Economic and Political Realities

 "Whether this project will be able to survive its economic and political realities (who will finance it? who will rule the new metropolis?) has yet to be seen" 

- Moshen Mostafavi, Ecological Urbanism

While Mostafavi notes the importance of both top-down and bottom-up approaches to change, in the Western world, the necessity of industry for any transformational change is seen as inevitable. This is aligned with the broader "sustainability" movement, in which companies must know that if they are to maintain a position of economic and political power they must at least say that they are committed to reduction (of emissions, of consumption, etc). But of course the consumer (the one who consumes), is not willing in practice to reduce their needs. 

So continues a cycle of performance. It seems that the only remaining catalyst for change is catastrophe. That an ecological urbanism must communicate some sort of aesthetic sensibility goes against the reality that a true solution must expose the atrocities that have driven us to this point. It would require an acknowledgment of the failures of the so-called "free market", a reorientation of needs and desires. The economic and political realities are relative.