The United Arab Emirates recently announced plans to build the world’s first carbon-free, car-free and waste-free city. The plan, called the Masdar Initiative, calls for the construction of an entire city that is powered by solar energy. Water will be supplied by sustainable desalination plants, architecture will be designed to minimize energy usage and residents will travel on “transport pods” running on magnetic tracks instead of using cars. (See www.masdaruae.com and news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7237672.stm for more information).
If successful, Masdar City could act as a model for environmentally friendly urban planning and sustainable development. “Green cities,” such as Masdar, could become a future trend around the world. But are there unforeseen consequences for such initiatives? While the environmental advantages of promoting and constructing green cities are clear, such planning may also accelerate the homogenization of, and even destruction of, cultures around the world. Cultural diversity is currently in decline. Globalization and the dominance of Western (especially U.S.) economic and cultural practices have influenced and altered almost all regions of the world. Languages and cultural traditions are becoming extinct at greater rates than ever before. Complaints that things more or less “look the same” when traveling to different cities, states and countries are becoming increasingly common.
The abundance of carefully planned urban settlements designed explicitly to maximize energy efficiency, such as Masdar City, would serve to accelerate this process. If everyone lived in settlements whose designs were perfected by engineers to minimize carbon consumption, then there would be hardly any difference between one city and another. Slight modifications to the green city template could be implemented to adhere to climate variations and cultural norms (i.e., different houses of worship, artistic designs, colors, vegetation, etc., depending on the country), but these would be superficial differences. The amount of diversity permitted in the planning and design of these green cities would always be constrained by environmental and energy considerations, by definition.
Many would argue that the worldwide homogenization of cultures is already happening, and will continue to occur with or without the implementation of sustainable development and green urban planning. Others may add that globalization and the new green movement are two unrelated concepts, and that culture is constantly evolving and inherently dynamic anyway. But cultural change is different than convergence toward one dominant global culture. The causes of this convergence can be ascribed to industrialization, global capitalism and technological innovations that facilitate communication and transportation, all features of a modernization process and mindset that has accelerated the homogenization of cultures around the world. If these issues are not taken into consideration, the green movement could act as the newest phase of this type of modernizing and culturally destructive development.
Culture has inherent value. Hopefully, the process of restructuring society along environmentally friendly lines will not cause people to dismiss culture as an obstacle to “progress.” If the construction of green cities becomes a popular and, perhaps, necessary trend, societies could be encouraged to destroy indigenous cultural models and replace them with more environmentally friendly (and Western) ones. Perhaps there is a way both to limit environmental degradation and to preserve cultural diversity at the same time. But if our choice is between homogenizing culture and damaging the environment, or homogenizing culture at an accelerated rate with minimal environmental impact, then it is a bleak choice indeed.
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