The spatial dimension of democracy Since the time of the Greeks, democracy has been understood to have a spatial dimension and so, by extension, an element of scale. Plato measured the polis, the unit of democratic citizenship, at five hundred citizens, an extremely tractable size for a community that seeks to express itself through direct engagement. Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan democracypoliticscommunity
What kind of world it's going to be The wonderful thing about living in a world of our own creation is that we get to choose what kind of world it's going to be—at least in principle. But the promise is meaningful only if a broad enough "we" can be engaged in the process. At present, mechanisms and democratic institutions for making collective decisions about the deployment of technology are hopelessly cumbersome. How can anyone make a sensible choice without being able to weigh one alternative against another? Brian Hayes, Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape democracypoliticsclimatechoice
The Metabolist philosophy Tange put Tsukiji as the centre of his plan, which now seems grandiose and delusional. His design for the Dentsu building had much in common with the Metabolist philosophy of the 1960s, which maintained that buildings needed to continually evolve in a flexible way. ...With [the Nakagin Capture Tower], Kurokawa's Metabolist philosophy was fully realized. After it was completed, however, it became almost impossible to switch over the capsules - indeed, since its completion, not one of the capsules has been moved. As a result, the Metabolist movement has been forgotten. Yet its core principles, which sought to draw architectural lessons from living organisms, has much inspiration to offer society today. Kengo Kuma, My Life as an Architect in Tokyo How Buildings Learn