, though special, lightweight snow ploughing equipment suitable for narrow roads is available. Not even the fire engine would dictate the geometry of the narrow roads, but these determine the nature of the fire-fighting equipment. Voluntary firemen, who have regular fire drills, would be responsible for the safety of the village. Police are not required, as eco-villagers are all honest, peaceful and law abiding. There is no unemployment, everybody has something to do.

There would be several tennis and badminton courts, but only one swimming hall with sauna. Facilities for putting greens, park chess, petanque and other similar outdoor games also exist. There are so many free-time services that nobody needs to go elsewhere to practice.

The local shop is also a distribution centre, accepting teleorders twice a day, sending them on to an outside wholesaler or manufacturer, and packing everything in returnable boxes. No waste would accumulate and all inorganic material would be recycled.

Building

All building materials and practices would meet the standards set for sustainable development, in other words for stable conditions. This means that materials should last and that structures are multi-purpose and recyclable. Clay bricks and wood are the most popular materials, and no huge construction machines used. Most building work would be concerned with renovating old buildings, and new buildings would be designed for manual erection with only very light equipment used.

Work and money in the village

There would be no regular working hours. Work and leisure would overlap, with no particular account being kept. Food production, energy supply, services, building and other daily activities that maintain the quality of life in the village, would be based on mutual agreements and a barter economy.

The total amount of labour needed would not be much. Among the reasons for this are that efficient equipment would be available making work easy and light. There would not be the same motive to increase wealth as the population is declining rather than increasing. Almost all salaried work would be done outside the village, either as telework or on-site work. It is official work, and the incomes received would pay for those services acquired from outside.

Linking villages to each other

Eco-villages could be joined together into networks (Figure 134) or linked more naturally to old villages and towns in the district via the transport infrastructure. The ideal of powerful economic growth would be gradually abandoned. The building stock would be much older on average than at present. There would be no earth-shattering changes and areas would mature in a slow and balanced way. There could be big differences between villages, with each one finding and adopting its own character. One would be known for its cheeses, another for its researchers, a sports village, and a village known for its splendid chamber orchestra. A village would feel rather ashamed if it was like its neighbour.

In spite of their rosy idealism, there would not be so many of these new eco-villages in the near future. Most people would continue to live where they live now: in the same small towns, villages, or well-known cities of Europe. Their renewal would require much more input than building new areas. The significance of the new eco-villages would remain a symbolic, ideological manifesto for a long time to come.

Figure 134. Location of several eco-villages. Example from Sweden

OLD VILLAGES

The majority of old villages

Most people would apparently prefer to live in old villages and towns even in the future. This is proved by the esteem shown for the old quarters of all European towns.

So in a century from now Europeans will still be living in the places where they live now. Only a minority would live in newly-established villages, and even fewer, almost nobody, in newly-established cities. Europe will not need any new major cities for centuries to come, so it is unlikely that any will appear. Although the planning of new villages can be an exciting and challenging task, in practice, however, it is much more important to renew existing ones and make them as sustainable as possible. How can this be done?

We will study the question point by point. Which features of an ecological, self-sufficient and new village do not apply to existing small towns and villages? How should things be done differently, in a way suited to an old town? Is an old town in some way more amenable to change than virgin nature?

What should be changed?

Assuming the availability of the advanced technological equipment described in earlier chapters, how could it be located in ancient small villages or towns where historic layers are revealed in the structures: different building traditions and materials, customs and purposes, and architectural styles?

The ideal for villages, small towns and large cities is to retain all historic memories and narratives as far as is possible, and completely renew all that is harmful to the environment. Three interdependent things are then combined. The first and most fundamental change is in the infrastructure of small towns: the movement of energy, people, goods, water, waste and data. The second change concerns the space required in the built area for the production of food, energy and timber. They all require extensive areas to be able to fulfill the needs of a single town. The third change is the location of buildings: what should and could be done? Though these three questions are interdependent, it is logical to discuss them separately.

Movement, transfer, transportation are the biggest problem. All the mechanisms related to these activities and their consequences – noise, pollution, depletion of natural resources, traffic jams, time wasting – are inconveniences that must be eliminated. The systems mentioned above must be applicable to an old townscape.

Passenger traffic

Cybercabs would replace cars. The streets of European villages and towns well suit the alignments of this new vehicular traffic. Actually, the older the place the easier it is to renew it. Fewer cybercabs would be needed than cars, and far less room would be needed for traffic lanes and parking places. They make no noise and do not pollute. Most town traffic problems have arisen from excessive through traffic, with vehicles forced down streets whose width derives from horse and cart days. That is why there is no room in an old town for cars, but quite enough for the new cybercabs.

