Introduction

Before discussing the ‘Growth Machine’ (Molotch, 1979), an emphasis on the primary growth discussed will be given, in the form of a definition and a brief exploration of its example, that being resilience. The modern city is, like everything else under the atmosphere, subject to the rapid climate change that is dawning upon the life that inhabits it. Therefore, it is integral and a necessity that the main and most densely populated areas of humankind, of cities, are resilient to atmospheric effects (Pee & Pan, 2022). Resilience is not just defined by policy transformations and technological innovation, however; it is also defined by the well-being of the ecosystems that surround the cities and are propagated through them. Resilience, additionally, is not just infrastructure but the resilience of the community that lives within these rapidly transforming and expanding urban dwellings (Komugabe-Dixson, et al., 2019). If the growth machine is to function parsimoniously, it must become a ‘green’ growth machine, and utilize the ecology around its area to regenerate and help the local communities keep their culture, along with dismantling an over-reliance on philanthropist private sectors (Shokry, et al., 2023). This essay will discuss all of the above along with case studies that are relevant to the problems highlighted in this introduction. First, a brief history of the growth machine and its origins will be supplied before the discussion comes to full fruition.

Harvey Molotch coined the theory of cities as ‘Urban Growth Machines’ (Molotch, 1979), Molotch posits that academia has focused on community-based power within growing urbanised areas. However, they have yet to join the landowning elites in this study of urbanized homogeneity, stating on pages 309 and 310 ‘There are few notions available to link the two coherently’ (Molotch, 1979). Organisations and the individuals that act within them were classed as part of this growth machine, andas such, growth is seen as something advantageous for the public, not just economically but also for technological and local resilience (Rodgers, 2009). Resilience is not just defined by changes in global natural status and extreme weather, the growth machine also functions as an important theory for global restructuring, be it before or after a catastrophic event has occurred, however, this will be explored in greater detail later in the discussion (Jonas & Wilson, 1999). The growth machine is a multifaceted and idiosyncratic theory that relies on more than one factor, an example of this is seen when it comes to the reliance on national identity and kinship in order to promote these sometimes radical changes within societal structures (Jonas & Wilson, 1999). Growth cannot happen without financial means, with both land and finances being integral to the very notion of ‘growth’ (Molotch, 1979). Interestingly, a lack of financial capital does not always limit a city’s capacity for growth, as Californian cities Oxnard and Emeryville were able to progress their respective infrastructures and land during a fiscal deficit. They did this by satisfying a duality of imperatives (what energies will cost along with availability and what can the city do logically within the financial market). with smart political restructuring, they were able to allocate debts to ‘back-door’ entities and focus on growth (Kirkpatrick & Smith, 2011).

Chicago set up a bank for such growth in times of multifaceted turmoil, the ‘Chicago Infrastructure Trust’ (Trust, 2023). They not only work on financial stability but also resilience and clean green energy manufacturers. As seen on the home page of the Trust’s site, they are currently implementing a solar ground mount project in order to fully utilize renewable solar energy, along with specialised training for emergency departments and smart energy for streets (Trust, 2023). Chicago utilizes the growth machine to form malleable policies with the goal of both growth and resilience predilection and proactively against both man-made and natural disasters, its key is in forming homogenous alliances with other cities and urbanized areas on a similar train of thought. This is the most prevalent idea behind the growth machine, the union of like-minded entrepreneurs and organisations working as a singularity (Trust, 2023; Farmer & Poulos, 2019). Why this focus on resilience from major cities? With the increasingly undeniable academic research showing that climate change is occurring at a greater speed than originally thought (Perera, et al., 2020; Solaun & Cerdá, 2019), sustainability needs a new coat of proverbial paint. For example, flood risks have seen an immense increase which requires not only the resilience to stand its infrastructure and foundations up to natural disasters but the ability to parsimoniously and efficiently reconstruct and rebuild afterward (Hemmati, et al., 2020). The most basic foundations of resilience can be broken down into four parts, resisting the disaster be it from the making of man or nature. Recovering as quickly and efficiently as possible post-disaster so that growth may continue, adapting and essentially learning from whatever failsafe be it singular or plural was exposed during a said disaster. Finally, transforming the urbanized area so that the next time a disaster comes, less post-action will be needed due to greater pre-action (Ribeiro & Gonçalves, 2019).

