The Vulnerable City in History

Abstract

Urban resilience assumes the persistence of the city. However, this notion that cities should persist or be resilient was by no means taken for granted in earlier times. The fact that cities could fall, could vanish entirely or be moved to be rebuilt elsewhere was an accepted notion in many parts of the pre-modern world. Partly this derives from a world-view more intimately aware of the mortality and vulnerability of the human body. Many early religions emphasized the fleeting nature of life and the existence of suffering (whatever its cause) and the possibility of any kind of reconciliation with this world only possible through some form of acceptance, referred to in the Tao-Te-Ching of ancient China as wu wei (lit. no action) (Lao Tzu, 1963). The prevalence of the acceptance of change can be seen not just in Taoism but also in Indian Hinduism and Buddhism and in the pre-Socratic philosophers in ancient Greece, particularly Heraclitus. If change is regarded as the fundamental nature of the world, then attempts to ‘fix’ anything can only be temporary.