In order to keep the streetscapes of small towns pleasant and unspoiled, the cybercab network should be less dense than present traffic. Movement in small towns would be mainly by foot. Cars would disappear, so villages and towns become pedestrian zones, safe havens for cyclists, rollerbladers, and walkers. The electric cybercab network would be installed in this pedestrian zone on the same principle as large city metros today: they do not take you to your front door, but everyone’s home is within reasonable walking distance of an underground station. Besides, cybercabs can also be operated manually.

This cybercab network could and would be denser than an underground and also on a smaller scale. So a small town would be a scale model of a modern city. The narrow gap required for the cybercab cable contact, and the warning signs and photoelectric sensors at the sides, are the only evidence that such a network exists. Cybercabs would be directed down certain streets and light on others nearby. The network would have a number of strategically located parking ranks to which empty cabs are returned automatically by the communication centre. So everyone can rest assured that there will be cab waiting in the rank a couple of blocks away. The location and space requirements of these parking places is included in the traffic plan for the different parts of the town.

Some people, like the elderly and the handicapped for example, will need parking slots outside the buildings where they live. This is the point of departure in planning, in fact quite the opposite of existing metro systems where the stations can never be located according to needs of specific groups.

Most small European towns have experienced both horse-drawn and motorcar traffic, and their traffic networks and town plans have been moulded by the requirements of these periods. Trams and trolley buses have also been installed in many towns. The change to this new system clearly requires fewer alterations than from horses to cars. It will mean that movement is easier, not more difficult.

Data communication

Data communications require no changes to a city’s infrastructure, instead it creates possibilities for a new kind of town planning which I will discuss in greater detail later on. When old buildings are demolished and sites rebuilt, the tendency up to now has been towards more dense layouts to facilitate human intercourse. In future it will not be so necessary. The versatility and efficiency of telecommunications – videophones, teleconferencing, teleworking and life management from home terminals – all allow for a physical distance between people.

The logical consequence of this is something that is perhaps shocking at first sight, because we are not used to the idea. When old buildings are demolished it is better to replace them with vegetable gardens, fuelwood forests, pastures or parks rather than new buildings. Telecommunications make it possible to have more space everywhere, open places between buildings and roads, small gardens and yards, of which we have too few in our tightly built villages and towns. Telecommunications would develop independently, of course, without interfering with town plans and the character of buildings.

Water circulation

The transportation of goods should be divided into three groups, depending on the materials concerned. The most important is water which by itself forms the first group. The conversion of water supply into a non-polluting system, a closed system, is a lot easier in small towns than in cities. The solution lies in constructing a sufficient number of efficient and multiple action purifying beds between wastewater and drinking water. Their function must be mechanical, chemical and biological. But they need a lot of room.

One of the most advanced projects in the world for tackling this problem is under way in Kolding, Denmark. The project took off in 1994. In the middle of the town in the yard of an old block, a pyramid-shaped water purification plant has been constructed, which cleans the wastewater of 131 flats using a multi stage mechanical-chemical-biological purification system (Figures 135 and 136). This is only a gigantic experiment at present, the main features of which are as follows:

Figure 136. Process chart of the Kolding purification plant

Rainwater is used for washing laundry and flushing toilets. It then runs into a wastewater pipe to an ordinary septic tank, where the coarse material sinks to the bottom and is removed. The lighter dirty liquid on the surface passes through biological bacterial purification, then through a sterilising stage of ozone treatment and ultraviolet radiation. Then the purification stage begins that resembles nature’s food chain. The still dirty water first goes to a tank containing phytoplankton, mostly green algae, which feed on the nutrients in the water. This stage is followed by a zooplankton tank. Zooplankton contains, for instance, cyclops and water fleas, which feed on the algae formed in the previous tank. After this the zooplankton is lead to a fish tank where fish and crayfish feed on it. Fish waste is used for fertilising pot plants, higher up in the chain, and finally the water that remains goes through a root filter bed and is absorbed into the ground to become normal ground water. The water quality is checked at every stage.

Water supply and treatment of wastewater functions best by abandoning the natural circulation of water and developing a different system perhaps imitating nature, but in the service of man. When this man-made system is at its most efficient level, it is simpler than natural circulation. The purified water is not then used directly for drinking water, but for instance for sprinkling on golf courses, parks and flower beds, and possibly also on cropland and fuelwood and commercial forests. Then no waste water would be let straight into the natural waterways. Correspondingly, domestic water would be drawn from groundwater or lakes, without disturbing the natural circulation. The present water pipe networks constructed in towns require no changes. The solution for large cities is more complicated. Between waste water purification and a drinking water purification plant an intermediate stage has to be devised, a new plant outside the city.