In trying to understand modern risks associated with resilience, it has been noted by researchers Cariolet et al, that geographical mapping systems are used. However, these mapping systems often fail to fully both realise and understand the meaning of resilience, as such. They often do not account for a complete picture going against the very homogeneity and holistic growth that both theory and practicality required in execution (Cariolet, et al., 2019). Other researchers (Shamsuddin, 2020), see a similar problem, resilience is often ill informed and broad, with infrastructure and technological advancements taking centre stage over the policy changes that play just as key a role in building a strong urbanized landscape. Resilience lies within defining the hazard, often the hazards can be broad and thus an intensified and more individualistic approach to each land and its presupposed risks is needed. Moreover, this overconfidence in an ill-defined idea of resilience and its implementation can end up supplying resistance against fulfilling adequate resilience (Shamsuddin, 2020). Urbanisation, in fact, is the very thing that has led much of the climate crisis into fruition, as greenhouse gasses and carbon emissions have soared from the 50s and onwards. This was most notably discussed in Clive Doucet’s book ‘Urban Meltdown’, posing that economic growth has had no ‘built-in environmental accountability’ (Doucet, 2007). Unfortunately, in the 16 years since this book was published, urbanisation has only increased climate change projections. India, more specifically, Kathmandu, used this excelled situation to form their own resilient dwellings from the increased projections of drastic flooding. A plan to harvest the water that causes the flooding in a ‘fight fire with fire’ approach, which could see upwards of a 35% reduction in flooding along with increased nourishing needs met (Saurav, et al., 2021).  

One of the main efforts and integral proverbial soul to the success of the growth machine is the unison between resilience and expansion. A city must grow in urbanisation, but it also must learn from those that came before it and increase its ability to adapt and succeed in withstanding nature itself. With this being stated, cities, if they are to meet true resilience standards must analyse the cost that also comes with adaptation and growth. As researcher Robin Leichenko discusses, it is not enough for cities to merely adapt to how other cities in different locales have done so. They must be innovative and apply such innovation to the surrounding locale and what defines its resilience (Leichenko, 2011) . Additionally, a further emphasis on what agriculture means to the urban growth machine is much needed to be addressed. Research has shown that urban agriculture becoming integrated within the city enhances every part of both resilience and growth. This multifaceted benefit renders agriculture highly advantageous to all forms of economic and social growth, along with harvesting nourishment supplies for the rebuilding process of resilience (Langemeyer, et al., 2021). This study is ten years after the previous one and shows that there are still concerns within the growth machine paradigm that is still not adequately being addressed in all resilient cities located in potentially vulnerable areas.

The East Side Coastal Resiliency Project (NYC.gov, 2023), is a joint funded government project to up the resilience and stability of New York, America’s most known city. Its primary function is to manage the growth of the city alongside hardening the resources and adaptability to flooding due to the coast that resides around the large, urbanized sprawl. The project itself began its inception in 2020 and intends to use pinch points in a 100-year effort to weather the potential storm of climate change (NYC.gov, 2023). However, the project has been criticised by academics for its enormous cost just to start the project, with $335 million dollars being granted to the design of the pinch points through an urbanised and development rebuild competition. The project brings a sceptical conundrum into the equation, is it worth exhausting financial resources when there are so many low-income neighbourhoods and areas within New York in desperate need of their own growth in equality and resources? Or will the plan incorporate these neighbourhoods into the plan, making it more community-based (DuPuis & Greenberg, 2019)? To answer this question, a study investigated the growth machine thesis and who are the main components that allow the theory to fruition. Branding has become an integral part of both globalisation and the growth machine efforts, as they no longer portray an image of existing locales and identities, but a look into the future and where the private sectors that run them plan on the cities they inhabit to become. The research concluded that, due to quantitative analysis methods, the branding private sectors were the entities most in charge of both resilience planning and the key actors within the growth machine itself (Cleavea & Arku, 2020).

