The Role of Utopia in Ecological Planning and Design

In this chapter, I argue that utopian and visionary thinking in planning and design are crucial to facing current and future urban and global challenges. I also advocate that urban planners and designers must become utopians and visionary thinkers to explore new and innova- tive approaches to managing current and future urban and global challenges. The underpinning principles, theoretical elements, and practical works of utopias present cogent understandings to appreciating the evolution and value of ecological design and planning in everyday life. Utopia may seem an uncharacteristic avenue to explore as a source of inspiration for eco- logical planning and design. It could seem even odd to advocate utopian and visionary thinking as a way to face current and future urban and global challenges—among them climate change, food security, environmental pollution, loss of biodiversity, and the incremental increase in the world’s population—and their consequences. We only have to look to history for a guidepost to the future. The challenges of urban pollution, depletion of natural resources, water and air quality, and the abominable life conditions of the urban population after the advent and the consolidation of the Industrial Age all inspired new proposals of urban visioning and planning. This vision was also at the core of known utopias directly conceived of or applied, in various ways, to com- munities in North America. The authors of these myriad utopias had a singular vision, however, that was devoid of the environmental decay of urban areas and troubled social relations. As David Pinder wrote, they “. . . attached importance to intervening in cities and urban spaces for political and social ends, in recognition of the ways in which society is spatially constituted.”