RE: The City is Us

A thoughtful and straight-to-the-point article, we do agree on many points. I live in Canada but have had the privilege of travelling to Taipei, Taiwan before the lockdowns. There's a major difference between the two countries when it comes to the urban landscape (at least the older parts of Taipei)

Most of us live in cities, and many more will do so in the future. Cities have a significant role in our lives. We need to get right since they affect our daily lives and sense of community. The beauty and efficiency of a city improve our psychological well-being. But as cities became denser, our cities painfully lacked intelligent design and lost their cultural sense. Sometimes skyscrapers sprout like crazy wild grass that it becomes out of context.

Cities will naturally densify, but the way most cities are going about it may not be the best way. I know many cities around the world are building up with skyscrapers like you mentioned. I actually used to be a big fan of skyscrapers until a few years ago when there was a realization that they only server a small fraction of the community. Honestly, who really wants to live next to a 20-40+ floor building? One thing that I would recommend looking up is Granularity by Strongtowns, it's a good read on this topic.

Tragically, the world's cities that we regard as exceptionally lovely are just a fraction. Worryingly, the ones we consider exceptional are often the older and culturally aligned ones. Watching our environment around us evolve so dramatically in only a few generations has had the fatal side effect of deluding us into thinking that everything has progressed. When in reality, urban planning has regressed. It has lost our cultural identity.

Perhaps we are over planning our urban spaces both old & new now. The automobile certainly hasn't made things any better either. Check out before and after pictures of Boston or Houston before cars showed up.

I personally experience it with the city that I grew up with. In the early 2000s, I can vividly remember how our plaza seems the happy place that we could ever dream of, but with the change of leadership, most of it was demolished to give room for the road in front of the city hall...

That's a real shame. I haven't been to many plaza's before but it sounds like this one was really special. There may be a time when the true form of this plaza will be restored?

There is a bright future ahead. If we all settle for a bleak future then most of us will settle for less and not care about these kinds of topics. That is always a recipe for disaster. I really enjoyed your article BTW. I look forward to seeing more posts from you juecoree!