Revisiting the distinction between the natural and the artificial. Towards a properly urban ontology

Abstract

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,