Város és homok
City and Sand

Summary/Abstract: River sand with a grain size of 0-1 and 0-4 mm is the most frequently and exhaustively used raw material on Earth after fresh water, our individual ration is 18 kilograms per day. We make toothpaste, cleaning products, displays, glass, reinforced concrete, road networks, buildings and cities from it; we mine river sand from the bed of the Ancient Danube, from the inhabited banks of the Mekong River and from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, thereby greatly depleting the territorial, ecological and social characteristics of the given place. In this article, I examine the life and metabolism of the city using sand as a filter lens, pointing out that the extent of the city goes beyond the spatio-temporal complexity in which the classical architectural-urban planning discipline views it. A city consists of interwoven supply networks and their metabolism, and consequently, thinking about and planning the city requires a transscalar approach. The sprawling city of Singapore includes the Malay and Australian sand mines, along with the changing social and environmental conditions of its inhabitants. The river sand mines of Northern Kiskunság, with their river regulations and habitat degradations along with family support schemes, are as much a part of Budapest as any of its inner-city neighborhoods. I argue that urbanization is a political tool; in the era of total politics, and ultimately total design, the only answer to ecological crises is strategic retreat or rewilding.

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