Goods pipeline

The goods transportation system would be set up along with the construction of a cybercab network. Streets would have to be dug up in any case for the cybercab control and energy supply cables. A vacuum pipe network for the transportation of goods could logically be laid down at the same time. A pipe wide enough for goods the size of a television set could not be incorporated into every building, it would be enough for such products to be sent to special collection points throughout the town and then delivered by cybervan or handcart.

Narrower pipes would be built into every building. It would be convenient for a packet of butter or a tin of herrings to go straight into the refrigerator installed on the wall. Goods would be ordered direct from the manufacturers via polymedia shopping or using a keyboard recessed into the side of a refrigerator. You would, for instance, type in the family’s breakfast to arrive at a certain time every Saturday morning automatically. Food would be the only product obtained daily and regularly, so special attention should be paid to its transportation. The acquisition of other goods occurs more irregularly, and a special network for them is not so urgent.

So towns need do nothing more for the transportation of goods than install the planned pipe network. The system controlling transportation, with its electric conveyors and distribution centres, maintenance and monitoring, would be similar to the present postal, electricity and water supply systems.

Waste pipeline

The last form of material movement concerns waste disposal. Households, restaurants, offices, factories, shops, municipal offices, parliaments and brothels all produce waste. An effective and well-functioning system is necessary for collecting, transporting, sorting and recycling this waste. Transportation would work best in vacuum tubes similarly to those used for goods transportation and installed at the same time. This might, however, be the worst of the two options. More practical but problematic from the point of view of hygiene would be to use the same pipes for transporting both goods and waste. A slack time at night could be used for transporting waste. There is, however, a fundamental difference: goods have address labels and waste does not. That is why waste does not need a capsule, an address sticker or a magnet. Waste could be sucked to a central collection point.

Constructing a vacuum pipe network for goods in towns and villages is similar to constructing any infrastructure. Streets have to be dug up, traffic diverted, and, after installation, the pipes would have to be covered up. Projects like these are more routines than something new or unique. The same thing happened when mains water pipes, district heating, electricity and telephone cables were installed in towns, or when cars began to be used instead of horses and carts. This change does not require the demolition of a single building or street, but once it is functioning it will reduce daily traffic jams in city streets.

Production areas

The production models for the new villages described above could also be adapted to a large extent to old villages and small towns. Local small-scale production and services must be encouraged through town planning and legislation. Large-scale production units should be located outside the towns, preferably in underground caves in the care and control of robots.

About half of the area required for farming could be allotted to a centralised production unit, whose location would be solved when planning larger areas and not in relation to a single village or town. If the zebra model described at the beginning of this book is followed, about half of food production could be located in the vicinity of villages. This requires a reservation of 1500 square metres per person for growing crops and grazing livestock. In the same way the area needed for energy production can be calculated, depending on whether wood is used or if heat and electricity are produced by solar panels. In any case the size is known: 300 square metres per person if energy is produced mainly by growing willow fuelwood, and clearly less, 150 square metres per person, if energy is produced by three-tier power plants. It is obvious that total energy consumption also depends on the location of the village.

In addition to food and energy production, a necessary and space-consuming group is paper and timber. Paper production in particular is so large-scale and centralised that it should not be produced on the principle of self-sufficiency except on the outskirts of the largest cities. The logical reason for this is that waste paper is increasingly becoming the main raw material of paper mills, something which is found in abundance in the backyards of municipal offices. The situation is different in the case of sawn timber. On the outskirts of every small town there would be a sawmill producing from locally-grown trees all the timber required by small-scale builders and carpenters.

More serious attention should be paid to the space required for food and energy production in future town planning. An area twice the size of the built area should always be reserved for these purposes in the vicinity of small conurbations. Small gardens are included in the built area.

An important corollary follows. Up to now, towns and villages have grown by spreading beyond their peripheries or by replacing old buildings. In the future not only the built area, but also the food, timber and energy requirements must be taken into account. No longer may towns expand unchecked and spread in all directions like dull, grey carpets. Spaces must be reserved for food and energy production in the built areas too. Because this has not been done up to now, in future a demolished building should not be replaced by another building, but by planting trees, cultivating plants or grazing animals. Thanks to new systems of telecommunication and goods transportation, towns would become more open plan. High building density was necessitated by old-fashioned technology.

