The Horizontal Metropolis

Metropolis and horizontal are contradictory terms: One stands for vertical and dense building, the other is synonymous with spaciousness and a lack of centrality. This new book examines settlement structures that can be assigned neither to the city nor to the rural area, but which are also inadequately described by "suburb". The term Desakota, coined around 1900 by the New Zealand urban researcher Terry G. McGee and derived from Indonesian, describes precisely such spaces in the extended environs of large cities in which urban and agricultural forms of use and settlement occur side by side and are strongly intermingled. Such spaces typically occur in Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia, and are the subject of this study, along with areas in the USA, Switzerland and Italy. The book highlights the potential benefits of horizontal metropolises and demonstrates their relevance in terms of energetic, ecological and social discourses. The concept stands for a vision of global urbanisation in which there is no longer an "outside" and which puts the urban ecosystem to a severe test.