The City and the Cell

I'm fascinated with the beauty and complexity of a cell in the human body. It reminds me of a city on a micro scale. The cell has a nucleus where all of the DNA or information is stored for the functioning of the cell. Likewise, each city has a local government where laws and local codes govern the functioning of the city. There is the mitochondria, which produces the cell's energy. A city has a power plant or some other means of electricity to give the city its power. The endoplasmic reticulum processes proteins that are then used in many ways in the cell just as manufacturing plants in a city would produce a variety of goods both simple and complex to be used by a city. The Golgi apparatus is a station for proteins being transported elsewhere just as a port, train hub, or airport is a center from which goods are transported to their destination. The lysosome is the cell's garbage disposal unit just as a city must have a dump where it can dispose of waste. Secretory vesicles store cargo and transport it when it is ready to be taken out of the cell and can be likened to a cargo truck, train, plane, or ship. Peroxisomes rid the cell of toxic peroxides just like a police force and justice system would function to reduce crime in a city.

The cell is dynamic just like a city, constantly manufacturing new structures and getting rid of old material. In cells and cities the great majority of materials are centrally made and shipped to other areas rather than being made locally. The shipping of proteins in and of itself is an intricate process. The packaging is different depending on where the protein is going, there are check-points along the way, and there are systems in place for unpacking and using the protein. Likewise, planners are always discovering new ways to transport people and materials more efficiently, preserving safety, and fitting these functions into the overall workings of a city in such a way as to provide the least negative impact.

In an age and time where there is so much discussion and use of biotechnology and engineering to tweak the systems of the human body to function more efficiently, perhaps when it comes to urban planning some "reverse engineering" is in order. Perhaps we could learn a few lessons from the cell in terms of how to plan a city efficiently and implement the things that we plan. How can we learn from the cell how to plan a city in a way that offers enough flexibility to compensate for change, yet enough rigidity to provide a framework of stability over time?

Who is Nathan Gapper? Part 1

The year was 1999. I was alone, sitting at the desk in my on-campus apartment, wondering about the furture. I had just attended a seminar about the needs in developing Latin America. The speaker was so moving that I found myself questioning my pursuit of medicine. All of the late nights at the library, all of the study sessions, the tests, where had it gotten me? My grades could maybe get me into medical school, but then what? I would have many years more of school before I could actually start helping people. Meanwhile, people like those in Latin America that I had just heard about, would live and die in Third World poverty. But what would my parents think? As a sophomore, there was still time to change majors, but to what? The reason I came to UC San Diego in the first place was because of their excellence in the hard sciences.

As I sat there, I pulled the UCSD course catalog off the book shelf and began looking at the list of majors, page by page, reviewing the brief description of each one. There was only one I was interested in...Urban Studies and Planning. This field of study blended such a unique set of disciplines - economics, history, political science, and even biology! It gave tremendous opportunity to help those who need it most and to shape policy decisions that would impact not only the very people I learned about that night in urban settings in the Third World, but I could impact the built environment in every place where people had gathered to form a city. The next quarter, I started taking classes and and ablolutely loved it! That summer I worked at a camp for inner city children and was moved with compassion for the challenges faced in their urban environment. Two years later I graduated with a bachelor's degree in Urban Studies and Planning.

I often reflect on that fateful night in La Jolla on the UCSD campus, thankful for the decision I made and the vocation that has now come to shape my thinking and worldview so profoundly. I can't help but ponder the many decisions in urban history that have made any given city what it is today and how the seemingly insignificant decisions being made today will effect the urban landscape of tomorrow.