Town planning and buildings

As the above shows, the only significant change in town planning is more openness, with spaces left between buildings for parks, croplands, greenhouses, chicken coops and solar panels. This is not realised artificially, only by the natural reduction of old buildings due to the ageing of their technological structures. This principle would have to be applied to every village separately. All heavy industry would be systematically left outside residential areas, preferably underground. In one respect this new technology would bring great relief to town planning: it is not necessary to pay so much attention to parking as before, so large areas both on streets and building sites would be freed for better use.

Fairly large areas also have to be left in all village plans for wastewater purification and water recycling. The same applies to composting organic waste. Finding the correct solutions to these problems will keep the building industry busy for years to come. Reusing wastewater will surely be strongly objected to on emotional grounds. It should be remembered though that water is reused today, albeit the cycle is natural. In future its circulation would be controlled, with scientific precision and approved without qualms.

Individual buildings should be altered only in stages and with respect. It should be remembered when planning these changes that over past decades and centuries numerous technological renovations have been made to these buildings without any noticeable effect on facades and townscape. Water pipes and sewers have been brought to them, heating systems radically improved several times, electrification of lighting has occurred throughout the whole continent, and a number of new appliances have appeared in kitchens like fridges, freezers, stoves and microwave ovens. All these improvements have been made without unduly affecting the external appearance of the buildings, their facades or streetscapes.

The supply and production of energy for buildings can be renewed without demolishing anything or altering the facades. Solar panels will be installed on the roofs of some buildings without spoiling the townscape. The main changes in individual buildings will be in telecommunications and the renewal of goods transportation. Advanced telecommunications will require wall space for the polymedia screen. This will replace television and telephone. The most significant changes would be hatches, rather like the dumb waiters of times past, in the walls of kitchens and perhaps some other rooms for the reception of food and other products delivered through the vacuum pipes of the electronic service network.

Hatches for sorted waste removal are as important as those for receiving goods. Metal, plastic, paper, organic waste, hazardous waste and ‘miscellaneous’ waste is dropped each into its own carefully and ergonomically situated receptacle. It can either be in a wall or a floor. Only one pipe would be necessary for removing waste. A revolver technique, familiar to everybody from Westerns and Russian roulette, would be used for sorting waste (Figure 137). There are several ways of removing each separate waste batch along the same pipe, at different times, to the bins of a central collection point, from where it would be sucked under low pressure for recycling. Planning the entire chain of waste management is one of the numerous tasks for recycling technology in the near future.

Planning changes and regulations

The above mentioned changes could obviously be carried out without causing serious damage to any European village or town. Yet they would have to be planned over a long period, carefully considering which buildings should under no circumstances be demolished and what kind of greenbelts should be created between the remaining buildings.

International agreements cannot be very strict in this respect. The mosaic-like European building tradition is of unquestionable value in itself, and the distinct building traditions in different countries are an essential part of this variation. It would, apparently, be enough just to show how self-sufficiency in food and energy production in built areas could be achieved. Only waste management regulations should be absolute and strict. No country should object to them, because failure here means a disservice to future generations throughout Europe.

Figure 137. Segmented waste drum

Waste management functions most efficiently when a standard segmented waste drum is installed in each home to assist presorting. The drum would revolve through 60 degrees when, for instance, the plastic waste compartment is connected to the vacuum pipe. The vacuum pipe would suck plastic waste from all homes simultaneously to the central collection plant for recycling. The number and purpose of the hatches shown in the diagram could be varied as required.

Figure 138. A restored rocking chair

Improving the environment

Improving old surroundings is the most natural form of recycling, as saving energy is the most sustainable form of energy production. We would then avoid the duty of recycling, by-passing any necessity for new production. The repair technology of old objects, buildings and environments should be taught from the outset in all professions (Figures 138 and 139).

The old quarters of towns all over the world are those areas where people prefer to be. A modern building seldom achieves the same human affinity as old buildings, though some new buildings may eventually gain the same classical status. Old furniture, crockery, machinery and clothes are pleasant reminders of the past. The value of old cars increases annually. When we talk about old villages, we also mean the objects they contain. The cherishing and reparation of old objects is an industry, education and profession of its own.

Everyday life

In spite of all the new possibilities and technical developments, care must be taken that old options are not destroyed. The opportunity to live a peaceful humane life at a small and rather primitive level must be open to all who want it, even though we live in the midst of polymedia, virtual reality, magnetic levitation and unmanned farm machinery.

