Local in Ann Arbor

Cities can be described as living organisms. There is growth. There is metabolism. There are many moving parts with different roles and functions. They exist in space and time. Recognition of this living, dynamic nature of cities has given rise to a branch of study called urban science, which is grounded in the concepts of complexity science. In a recent book, The New Science of Cities, Michael Batty lays a clear, although very math-based, picture of the processes involved in the growth of cities that have many implications for urban planning.

While a city will never be static, it can usually be expected to have a certain stability as it develops and changes over time. But in the case of Ann Arbor, mechanisms and events are now in place to change the very nature of the city, to an extent that they may be termed its transfiguration.

The meaning of transfiguration is that the entity becomes something so different in form, substance, and appearance that it is something altogether different. The most common usage is in the Eucharist, where wine and bread are said to become Christ’s blood and body. (The term is also encountered in the Harry Potter books, as a spell.)  We more commonly see the term “metamorphosis”, as in the conversion of a caterpillar to a butterfly. From Scientific American, “First, the caterpillar digests itself, releasing enzymes to dissolve all of its tissues…those (imaginal) discs use the protein-rich soup all around them to fuel the rapid cell division required to form the wings, antennae, legs, eyes, genitals and all the other features of an adult butterfly or moth.” In other words, this organism literally melts away, to be reconstituted into something completely different.

These changes in Ann Arbor have been clearly signaled. As we have noted earlier, Mayor Taylor has been promising “disruption” for several years now. And in April 2020, he was quoted in the Michigan Daily as saying:

““All lines of work, all manners of doing things, are open to interrogation. The old way of running an economy, the old way of doing business, the old way of operating civil society is subject to change, subject to reexamination, subject to improvement. ”

And now we are on our way. This series will examine a long list of the events and changes leading to this radical transformation in the City of Ann Arbor. And then, we’ll discuss the implications to the Comprehensive Plan.

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This entry was posted on May 6, 2024 at 7:27 pm and is filed under Basis, Neighborhoods, politics, Sustainability. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.