Tuesday, February 15, 2011

You need a square

GrittyPretty and I are always daydreaming about moving to a farm within a bicycles' ride of an old town square with a clock tower. The absence of such important public, pedestrian spaces in our communities is awful: Not just because we feel their absence like a gaping whole in our hearts, like something lost, but because it denies us an important space to engage one another - to share our desires for our communities:

From: Discovering Urbanism
All the tweets and texts flying through the airwaves have not changed the fact that a physical place, a public square in the most literal sense, will always be a necessary stage for any kind of action...
..."The government of Hosni Mubarak could shut down the internet. It could shut down cell phone service. It could force Al Jazeera, which has been providing superb coverage of the events in Egypt, to close its Cairo bureau. It could arrest journalists and seize their equipment....But the streets of Cairo themselves have been the medium that has carried the message of the Egyptian people

http://images.travelpod.com/users/jonathanashleyr/1.1275348904.photo_1.jpg

2 comments:

  1. Have you read 'A Pattern Language' by Christopher Alexander. I think you would like it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have been wanting to for about six years but have just been able to read excerpts and research the philosophy- just haven't been able to get a copy of it yet. But I do love what I have learned about his work.

    ReplyDelete