‘The opposition
between…attributes of city and countryside has long been supported by clear
boundaries between one and the other… Yet over the course of the 20th
century…the distinctions between city, suburb, countryside, and wilderness have
become blurred’
With the development of cities and its
expansion outwards this blurring will eventually merge into one ‘entity’ where
there is no more urban and suburban and only the different parts of ‘The City’
categorised by its culture or specific functionalities. The boundaries acted as
a distinction barrier preventing people from understanding the other side-associated with class distinctions and economical
factors- therefore slowed down the exchange of information. Cities needed the
organic resources from the suburban areas and the country side needed
technologies invented in urban environments. As cities become
autonomous-producing their own food by means of roof gardens etc-minimising
economic capital needed for transport, companies also needs new land for
further development there is an immigration of information with the suburban
information being brought into cities and vies versa.
‘Due to a redistribution of urban activities and
intensities…programmes that were previously associated with the city
centre…have been transplanted to suburbia and have taken on a different shape.’
Like Le Corbusier’s city vision where the city is ‘nowhere and
everywhere’, a redistribution of space is evident.
‘… the shaping of public space has been considered the primary
task…Its role and place in the city as a space of gathering and exchange has
been treated as a kind of ‘glue’ that holds together the city and promises to
generate urban coherence and active use.’
‘no longer functions…as the place where opinions and ideas about
society and state were formed and discussed the public sphere has become an
‘arena for advertising’ … critical
reason is seen to have shifted to other groups…who engage in it
un-publicly, while mass consumers might have a public receptiveness but remain
non-critical. This shift of rationalism and criticism has left the public
sphere prone to stronger forces such as marketisation and privatization
. Public space...is essential to the preservation of democracy…provides
the space for freedom of
speech and public assembly, enables the publicizing of dissent,
maintains awareness of the needs of others, and allows the organization of
grassroots campaigns.’
People seem to have
shifted the location where they express their opinions and attitudes to the
cyber world where their identities can remain hidden; this allows a sense of
security as opposed to the planned function of public spaces where your
identity is exposed once you express your freedom of speech. Through the
internet people can debate, criticize and rephrase their speech without the
pressure of organizing their minds on the spot. The internet enables people to
cross between the border of personalized living and public spaces giving them a
choice which one to pursue for a longer duration of time. However this
encourages a disconnection from society and creates a new set of problems
needed to be solved by architects: How to design public spaces which satisfies
personal security of individuals yet encourages public engagement?
‘raises questions on how to approach the ‘emptiness’ of the
dispersed city, how to use, appropriate and inhabit the space in between
spread-out buildings, and how to redefine this space as part of the public
realm.’
People spend more time
then they realize travelling from place to place every day and most of this
time is spent on boredom or worse-wasted. Efficient ways of engaging society
for productivity in these transit spaces is another step towards development where
no time is left to be unused or unengaged.
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