Webber et al refer to resilience through the growth machine as a ‘Global urban policy project.’ (Webber, et al., 2021). Whilst that is not inherently a bad thing, the philanthropy that comes with it along with the westernised culture spread onto places that need resilience more than ‘cultural enrichment’. Semarang and Jakarta in Indonesia are key case studies of this, as critiques of the growth of a city and homogeneity are often only considered on a global scale, thus ignoring the local areas that are both invested into and changed greatly (Webber, et al., 2021). There is also a problem most noted in the Middle East, that due to a wet-bulb effect (the measuring in direct heat of the stress that is being propagated). Some cities are simply unliveable, and this disregards ideas of resilience and growth entirely, simply stating an absolute rather than the compromise that the theories instead sought after. Not enough infrastructure built within these major urbanised sprawls considers the true extremes that the climate can produce, in the case of the Middle East, this is most notably extreme pin-pointed heat. However, the research is not absolute in its opinion, saying that such an adaptation is possible through resilience infrastructure and evolution, mirroring a philosophical tale about the last of humanity that evolves to see the sun die (Salimi & Al-Ghamdi, 2020; Kent, 2022).

Research, however, looks to counter problems concerning local culture and the philanthropy issue, along with resilience becoming viable enough that even the unliveable is liveable. Nature-based solutions are said to be the defining movement in the growth of stronger cities and urbanised land, the study concluded emphasising the key question that it started with. That the evolvement of ecosystems should, in part, outweigh the production of technologies that only the rich can utilize fully. As conditions that may occur could restrain even the most prominent technological advancements, we must approach this in a holistic sense and take to nature and the ecosystems as our firm foundations in the fight against climate change and the promotion of resilient urbanisation (Young, et al., 2019). In recent research, this ecological factor has been incorporated into the growth machine, donning a new title, the ‘Green Growth Machine’ (Shokry, et al., 2023). Shokry discusses through qualitative and quantitative research methods the misplaced feeling that those marginalized within these mega-cities feel. Whilst the focus is on the growth machine now utilizing ecosystems and greater green-branding owned by private sectors, those in these fast-paced transforming societies feel a misplacement amongst the technological and political innovations (Shokry, et al., 2023). This is similar to the famous sociologist and anthropologist from France, Emile Durkheim and the concept of anomie. A time in which the normalities of society are in rapid change and people who do not meet the ‘quota’ are left behind in a purgatory-like state of mid-transformation (Adler, 1999). This could be used in partisan with the feelings of exclusion that those marginalized within society are feeling as the growth machine does not use them as parts of its machinery.  

Conclusion

The urban growth machine in theory, when utilized with the ever-growing reliance on resilient urbanised sprawls, is effectively strong. However, due to its multi-faceted and nuanced nature, there are many ways in which the theory of growth can be deformed to suit agendas with more than resilience in mind. Ecological baring must be taken into account and considered the significant piece of the resilient puzzle that it is, as such green growth will not only help rebuild from natural disasters but also allow us to regenerate our planet’s climate at the same time. Moreover, it is not just about the resilience of the city through its technological endeavours or even its ecological ones, growth starts locally, and the communities within these spaces must be considered as worthy of protection as the costly infrastructure. Cross-national cities have been explored as quasi-case studies throughout this discussion, and it is clear in all of them that whilst resilience is the goal, there are many idiosyncrasies that make the urbanized machine of growth function to its true and desired capabilities. Similarly, to Durkheim’s functionalism, we are parts of the resilient body, with our infrastructure and institutions functioning as the organs of the proverbial body of growth. Therefore, it is integral that we consider, 1. Climate change is happening at a rapid rate and 2. There can be no resilience without the very beings that incepted the word, humanity. Private sectors and branding can give us a glimpse into what directions our dwelling wishes to emulate, but it is integral that the strength and resilience of the people do not succumb to ideas larger than life.  

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