Ecumenopolitan

See also: ecumenopolitan

English

Etymology

Adjectival sense first attested in 1969; nominal sense in 1977: Ecumenopolis +‎ -itan, formed on the pattern of megalopolitan, necropolitan.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ĕkyo͞o'mĕnōpŏʹlĭtən, IPA^(key): /ɛˌkjuːmɛnəʊˈpɒlɪtən/

Homophone: ecumenopolitan

Adjective

Ecumenopolitan (not comparable)

1. Of or characteristic of the Ecumenopolis.
   • 1969: American Institute of Planners, Journal of the American Institute of Planners, volume 35, page 202 (The Institute)

     Planners and urban designers would, then, be able to conceive a clear and strong image of the Earth’s future urban patterns, with each city (hopefully) keeping its own visible identity and having its own open lands, water bodies, and recreational areas all around. Such an image, if properly invented, advocated, accepted by political leaders, and loved by the people, cannot but create the magnetism, enthusiasm, and power that will help us implement it in the decades ahead, thus avoiding the Ecumenopolitan horror of combined complete congestion and sprawl that Doxiadis would have our grandchildren and great-grandchildren inhabit!

   • 1970, Arnold Joseph Toynbee, Cities on the Move, Oxford University Press, page 244:

     At a centre-point of a conurbation containing all but a fraction of mankind, and this at twice or three times mankind’s present numbers, the pressure of human activity on the unimaginable Ecumenopolitan centre-point would be as enormous as the water-pressure of the Ocean on the Ocean’s bottom at the points at which the Ocean is at its deepest.

   • 1971, Ronald Abler, John S. Adams, Peter Gould, Spatial Organization: The Geographer’s View of the World, Prentice-Hall, page 570:

     In relative space, everyone who wants to participate in the Ecumenopolitan system will have access to do so through the communications and transportation systems we shall have at our command.

   • 1973: Richard L. Meier (?), Design of Resource-Conserving Cities, part 1, page 482? (Institute of Urban and Regional Development, University of California)

     If so, then portions of the Ecumenopolitan population would be voluntarily reducing their numbers so as to approach more closely an ideal human race — the logical extension of the quality versus quantity argument.

   • 1977: Michael L. Johnson, Holistic Technology, pages 58⁽¹⁾ and 65⁽²⁾ (Libra Publishers)

     ⁽¹⁾ […] think to a great extent in Ecumenopolitan terms — our situation makes it imperative — and many of the ideas ekisticians have evolved may be useful.

     ⁽²⁾ For instance, Solerian arcologies could be interlinked in a modified Ecumenopolitan network and informed with sound ekistic concepts of energy flow and personal space.

   • 1978: Jean Gottmann, How Large Can Cities Grow?, page 10 (Livraria Almedina)

     Doxiadis may have seen the Ecumenopolitan picture emerging with particular force as he studied the Great Lakes Megalopolis in the 1960’s. It is a less dense, yet less congested and certainly less resented concentration than the original Megalopolis on the Boston–New York–Washington axis. A similar schema could be proposed of a trans-european megalopolitan belt crossing the continent from the Mediterranean to the North Sea and the Irish Sea as urbanization proceeds along the Saône–Rhône and Rhine Valleys and penetrates the valleys of the Alps. We could visualize an «urbanized isthmus» from Rome (or Naples?) and Venice in the south to Amsterdam and Hamburg, jumping even over the Straits of Dover to include most of England. Such a formation may call for a new term, such as megistopolis.

Noun

Ecumenopolitan (plural Ecumenopolitans)

1. (rare) An inhabitant of the Ecumenopolis, especially during its inchoate phase.
   • 1977: Kishō Kurokawa, Metabolism in Architecture, page 69 (Studio Vista)

     When such cities are formed ‘Ecumenopolitans’, crossing national boundaries daily, would establish the ultimate form of civilization on the earth. [¶] Born from existing cities and the individual places in which citizenship is established, each city will be a ‘metapolis’, an urban unit for Ecumenopolitans built in a super-architecture. A ‘metapolis’ will be a junction point of mobile information.

   • 1984, American Water Works Association, Journal, volume 58, self-published, page 31:

     Meanwhile, Ecumenopolitans would have the advantages of 100 per cent literacy […]