As we have said, a large number of utopias are – more or less radically – urbanophobic. So, to a large extent, is science fiction.
Actually, from that border figure between the great trends of scientific science fiction and sociological science fiction that is Isaac Asimov, an interesting dialectic is proposed between the vision of refusal of the (large) city and that of a slightly terrified admiration of it.
An interesting trilogy based on the detective character Elijah Baley, with his robotic alter ego R. Daneel Olivaw, shows the multiple aspects of this dialectic.
We are talking about The Caves of Steel of 1953 (in which the environment-protagonist is a totally urbanised, overcrowded planet Earth), The Naked Sun of 1956 (in which the environment-protagonist is Solaria, a planet inhabited by a few thousand people - 20,000 - and by a very large number of robots - 200 million), and later The Robots of Dawn of 1983 (in which the environment-protagonist is Aurora, an extreme habitat, a planet inhabited by 200 million people and 10 billion robots).
The Earth, dotted with cities with millions of inhabitants and isolated from the outside world by domes, in the past colonised many planets in space, but is now locked up in its “caves of steel”, diffident of technologies and robots; the spatial worlds look scornfully at their infected planet of origin, with its low densities and an easy life thanks to the large number of robots.
The following extracts speak of the earth; note the many worrying analogies with some of the presuppositions of the urban planning of the modern movement and with the Soviet one.
“It can just be made out in the gap between the two Brunswick Sectors. Low domes spread out. It’s the difference between us and the Spacers. We reach high and crowd close. With them, each family has a dome for itself. One family: one house. And land between each dome. Have you ever spoken to any of the Spacers, Lije?” “A few times. About a month ago, I spoke to one right here on your intercom,” Baley said, patiently. “Yes, I remember. But then, I’m just getting philosophical. We and they. Different ways of life”. (Asimov 1953)
It could lay itself out scientifically. At the center was the enormous complex of administrative offices. In careful orientation to one another and to the whole were the large residential Sections connected and interlaced by the expressway and the local ways. Toward the outskirts were the factories, the hydroponic plants, the yeast-culture vats, the power plants. Through all the melee were the water pipes and sewage ducts, schools, prisons and shops, power lines and communication beams.
(…)
Each City became a semiautonomous unit, economically all but self-sufficient. It could roof itself in, gird itself about, burrow itself under. It became a steel cave, a tremendous, self-contained cave of steel and concrete.” (Asimov I)
In primitive times, individual population centers were virtually self-supporting, living on the produce of neighboring farms. Nothing but immediate disaster, a flood or a pestilence or crop failure, could harm them. As the centers grew and technology improved, localized disasters could be overcome by drawing on help from distant centers, but at the cost of making ever larger areas interdependent.” (Asimov I)
A space between two trees revealed an expanse of lawn. For the first time, there was a sense of distance and on the horizon one could see a dwelling place: low-roofed, broad, and so green in color that it almost melted into the countryside.
“This is a residential area,” said Fastolfe. “It might not seem so to you, since you are accustomed to Earth’s tremendous hives, but we are in the Auroran city of Eos, which is actually the administrative center of the planet. There are twenty thousand human beings living here, which makes it the largest city, not only on Aurora but on all the Spacer worlds. There are as many people in Eos as on all of Solaria.”
(…)
Aurora’s population is two hundred million and that has remained stable for three centuries. It is the number desired. Surely you have read that in the books you viewed.”.” (Asimov 1983)
Aurora is mentioned in the following extract (and briefly Solaria); note the similarity with the “garden city” project:
We’re passing through its center. The limits are seven kilometers away and our destination is nearly forty kilometers beyond that.”
“The center of the city? I see no structures.”
“They are not meant to be seen from the road, but there’s one you can make out between the trees..” (Asimov)
What emerges from the three novels is a great ambiguity: neither urbanised Earth, hierarchical, obsessive, anxious, precarious and with high morbidity, nor Solaria with its few inhabitants who avoid all physical contact and have a long life, empty and boring, nor Aurora with its hedonistic, competitive society, namely the dystopia of the large city and the anti-urban utopia, represents an ideal society. The extremes do not work and nor does the extreme habitat.