Historically, there are many parallels between the understanding of our bodies and our relationship to the city. When we started understanding our blood system in the 17th century for example, the words 'artery' and 'veins' were applied to city streets in the eighteenth century by designers who sought to model traffic systems on the blood system of the body. French urbanists like Christian Patte used the imagery of arteries and veins to justify the principle of one-way streets.
Later, we saw the city analogised as an extended nervous system, making vivid something of the growing impact made by transport and communication since the mid-nineteenth century. But it also suggests that rather than suffering form physical problems the city suffers from psychopathology. Our cities have become megalomaniacal, sociopathic, passive aggressive...
Today, we are on the verge of a new era. Craig Venter describes it in this year's Richard Dimbleby lecture as "a DNA-driven world, because I believe that the future of our society relies at least in part on our understanding of biology and the molecules of life - DNA." How will this paradigm-shift influence our relationship with the city? What does it mean for children, communities? What will the new urban fantasies and anxieties be?