Does the city work as a place where public life is engaging, active, interesting, sometimes exciting, sometimes reassuringly familiar and always full of the ritual of the everyday that makes us feel part of a place, that makes us feel connected to this community, our home?
We need shared public places to sit, to engage, to be together.
We need shared places to sleep, to skate, to party, to protest, to plant, to grow, to argue and to bump into each other, to read, relax, stretch, breathe, perform, observe, survey, shelter, retreat...
A community needs spaces that all members of the community can use, young and old, parent and business person, cafe owner and graffiti artist, busker and builder, painter and procrastinator alike. We have to have places where we can engage the conviviality, the discussion and debate that forms the public life of a city. These are things that happen in the public square.
If I ask myself how are the spaces in this town organised? then I cannot help but answer: apparently without thought. Albany is an unplanned city. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say it is an overly planned and controlled city which lacks any sense of vision. Often it feels in this place that one enjoys it despite the built environment, not because of it.
How can we engage in the reformation of this city as a machine for living? How can we create a shelter that nurtures our community?
We can begin by playing, by experimenting with form and space, by imagining the possible, by messing around with ideas...
...by beginning from where we are.
...reckon we need to have community circles instead of town squares...keep at 'em Chrissie xo
ReplyDeleteyes, community circles sounds nice...and they need a place to form, like a town square.:)
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