In the previous chapter I painted a roseate picture of life in an eco-village. Such a pastoral life might appeal to some people, perhaps only a small minority. In consolation it must be remembered that the world changes according to people’s wishes and hopes, not by force. We cannot coerce or force people to live a sweeter, simpler life than they wish. In the future everyone will find the environment of their liking. Only a few new villages might come to being. Old villages would be renewed as the need arises, but however much we may urge otherwise, I am sure most people will continue to prefer living in metropolitan mazes in the future.

ECO-CITIES

There are 30 cities in Europe with over a million inhabitants, and over a tenth of the total population live in them. The majority of people live in smaller towns and conurbations which are, however, large population centres compared with the eco-villages described above or the old small towns that could be converted into eco-villages. The most important population centres in ecological Europe are not the small villages, but the present large cities.

Are eco-cities possible?

Large cities must protect nature through planning and building. It is not protected in large cities because there is none, it only exists outside, in the surrounding countryside. The renewal of large cities means changing its land use as much as changing the countryside around them. This is the main ecological content of the large city. An eco-city is in itself an impossible goal, one that is as feasible as white is black or big is small. But a city that is more ecological than now can be planned, a shade of black. Let us examine its characteristic features.

Despite all our enthusiasm for change, the main feature of a large city is that it would be much the same as at present. The idea of demolishing cities and rebuilding them according to some ecological principle would, in fact, be highly unecological. A lot of energy and natural resources would be used, and it would pollute the air, waterways and ground. The outcome of such an experiment would, in any case, be uncertain, and environmentally spurned. Conserving an individual building in the name of culture is a worthy idea, likewise preserving the integrity of old urban centres. But preserving culture is by no means ecological. Certain harmful and non-ecological tendencies could be prevented, like overgrowth, spreading like a homogeneous carpet over the surrounding countryside, excessive travelling distances and an inefficient production structure.

Minor improvements could be made to individual buildings: their insulation could be improved, facades replaced by more durable materials and flats combined to make them more spacious. These will not be discussed though because they do not greatly affect a city’s infrastructure. Greater changes are necessary in the arteries of a city, in the transportation of people and goods. A city’s arteries carry people, goods, food, energy, data, waste and water from one place to another.

Water

The essential thing here is the circulation of water.

The average person uses 400 litres of water a day, a large city uses 0,15 cubic kilometres a year, not including water used by industry and agriculture. If the wastewater of the area were left to seep into groundwater, the depth of the grey water layer would increase by 1.5 metres a year. This problem is at its initial stage now, but so were the pollution of rivers, lakes, seas, air and soil in their time. These problems have always been tackled too late.

Water management in a small town is more easily organised than in a large city. It can be more natural because the area required for the purification process is more in a small town relative to the size of its built up area. A large city’s water management must be an isolated closed system, which constantly purifies the water of all the substances, germs and viruses in it. This is possible because water does not combine easily with other substances chemically. The amount of water on earth is more or less stable from one century to another.

The idea of drinking water derived from sewage disgusts us, but this already happens. Sewage effluent is purified to some degree and let into waterways or into the ground, and drinking water is then obtained either from surface water or groundwater. Some water goes into the atmosphere and returns to earth, some is filtered through the earth into the groundwater. In both cases the purification process is based on natural processes. Dirt is left dispersed and uncontrolled in waterways or in the ground. The purpose of artificial purification is to stop pollution and separate the natural circulation of water from that for human use. It is possible, but complicated and expensive (Gillies, 1981).

The problem is not making water clear but disinfecting it, purifying it of bacteria, viruses and other microbes. For this there are three tried methods: ozone treatment, chlorination and ultraviolet radiation. In addition some inorganic compounds and elements harmful to humans, such as heavy metals and excessive nitrogen, have to be removed.

Raw water and the water purified in this type of plant must be analysed, and then a technique worked out to improve the latter to match the former. The extra costs arising from this varies from city to city, and it is worth paying a price according to each situation. The overall cost will be less the sooner these techniques are adopted. The most costly system is to purify already polluted groundwater.

Purification techniques and the missing link

At present natural water is purified for drinking, and wastewater is run into nature. Purification proceeds through various stages, but the purification of wastewater is not the same as the natural process described in the previous chapter.

The first stage in natural water purification is mechanical microfiltration which removes larger particles, fish and algae. This is the obvious and understandable stage. Then aluminium sulphate is added to precipitate humus. After this the water is stirred, then follows flocculation, a purely mechanical stage where solid particles collide and aggregate into flocs or flakes. Then the water is precipitated, stirred, and solid particles are removed by sedimentation, letting it flow slowly through the tank when sediment precipitates to the floor of the tank and is removed. Now water is free of rough sediment. Filtering through a sand bed is still necessary to remove fine sediment. Fine sediment stays on the surface of the sand and is removed regularly by backflow. Finally the water is disinfected. Bacteria are killed either by ozone treatment or chlorination. The water is then ready for human use (Figure 140).

