Lexicon

Abject
Accretion
Actant
Aeration
Aerobic
Algae-boosted
Animal
Anthropomorphism
Anti-Continuous Construction
Apocalypse
Aquaculture
Aquanaut
Ark
Artificial Intelligence
Autopoiesis
Assemblages
Asymmetry
Atrophy
Attraction
Autarchy
Automata
Automation
Autosymbiosis
Bambassador
Bathyscaphe
Bioconurbation
Biomedia
Bionics
Biosphere
Biotechnique
By-product
Capacity
Actant
Coisolation
Composting
Conservative Surgery
Consumer Envelope
Consumption
Continuous Construction
Conurbation
Correalism
Cultural_Memory
Cybernetics
Cybertecture
Cyborg
Dispositif
Diving Saucer
Dross
Earthship
Ecocatastrophe
Effluvium
Egosphere
End-use
Entanglement
Eutopia
Feedback
Foam
Folk
Gadget
Garbage House
Green Cyborg
Heuristic
Hoard
Holism
Homogenization of Desire
Hostile
Human Affect
Hybridized Folk
Hydroponic
Hyper-Materialism
Information Economy
Inner Space
Interama
Intra-Uterine
Maque
Megalopolis
Min-use
Mobility
Monorail
Multi-Hinge
Non-Design
Oceanaut
Oppositional Consciousness
Organic
Ouroboros
Panarchy
Parasite
Perceived Continuation
Permanence
Place
Prototype
Post-Animal
Reclamation
RI: Data Farms
RI: Garbage and Animals
RI:Shipbreaking
RI: Toxic Sublime
Sampling
Scale
Sensing Structure
Simulacrum
Simulation
Soft Energy
Spaceship Earth
Submersible
Superwindow
Symbiosis
Synthetic Environment
Technocratic
Technological Heredity
Technological Sublime
Telechirics
The Sublime
Thermal Panel
Actant
Thing-Power
Thinking Machines
Tool
Toxic Withdrawal
Turbulence
UV-Transparent Film
Vibrant Matter
Waste
Work

BIOCONURBATION

The geographical migration of toxic substances between ecosystems. Patrick Geddes coined the term conurbation to describe the migration of regional cities into a centralized metropolis1. In the utopian sense, self-sufficient regional cities were undermined by the parasitic nature of the metropolis2. Local industry thus became national industry and cultural assimilation caused a hybridized folk of multiple dialects. We propose the addition of bio to its root word of conurbation to describe the instance when local toxins and waste begin to cross-geographical boundaries into foreign ecosystems. The ship breaking industry, for example, releases lead and arsenic into the Bangladeshi seaboard that may have been created in an entirely separate hemisphere3. Those toxins then leach into the ocean and contaminate local species that, in turn, geographically extending the toxic impact through the processes of bioaccumulation and biomagnification. As much as Bangladesh relies on the steel broken down in shipbuilding, they also rely on fishing as a major export, potentially bringing the system full circle as the same toxins are then exported within the tissue of the fish.4

Citations
Marshall, Stephan and Batty, Michael. From Darwinism to Planning - Through Geddes and Back. 2009, Town and Country Planning
Why Ships are Toxic.NGO Shipbreaking Platform, Retrieved from http://www.shipbreakingplatform.org/problems-and-solutions/why-ships-are-toxic/
Hasan, A.B., Kabir, S., Reza, A.S., Zaman, M.N., Ahsan, M.A., Akbor, M.A., Rashid, M.M. Trace metals pollution in seawater and groundwater in the ship breaking area of Sitakund Upazilla, Chittagong, Bangladesh. 2012, Marine Pollution Bulletin 71, no.2. pp.317-324