NEWS FROM THE PAST An urban centre is not just a location but is also defined by the users, creating an experience.The past predictions of urban centres focused on designing and developing cities with maximum human experience, environmentally friendly, and inhabitable. Ronald Barthe, for instance, noted that a city is a discourse and a language where the city speaks to people by inhabiting, traversing, and looking at it. The prediction of future urbanism relies on the experience of the inhabitants rather than just living and staying in the city. Plug-in City by Peter Cook and Arcology: The city in the Image of Man by Paolo Soleri provided an overview of how future urban centres were supposed to look like and the critical factors that to be considered like technological, social, and physical factors that could be incorporated in the urban centres.The two, in this case, provided concepts that could help to design a city that is capable of creating discourse and maximize the human experience. The idea has been that inspiration and experience should not come from erected buildings or constructed structures but through the general perspectives like technology and the environment provided by the city. The respect for nature is one of Paolo Soleri’s views. He proposed an urban design that upholds environmental sustainability, enhancing ecological balance where the energy of man is not redirected against man or manhood.
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This concept possesses futuristic urbanism that incorporates both future technology and past elements. This perspective imagines an urban environment that is both new as well as anachronistic. One of the key proposals was to develop urban centres that have aesthetic values and support sustainable values. In this case, actual urban functions were not supposed to derail for the reasons for urbanization and create artificial ugliness. As a result, the predicted city had to focus on nature, urban aesthetics, and technological changes among others. Planning urban landscape was meant to include a physical environment that adapts to human needs. For instance, China started designing urban green centres that reflected the desire of people and the sustainability of the environment. China was influenced by the Western and Soviet countries to come up with the green space framework as part of the revolution that helps in achieving the goals of urbanization rather than focusing on the construction of good looking buildings. Technology would play an important role in ensuring that the cities were adaptable to changes in the environment. This builds on the notion of protecting the environment and including traditions and ancient technologies. The concept of the plug-in city by Peter Cook also provided a new look of cities that do not concentrate on the infrastructural perspectives