Figure 140. Helsinki’s water treatment process

(Source: City of Helsinki Water and Sewage Works)

This process also includes intermediate stages, whose purpose is to prevent pipes corroding, to regulate the water’s acidity, lower costs, save energy and ensure the water pipe network’s hygiene. These are all secondary to purification.

Used water goes into a sewer. An example of the subsequent stage of water purification is a new wastewater purification plant in Helsinki (Figure 141). Influent is first pumped in for screening, solid particles smaller than 10 mm are removed. Next grit is separated by mixing the liquid. Then follows pre-aeration, whose purpose is to remove hydrogen sulphides and hydrocarbon, then primary sedimentation, when solid stuff sinks to the bottom and is removed. After this the mixture is aerated. This increases the bacteria stock which feed on the solid organic mass. Secondary sedimentation removes most of the bacteria that remain. Now the effluent liquid can be purified with sodium hypochlorite, after which it can be used, for instance, for watering golf courses. In Sweden this process ends with sand filtration, from which the sludge can be composted and used as manure on cropland. This is still not adequate. The question is how this can be purified further to potable water.

Figure 141. Helsinki’s wastewater treatment process

(Source: Viikinmäki Wastewater Treatment Plant, 1994)

Problem substances can be divided into five groups. The first are basic substances that characterise water quality, such as ammonium, nitrogen and phosphorus. The second includes some common and uncommon metals. The third includes herbicides, the fourth synthetic organic pollutants, and the fifth bacteria and viruses. Various methods have been developed for their removal.

The missing link between purified wastewater and raw water can be found. An experimental plant should be built in a European city as soon as possible, so that the system could be tried out on a proper scale in practice (Figure 142). Optional purification methods are filtering through a thickish layer of soil, treatment with active carbon, using ion exchange resin, and applying reverse osmosis (Gillies, 1981). The water surface drops 1 mm per second through a sand bed. A filtration bed of half a hectare would be needed for the volume of wastewater from a million-class city. But the structure is not simple because the above mentioned measures bring additional complications. The process would produce 26 000 cubic metres of dry sludge every year. After going through a final drying stage, that part of the waste discharge could be used as manure on croplands and parks.

Figure 142. A possible missing link

(Source: Gillies, 1981)

Water supply and sewage networks are the most important parts of the infrastructure of a town. Their complete renewal would be inconvenient and is not anyway necessary. Instead a new plant could be constructed, the missing link between water purification and water supply plants, to close the circle. It would produce masses of organic waste, which after treatment becomes manure which would be returned to fields.

Food management and sewers

A person uses 600 grams food of animal origin and 1800 grams of vegetable origin a day, together containing only a half per cent of the daily water volume he uses. Water flows quickly in narrow pipes, food, organic waste and sludge more slowly in wider ones. Sludge as such can be transported by vacuum, food in capsules by electromagnetism.

Food and excrement could be pumped daily along the same route, but in different pipes and in opposite directions. Both need an extensive area of fields outside the town where the pipes go (Figure 143). These fields are part of the town’s metabolism, the circulation of its organic mass. Food is sent to the town along one pipe and the sludge formed from the purification of sewage waste is returned to the fields.

Food and sludge must be handled separately to other goods and materials, because their transportation is daily and more massive: Only the volume of water is larger. Food and sludge are both organic and easily spoil, especially if they are in contact with air, so they cannot be kept long in warm intermediate storage places. Another equally important influence on the proposed infrastructure is that food and sludge need wider pipes than water, but narrower than for other goods; they do not need as much space as a television set. The daily traffic of organic matter between town and countryside is so different that it is worthwhile constructing separate pipeline networks for cities. Pipes for ordinary goods would be separate anyway.

Goods and trade

Parallel to the above is another network for goods. Goods traffic is based on automation, electronic exchanges, direct delivery from manufacturer to consumer, and is complete separate from passenger traffic. The largest articles needed by the average family are furniture, and they cannot be sent down pipes 30 cm in diameter like food. The renovation of a town and the rare construction of new buildings will require transporting even larger objects. This occurs seldom in small towns, where all kinds of a special arrangements can be organised. In a large city, however, there are hundreds of bulky articles delivered every day.

