Ecumenopolitan

When such cities are formed ‘Ecumenopolitans’, crossing national boundaries daily, would establish the ultimate form of civilization on the earth. [¶] Born from existing cities and the individual places in which citizenship is established, each city will be a ‘metapolis’, an urban unit for Ecumenopolitans built in a super-architecture. A ‘metapolis’ will be a junction point of mobile information.

Planners and urban designers would, then, be able to conceive a clear and strong image of the Earth’s future urban patterns, with each city (hopefully) keeping its own visible identity and having its own open lands, water bodies, and recreational areas all around. Such an image, if properly invented, advocated, accepted by political leaders, and loved by the people, cannot but create the magnetism, enthusiasm, and power that will help us implement it in the decades ahead, thus avoiding the Ecumenopolitan horror of combined complete congestion and sprawl that Doxiadis would have our grandchildren and great-grandchildren inhabit!

If so, then portions of the Ecumenopolitan population would be voluntarily reducing their numbers so as to approach more closely an ideal human race — the logical extension of the quality versus quantity argument.

⁽¹⁾ […] think to a great extent in Ecumenopolitan terms — our situation makes it imperative — and many of the ideas ekisticians have evolved may be useful. ⁽²⁾ For instance, Solerian arcologies could be interlinked in a modified Ecumenopolitan network and informed with sound ekistic concepts of energy flow and personal space.