Abandoned Cities 2: Flaw in the Design

I've previously written about what I call 'Abandoned City Ecology' here

            The other day, I went for a walk in Leigh Woods. I’d done this walk a few times before, but this time I got a little lost because I was being lazy and stupid with following directions, and so I got to walk past the Stokeleigh camp twice, and on the second amble past, I really thought about it, and imagined what it was once upon a time.

            The Stokeleigh camp is an ancient site in Leigh Woods, facing out towards the Avon gorge by Bristol. Two crescent shaped mounds are all that’s left of an iron age fort that once kept guard over the banks of the River Avon for reasons so far unknown. All that’s left are the two mounds, surrounded by trees, shrubs, grassland, and themselves completely covered in a variety of wildflowers and weeds.

  Between the two mounds at the Stokeleigh Camp, Leigh Woods.

The Mound Rising up ahead at the Stokeleigh Camp, Leigh Woods, Bristol.

            I’d been thinking a lot lately about the impermanence of all things, especially artifices, and how cities have a lifespan. The abandoned cities archaeologists find weren’t always deserted during some cataclysmic event, rather citizens trickled out as life in the city became less and less viable. The cities we have opted to create in ridiculous climes such as Las Vegas, a city that functions as any other American city albeit in the middle of the desert with strained water sources; similarly, Cape Town in South Africa experienced a water crisis just last year. Whether we like it or not, artifices have a lifespan of usefulness that might be shorter than we expect; everything from a skyscraper to a coke bottle to a city has a timer counting down in its usefulness.

The problem with artifice’s useful lifespans is that, unlike organic features, artifices do not break down or transform on the demise of their usefulness. Where an eggshell, once empty, will dry up, the membrane and residues rotted away, the shell becoming brittle, eventually shattering, and then one day becoming powder, returning the mineral constitution of the shell to the ground. A plastic drinks bottle, once empty, just sits. It might tear or warp, and shed a few shavings of plastic into its surrounds, but generally it will not disappear.

The Stokeleigh camp, re-absorbed into nature being just mounds of dirt, seemed to me the most brilliant, unintentional design, because its demise was factored in, and this isn’t a spoon we’re talking about, but a fort. If we accept that an era’s worth of cities could well be left due to war, climate change, and  resources stress, then we should be designing and building with decay factored in. Nothing is permanent, including unfortunately us as a species; whether we evolve, planetary migrate, or go extinct, I’d hate to wander the globe a spirit, and see city stacks still stood where a rich base of habitats could have instead been fed and allowed to succeed us.

Followed up by Abandoned City Ecology 3: Cut in the Landscape