Ecumenopolises

Ecumenopolis (; ; ) is the hypothetical concept of a planetwide city. It is primarily known as a stock setting in science fiction, but has also received serious consideration in theoretical city planning and futurist concepts.

Description

The word was invented in 1967 by the Greek city planner Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis to represent the idea that, in the future, urban areas and megalopolises would eventually fuse, and there would be a single continuous worldwide city as a progression from the current urbanization, population growth, transport and human networks. According to Doxiadis, it was the fifteenth level of ekistic units and the most significant one as the uppermost echelon of the classification. This concept was already current in science fiction in 1942, with Trantor in Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation'' series. When made public, Doxiadis' idea of ecumenopolis seemed "close to science fiction", but today is "surprisingly pertinent" according to geography researchers Pavle Stamenovic, Dunja Predic and Davor Eres, especially as a consequence of globalization.

Doxiadis also created a scenario based on the traditions and trends of urban development of his time, predicting at first a European eperopolis ("continent city") which would be based on the area between London, Paris, Rhine-Ruhr and Amsterdam. In 2008, ''Time'' magazine coined ''Nylonkong'' to link New York City, London, and Hong Kong as the eperopolis of the Americas, Euro-Africa and Asia-Pacific respectively.

In popular culture

Before the term had been created, the concept had been previously discussed. The American religious leader Thomas Lake Harris (1823–1906) mentioned city-planets in his verses, and science fiction author Isaac Asimov used the city-planet Trantor as the setting of some of his ''Foundation'' novels.

In science fiction, the ecumenopolis has become a frequent topic and was popularized in 1999 by the fictional city planet Coruscant in the ''Star Wars'' franchise, which is the capital of the Galactic Republic (later Empire) and home to the Jedi Order. Other ecumenopolises feature in ''Star Wars'' media, including Hosnian Prime, Nar Shaddaa and Taris.

In ''Dune'', the Harkonnens' home world of Giedi Prime is a heavily polluted ecumenopolis infamous for its gladiator arenas.

The concept is depicted in the video game '' Stellaris'', where players are given the option of transforming planets into ecumenopolises, which provides a great deal of housing and space for industrial production through the construction of arcologies, at the cost of making the planet's natural resources inaccessible.

A central setting in the tabletop wargame ''Warhammer 40,000'' is a portrayal of Earth in the far future, where it is described as having been transformed into a vast, Gothic-style ecumenopolis sometime during the 30th millennium AD after its establishment as the capital of an interstellar superpower known as the Imperium of Man. The ecumenopolis contains multiple continent-scale districts housing different branches of society and government, with the Imperial Palace alone taking up the entirety of the Himalayan Mountains. It is the focus of the "Siege of Terra" storyline of the wider ''Horus Heresy'' tie-in novel series.

In '' Magic: the Gathering'', the plane of Ravnica is an ecumenopolis.

DC Comics continuity features Darkseid's extra-dimensional home planet of Apokolips, often depicted as a hellish world covered entirely in industrial sprawl to feed Darkseid's brutal empire.

The manga and film of ''Blame!'' by Tsutomu Nihei is set in a far future in which Earth has become the ruins of planet-covering city, which is suggested to be so large that it has consumed most of the Solar System as well, it may also be along the lines of a hollow-world or dyson shell. Some of his other works also take place in this same setting.

See also

* Arcology
* Conurbation
* Ecumene
* Ekistics
* Megacity
* Megalopolis
* Megastructure
* Merger (politics)
* Metropolis
* Principles of intelligent urbanism
* Urban sprawl
* World government

References

External links

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{{Science fiction

Urban studies and planning terminology
Human habitats
Cities
Types of cities
Proposed arcologies
Megastructures
Fictional populated places