Foundations 19 – Infrastructure Space

Planetary scale – Exploring patterns of worldwide urbanization

Urbanization of the hinterland

Our planet has become heavily urbanized over the past decades. This development has been enabled and driven by new infrastruc- ture, agricultural technology, well-developed logistics systems, increased circulation of capital, and so forth. One visible effect of this development is the territorial expansion of urban agglomer- ations: Borders between cities and their environs are gradually dissolving. The workshop moderated by Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid dealt intensively with the issue of how the global trend of urban- ization is changing non-urban areas. “Nearly half the world’s pop- ulation now lives in urban areas,” Christian Schmid stated at the beginning of his summary. “But in our discussions we also includ- ed the other half, because every region of our planet is affected in one way or another by urbanization.”

How does Infrastructure Space affect the building materials industry? “The construction industry really has to be aware of the massive effects many processes have.” Christian Schmid, Professor of Sociology at the ETH Zurich

The workshop presented the concepts of concentrated and extend- ed urbanization. Concentrated urbanization takes place in urban nodes. But these centers depend on people, food, raw materials,

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