When recycling functions properly – which is what we are aiming at – the same volume of large objects would move in both directions. Add to these clothes, books, newspapers and numerous other miscellaneous everyday items, it becomes practical to construct a pipeline network under the streets of a city, along which products are conveyed to collection points from the factories, and perhaps later returned. Collection points are distribution depots, and there can be as many of them as there are post offices now. This system has several advantages: goods traffic can be almost completely separated from passenger traffic, so people no longer have to make way for haulage trucks. Shops and intermediate stores would no longer be necessary as consumers teleshop and fetch the goods from the nearest collection point. The price of a product would then only include manufacture and transport. Cash would be used only in special cases.

The attitude of ordinary town dwellers to shops and shopping will change radically. Most importantly, electronic shopping means a buyer’s, not a seller’s market. The shopper no longer need wander from one department store to another, but can call up the complete range of products from all manufacturers from his armchair. He can do this at any time, because the shop is open 24 hours a day and every day. He can ask questions about the product, interactively, and receive the answers immediately. The terminal seller replies to the questions patiently, without griping like shop assistants. When the transaction is completed, the buyer records his commitments and guarantees, and the seller receives payment electronically. The article leaves the factory or the importer’s warehouse straight away, goes down the pipe to the collection point nearest the buyer, from where he can fetch it a few minutes after the deal was finalised. The article is carried home in a cybervan or handcart.

In addition to electronic shopping, you can still buy from the numerous corner shops within the white stripes of the zebra. The shopper saunters over to the store, chats with the shopkeeper, and enjoys a cup of tea whilst haggling over the price of an old tome. Such stores are open at unpredictable times, when the shopkeeper feels like it. They are no money-makers, but are most enjoyable.

Change in passenger traffic

The change in a city’s passenger traffic is most important. Driving a car in a European city today, trying to read directions with one eye and watch the traffic with the other, is enough to convince even the keenest driver how crazy it is.

One-way streets, no right turn, no left turn, no parking places, sudden changes in street names, street works, jammed traffic lanes, U-turn’s strictly punishable, lorries and vans unloading, and all drivers in a hell-bent hurry. Just think how confusing it is for our country-cousin who, having got to one place by the grace of God, still needs to go a hundred metres to the north, an almost cryptic task: first driving three hundred metres to the south, half a kilometre west, then a hundred metres north, 50 metres west, after this 500 metres north-west, a hundred metres east and finally, perpetrating an outrageous traffic offence trying to cover the last fifty metre lap, driving in an absolutely forbidden direction, accompanied by hooters noisy enough to bring down the walls of Jericho and irate drivers giving him the V-sign, despite the fact that solving the problem requires genius as this specific route could only have been guessed by supernatural intuition, as it is not shown on the city map and at the back of his mind is the gnawing fear that erring into a motorway, where every decision only makes the situation worse and pushes the distraught driver nearer and nearer the spin that slings him mercilessly 20 kilometres outside the town, to return an hour later to the same spot, a hundred metres away from the destination which he had already managed to reach, to give him a second chance. A rat in a labyrinth?

On future streets there will be no cars, no smelly exhaust fumes, and no noise. If people do not cycle they can use cybercabs, mostly automated. Cybercabs make no noise, they do not pollute or crash into anything. They offer a view in all directions, and inside you can read or do something else that is useful. There is a map on the display screen where one can follow the journey. You just state the destination and you are taken there. There are cybercabs to be hired everywhere in the city, for everybody who wants one. Ten times more people will fit onto crowded streets than at present. Streets can again be two-way, the distance and time between two places becomes automatically as short and simple as possible. Even a stranger to town can find his way on the map.

Even the old streets of European cities are wide enough. The underground railway is no longer needed for passengers, it can be used for goods. There are plenty of cybercab ranks and they will not block the traffic. This is how mechanical passenger traffic will be organised in the big cities. Alongside them extensive areas and long lanes would be reserved for pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders, and for skiers and tobogganists in northern winters. You can freely walk along most streets in the city, breathing in fresh air, with only the murmur of conversation breaking the silence. Birds sing in the parks, children laugh in the playgrounds and music can be heard from the open doors of restaurants. Streets are no longer grey, monotonous, noisy, but park-like pedestrian zones full of life.

Energy and information

Beside traffic routes for people and goods, a large city has its own central nervous system, energy management and data transfer. Almost all energy is used for electricity and for heating. It is produced just like food, in the extensive areas outside the city, where geothermal heat pipes are sunk underground and covered with solar panels and wind turbines. Figure 143 shows the extent of these areas. Their technical structure is described more thoroughly in the chapter dealing with new forms of energy.

