Let’s Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Let’s Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At
February 13, 2011

I was travelling the last couple days, so for this week let’s just finish exploring our Traditional City folder.

February 6, 2011: Let’s Take a Traditional City Break

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

A street in Yemen.
Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At
France.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Tyne Bridge, England.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Map of Tenochtitlan, a major city of the Aztecs. Really Narrow Streets? Oh yeah.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Taxco, Mexico.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Taxco.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Really Narrow Street in Switzerland.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Naples, Italy.

A little run down, no doubt about it. But the Traditional City looks pretty good even when in disrepair. Both Suburban Hell and the 19th Century Hypertrophic City look kinda scummy even at their best, and quickly degenerate into a wasteland if people get even a bit careless.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Goslar, Germany.

Holy moley those are some gorgeous buildings. We should round up all the architects today and give them a good spanking.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Stockholm, Sweden.

On the one hand, there is almost nothing here. Just some blank walls painted a rather dirty yellow. And yet, it is quite lovely. Once you start introducing cars, everything becomes a lot more difficult.

St. Paul de Vence, southern France.

More Really Narrow Street porn.

This stuff is sooooo easy to make. It’s nothing. You just have to do it.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Shanghai.

Some suggestive ideas about integrating high-rises and Traditional City elements here.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Another part of Shanghai. Of course, this is NOT a Traditional City neighborhood, but 20th Century Hypertrophism. Huge roadways. Monster buildings, in a repetitive pattern. Lots of Green Space. Totally unwalkable. Blech.

August 10, 2008: Visions of Future Cities
July 20, 2008: The Traditional City vs. the “Radiant City”

October 10, 2009: Place and Non-Place

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

In a Traditional City, which is a place for People, not Cars, then — you guessed it — there are people!

December 19, 2010: Life Without Cars: 2010 Edition
December 13, 2009: Life Without Cars: 2009 Edition
December 21, 2008: Life Without Cars

This is “becoming an adult day” in Japan. Girls who turned 20 all dress up in tippy-top quality kimono and parade around town.

When your city become a place for Cars, not People, then nobody goes out on the street like this. You don’t dress like this in a place for Cars.

Believe me, it is way more fun when your city is a place for People.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

It’s so horrible. Unbearable to look at, really. Can’t we just replace this with a parking lot?

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Robin Hood’s Bay, England.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Robin Hood’s Bay. Once again an example of the principle that you have a compact City (or village), and then Nature (or farms). You don’t have some spread out goo that is neither City nor Nature nor Farm. That’s why we call it Suburban Hell instead of Suburban Heaven. It doesn’t work.

Chicago’s State Street is covered in snow February 2, 2011. REUTERS/John Gress (

Here is an example of 19th Century Hypertrophism. At first glance, this might look like a Traditional City, but obviously it is not. The roadway is not a Really Narrow Street for pedestrians, it is a two-hundred-foot-wide colossus for automobiles — even though, in fact, this street was laid out a hundred years before automobiles. The buildings are side-by-side and right up against the roadway, with no useless Green Space, but they are Hypertrophic, an exaggerated version of the 3-7 story Traditional City building. The human is not a happy person in an environment designed for human use (the pedestrian, no-car Traditional City), but a tiny speck in a vast concrete canyon, squeezed between a Great Pyramid-like monster monolith building and eight lanes of deadly roaring traffic.

Chicago.

February 21, 2010: Toledo, Spain or Toledo, Ohio?
January 31, 2010: Let’s Take a Trip to New York 2: The Bad and the Ugly
January 24, 2010: Let’s Take a Trip to New York City

You can live your whole life comfortably in a Traditional City. It is very inviting and pleasant. But after a few years of living in a 19th Century Hypertrophic city, most people get worn out and yearn for something soft, human, gentle, comfortable. For the last two hundred years, in the U.S., this has meant the suburbs.

Doesn’t really work, does it?

March 7, 2010: Let’s Take a Trip to Suburban Hell

The proper solution is of course the Traditional City.

What do you think — that we have amassed 200 years of failure with the inhospitable 19th/20th Century Hypertrophic City/Suburban Hell combo, but we’re going to get it right in the next 200 years? Oh really? Is there even one single example of success after 200 years of trying? No, there is not one.

You either learn from your mistakes … or you don’t.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Stockholm.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Jaffa, Israel.

Definitely NOT a 19th Century Hypertrophic city, is it?

Jaffa is considered one of the oldest cities in the world, dating from 7,500 BC.

Yes, 7,500 BC.

How is that for “sustainable?”

April 19, 2009: Let’s Kick Around the “Sustainability” Types

Do you see what I mean about a soft, inviting, human-friendly environment? A nice place for kids, women, families, senior citizens. Not a concrete jungle with eight lanes of roaring traffic in the middle.

Some nice trees here but no Green Space.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Brasov, Romania.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Hallstatt, Austria.

This is your European heritage. Not to shabby, right? Why not just enjoy it rather than avoiding it?

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Street cafe.

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London.

There’s a lesson here about incorporating large buildings with Really Narrow Streets.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At
London.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Languedoc, France.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

India.

Let's Take a Traditional City Break 2: More Really Narrow Streets Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Hatherleigh, England.

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