Abstract
Naturality and artificiality with reference to urban systems
The article by Simone Amato Cameli (2021) is an interesting and challenging contribution to the debate on the nature of urban systems. His interest starts from a substantial, and shareable, dissatisfaction with the search for a convincing criterion to determine the natural or artificial nature of cities. The questions at issue are ontological ones (Bacchini and Piras, 2021; Varzi, 2021; Batty, 2022): What kinds of reality are cities? Which of the available theories is best able to describe their origin and specificity?
These kinds of problems are crucial for urban studies. However, if on the one hand the arguments borrowed from other fields often seem partial, on the other hand, the arguments more internal to the disciplinary field often lack analytical rigour and clarity.
As Cameli also recalls, the architect Colin Davies (2011: 109), for example, notes that urban settlements resemble “organic accretions” like “forests or coral reefs or insects’ nests”. However, there are fundamental analytical differences between these types of habitat: while the configuration of coral reefs and forests can also be created by pure chance and inertia (consider the effect of wind and sea currents), this does not happen for nests (whether of insects or other animals): to have the latter, an intent must bring them into reality. If it is true that every artificial structure is the result of a “deliberate act” (Davies, 2011: 109), to what extent can we speak of naturalness when the existence of certain entities depends on a purposive act by a living agent?
To provide another preliminary example, the geographer Matthew Gandy (2005) revisits urban realms in light of science fiction images: he envisions a “cyborg urbanisation” where the combination of organic and technological material is conceived as a life-support system. Consider, for instance, the role of high-tech today in the management of physical amenities (e.g. sensors detecting energy utilities, smart building construction, transportation) and social ones (e.g. public data, governance, services). Cameli discusses the works of Gandy (2005: 28), who introduced the metaphor of the cyborg “as an alternative way of conceptualising the growth and development of cities that serves to destabilise the pervasive narratives of dematerialisation, spatial malleability and virtualisation”. In fact, one cannot properly speak of the “death of geography” as long as there are, also as regard the digital realm, physical infrastructures and users (Morgan, 2004). Cameli immediately counters the possible criticism that the scale of “nano-technology” is not interesting for or applicable to the urban environment by pointing to the pervasive ability of certain technologies to alter both the artefactual (e.g. buildings, infrastructures) and the human (e.g. individuals, institutions) in the city. On this view, the natural and the artificial of cities are distinguishable but not distinct: one does not exist without the other. In this regard, two questions spontaneously arise. Ontologically speaking, since when and to what extent is the symbiosis between natural and artificial a new topic in discussing cities? Even in light of contemporary technological advances and capabilities, are we sure that hybridisation is the only form of conceptualisation, or is it possible to demarcate and differentiate certain basic (ontological) categories?
Cameli’s article attempts to clarify these points. His conceptual exploration has great value in an intellectual field where analytical differences are often blurred.
Re-discussing three main arguments to demarcate the natural and the artificial
In the debate on the natural or artificial nature of cities, Cameli (2021) identifies three main approaches: (i) ontological; (ii) ontogenetic; (iii) complexity-oriented. Let us consider them critically one by one.
According to the first, “ontological”, approach, natural and artificial are two distinct and separate categories. From this perspective, cities are essentially seen as artificial realities insofar as they are man-made. Consequently, the “natural” is a residual category for everything that is non-man-made (Cameli, 2021: 5). However, note that the opposite may also be valid: the man-made could be considered as the residual category in a universe in which, so far, the natural seems to have largely prevailed over the artefactual/artificial. This aspect tends to be underestimated in the general debate, probably because of the pervasive “anthropocentrism” and “recentism” (Smith, 2020). Besides accepting the stimulating challenge of urban cybernetics, and in particular the possibilities offered by nano-technologies that make the natural and artificial origin of certain objects or processes similar (Cameli, 2021: 6), the discourse is interesting in evolutionary terms. The extent to which and when the human species will change (also psycho-physically and not only demographically) due to the impact of technologies on urban environments could be a theme to be explored.
According to the second, “ontogenetic”, argument, natural and artificial are two contrasting aspects when one considers the origins of something. From this point of view, cities are often seen as emergent orders: urban environments developed as the “natural” result of intentional and unintentional human interactions. From this perspective, a fundamental role is usually attributed to “spontaneous” market forces. In this latter regard, some approaches often shift towards a tendentious reductionism that considers the market system as a “natural” order in contrast to the government system, which is seen as an “artificial” order. Cameli appropriately recognises the inseparability of the two elements, as well as the impossibility of observing them in “pure forms” – perhaps, because neither of the two concepts has anything to do with “naturalness”. Both markets and governments are, in some way, man-made systems; it is precisely for this reason that it is necessary to organise the functioning of both of them properly. In the end, the contrast here is not so much between the two distinct ontological categories of the natural and the artificial as it is within one of them (i.e. the artificial). As long as the existence and variety of economic arrangements and institutions depend on social agents, they can be intentionally designed or unintentionally emergent, but they always remain “artificial” (Moroni, 2010).