One of the most important changes in a city’s infrastructure is the renewal of data transfer and storage. All other traffic depends on it: energy transfer, passenger traffic, two-way food and waste transport, and goods transport from producers to consumers and visa versa. Electronic data transfer includes many other things that are dealt with in detail elsewhere in the book. Data transfer and energy supply would mainly use old telephone and electricity cable routes, most of which have already been constructed.

Figure 143. Vienna’s support area

Town support areas

Extensive areas around large towns will have to be reserved to satisfy the daily needs of the population. The bulk of food would have to be produced on the outskirts of a city (Figure 143). Forests for paper and timber requirements should be nearby to avoid unnecessary transportation. Energy would be produced in the vicinity of a city. Nature reserves should also be situated nearby. All large European cities would have their support areas fairly close by, only the lack of space in the south of Great Britain seems insuperable. In addition to its large cities, southern England will have to address the needs of its numerous small towns (Figures 144 and 145).

Figure 144. Major European cities with their support areas

Figure 145. European cities with their support areas and planned conservation areas

The nature of change

The above scheme may seem revolutionary, even arbitrary. You might fear that it could spoil old cultural centres. But: not so long ago all large European cities depended on horse drawn traffic, oil lamps, letters, well water and open sewers. The growth of motor traffic, construction of underground railways in most large cities, electrification, telephone services, television, radio, and the construction of water supply and closed sewer systems could already have radically changed the external features of these cities – if such were possible by changing the infrastructure. Cars have had the most profound influence.

If cities have managed these changes without demolishing old buildings, widening ancient squares or becoming mutilated by motorways, they can stand the new changes too. The improvement and renewal of telecommunications are simple operations. Linking new tracks to the underground network is fairly easy too. The capillaries of passenger transport, the cybercab network, can use the existing street network and only their power cables would need to be sunk safely under the roads. The cybercab network would be connected to the data communications system, and all the vehicles mass produced.

Figure 146. The Graben in Vienna at the end of the 19th century

These traffic changes will cause far less damage to a city’s infrastructure than the underground railways that have been under construction for decades in most large European cities, or the endless demands of motor traffic. The new cybercabs can move behind each other like trains as well as alongside each other without any danger of accidents. They are much smaller than cars and have no parking problems. They would also be used more efficiently than cars. All this means that our streets will suffice superbly for the demands of this new traffic system. The use of space would return to the days before cars. Parks and market squares would again have room for the trees and small parks they once had (Figures 146, 147 and 148).

The renewal of the water supply and sewage systems will have no effect on a city’s infrastructure. The basic problem is of combining the two present systems and constructing a link between them. Sewage water would not be discharged into nature any more, but after purification returned to the same area where a city now takes its water from. The circle would be closed. When this principle is followed, the optimal recycling principle must be adhered to. It is obviously wiser to purify washing water first and use it for flushing toilets, and only then recycle it. Also making a distinction between water used for drinking, cooking, and washing up is advisable. These are all questions of details and costs, but they should be carefully compared before a final decision is made.

As European towns slowly grow and develop over the following centuries, they should be integrated into the existing and planned rail network (Figure 149). Present railways go through cities quite normally. It is interesting to note that even in densely populated Germany everybody could live near existing railway lines. It will not be necessary to open up new transcontinental transport lanes.

Figure 149. String of beads model for German cities

City life

In the above I have dealt thoroughly with changes that would have little or no direct affect on the lives of ordinary people. Drinking water will still come from a tap and wastewater still disappear down a sewer. The complex and careful water purification process is just another building outside the city. Its importance, however, for a sustainable situation is imperative.

Goods traffic and above all passenger traffic will of course show, likewise the changes in shopping. If we are to prevent the unrestricted growth of cities, these will have a profound effect on the mood of a city. But what else? In what way would the lives of city dwellers change?

In addition to the physical changes described, the most important reform would be in the nature of work.

The reformation of work is fundamental because only the could people in the future be able to fully enjoy their new environment, its unpolluted tranquility and radically improved opportunities. Regular working hours would be a thing of the past because of advanced information technology, so people in the towns and villages could live the kind of life they want each day and month of the year. This means a new division and use of time, a radical increase in cultural interests and pastimes. Many public facilities, like restaurants, theatres, clubs and sports centres, would be open for most of the day. In every possible way, life will become more versatile. The pendulum swinging between work and leisure would cease, and no longer dictate the pattern of people’s lives. There will be time for culture, for enjoying life, and everyone will become a philosopher.

Our children’s children will have the freedom and opportunities that only the nobility enjoyed in the past – but only if we give the chance, now.