World Cities Make World Rivers: Fid-Bau Portal

World Cities Make World Rivers

Berque, Augustin

The relation between rivers and cities cannot be reduced to simple models. Great rivers do not necessarily entail the development of great cities, and cities are not necessarily located near the banks of a river. Mexico does not even have a river…It is history which explains why the relationship between human settlements and rivers has evolved in such or such a way, which in certain cases led to the emergence of great couples like that of Cairo and the Nile, Benares and the Ganges, Paris and the Seine, etc. Yet, in modern times, the quality of the relationship between rivers and cities has remarkably declined, owing mainly to the transformation of technical systems. For example, transportation has largely shifted from waterways to roads. This has led in many cases, in the XXth century, to a symbolic disconnection between city and river, until a reaction emerged in the last quarter of the century, leading to a rediscovery of waterfronts, etc. However, this discovery was dominated by an ecological imagery, which in itself has not much to do with cities. As such, this ecological imagery does not help in conceiving of the relationship between city and river, and it does not tell us how this relationship may have evolved into great couples like the above examples. This lecture shows that this relationship is fundamentally an ontological one, and that we need to overcome the ontological paradigm of modernity for understanding how, in the XXIst century, we can cultivate the character of the relationship between rivers and cities.