In the third, “complexity-based”, argument, natural and artificial are two coexisting elements. Cities are seen as complex systems characterised precisely by the mix of the two aspects. Here, the demarcation between the natural and the artificial is re-interpreted as a distinction between the “complexity” and “complicatedness” of entities. From this perspective, natural systems are seen as complex entities (i.e. adaptive, non-linear, non-deterministic, irreducible), while artificial systems are complicated entities (i.e. non-adaptive, linear, deterministic, reducible). However, this distinction is not always as clear and symmetrical as it seems at first sight. Portugali (2011, 2016) notes that the elements in the city (e.g. buildings, infrastructures) are merely “complicated” artifacts, but their functioning and combination create a “complex” hybrid of natural and artificial dimensions. Ontologically speaking, this seems an appropriate but not always exhaustive view. Stating that cities and their elements are not complex in themselves – but are so only in their functioning – seems almost a retreat from the founding theory of “cities as complex systems”. Moreover, certain approaches in this vein risk a “holistic, vitalist or panpsychist drift” (Cameli, 2021: 4). Probably, this happens because it is inherently difficult to identify when and under what conditions one can explain urban complexity in this way without appealing to emergent orders (indeed, the second and third arguments often tend to overlap). Consequently, theories of complexity that espouse a hybrid idea of the urban natural-artificial do not seem entirely satisfactory. On the one hand, they do not seem to clarify views or introduce new (properly urban) ones. On the other hand, as also Cameli (2021: 10) points out, certain invariants seem essential to the functioning of human organisations, which comprise “complex” urban systems.
Perhaps, when discussing cities, we are confronted by a particular type of complexity pertaining to – if not exclusive to – the “social world” (De Franco and Moroni, 2023; Moroni and Cozzolino, 2019). This last point will be discussed further in the next section.
Further possible developments: brute facts and social facts
In sum – and on this one cannot but agree with Cameli – the use of the concepts of “natural” and “artificial” in discussing urban environments is not always clear. His article perfectly captures the difficulties that pervade certain theoretical interpretations of urban realms.
In particular, the ontological argument seems to address the natural/artificial issue through an overly simplistic dichotomous reading of the world, one unsuitable for describing urban realities (in any context and time).
The ontogenetic argument suffers from certain distortions; for example, the idea that markets and governments are inherently different and intrinsically in contrast is untenable. In everyday reality, it is clear that the antagonism between the market and the state is neither natural nor inherent in either of the two systems. As noted by Cameli himself, certain theories appropriately “bring government into the evolution”, which is not surprising for those who adopt neo-institutional approaches in urban studies (Salet, 2002; Buitelaar, 2008; Moroni, 2010, 2021).
The complexity-based argument is more convincing when the distinction concerns the aims of the systems in question. Viewing complex systems as aim-less and complicated systems as aim-based can for instance help us to gain better understanding of widespread apprehensions about new technologies and the “cyber city”. 1 However enthusiastic one may be about artificial intelligence, for the time being it works through, and because of, “prompts”: its overall nature is aim-based; a jungle or a city is not: their overall nature is aim-less.
Especially in the case of cities, the methods of modelling and quantifying the properties of systems can only describe some (complicated) part of their (complex) functioning (Moroni, 2015). However aim-less they are, to understand urban realms one does not necessarily need a quantum leap (Cameli, 2021: 15) but rather a “humanistic” one: that is, one that systematically brings the “social/institutional” dimension into the ontological debate. In this regard, studies in social ontology (see e.g. Gilbert, 1989; Searle, 1995; Tuomela, 2013; Lawson, 2019; Bojanić, 2022) can suggest a direction for further development of the crucial discussion introduced by Cameli. They avoid making the distinction between natural and artificial the focus of the discourse, and they shift the attention to the more decisive difference between brute facts and social facts. 2
According to Searle (1995), entities in the world can be divided into two main families. The first family, that of “brute facts”, is populated by entities that exist and function regardless, or independently, of human acceptance, agreements, or institutions. The existence and functioning of the moon or rainforests are facts attributable to the physical and biological world: they exist before (and definitely without) us. The second family, that of “social facts”, is populated by facts that exist and function on the basis of – and depending on – human acceptance, agreements, or institutions. The existence and functioning of a rental contract, a building permit, or the city of London are facts attributable to the social world: they exist as long as we conceive, recognise and use them; they are human-dependent.
Indeed, cities seem to be the “natural” field of study for the application of “social ontology” at both a conceptual and (arte)factual level (De Franco, 2022). With the notion of “city”, social agents indicate a reality pertaining to them and recognisable in space and time (Montello, 2008). The fact that a person knows that she/he is “in city X” is possible, on the one hand, through perception (for example, by recognising the specific set of artifacts – e.g. buildings, streets, squares – of city X), but also, on the other hand, by agreement and convention (for example, recognising that portion of territory within certain administrative boundaries as city X). We can say that the urban reality is a type of entity that is both “artefactual” (recognisable because it is made up of a large number of material objects and artifacts) and “institutional” (recognisable because it is held together by a set of social conventions and decisions). In this case, Searle’s ontology is helpful for developing a “substantive” idea of urban reality (Searle, 1995, 2010) that extends beyond the orthodox dichotomy between the artificial and the natural reality, and is more in line with its human, social and organisational dimension.
To conclude, note that this proposal does not exclude the three topics discussed by Cameli (2021); rather, it includes them. The general ontological discussion is enriched by the “social” qualification from which we can derive, more genuinely, questions related to the complexity and spontaneity of urban processes.