Non-Places and Places

[MessiahAndrw]

I just released a blog post about the concept of Places and Non-Places in cities: http://andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20121015.php

In my opinion, the goal of a good urban planner should be to minimize the amount of non-places that exist in a city, and I go into great detail about why and how to categorize places and non places in my post.

[Xaragmata]

Darwin (medium Place:Non-Place ratio);

I may have misread something, but if that is Darwin NT the electric railway is probably a non-place

[claybro]

Good to see the photo of Rundle Mall featuring in the "good" examples of a city.

[crawf]

Definitely not the Northern Territory capital. For starters the actual railway is around 20km from the Darwin CBD.

[claybro]

Houston looks positively awful. All those carparks. Must be hot as hell in Summer. I know we have lots of CBD carparks but at least they are highrise.

[MessiahAndrw]

I've published a new blog post on human-scale walkable streets. I've included some photos of Adelaide.

http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20130131.php

[monotonehell]

Thanks for pointing to these, I've really enjoyed reading about your opinions on these matters.

I know you're only using this as an example, but you're cheating a bit. This:

Is a pedestrian mall with a Kiddie Tram ride down the middle. (The Grove in LA)

[MessiahAndrw]

Is a pedestrian mall with a Kiddie Tram ride down the middle. (The Grove in LA)

Thank you for clarifying that. I just chose a bunch of images for example's sake on how narrowing a road can affect its feel.

I appreciate knowing that you enjoy reading my blog! A few compliments make the time spent writing it worth it.

I would love to post more on my blog, but writing a post, proof reading it, searching for example images, etc. takes a lot of time. I also work full time, so it's something I have to do in my own time.

Blog posting is only fun when I'm really fired up and passionate about a topic, otherwise its a tedious chore and I feel like I'm back in school doing homework. That's why there's a random 2 month gap.

I've been planning to write (and have partly-written articles that I need to finish) about public transportation and zoning in the future.

I was born and raised in Adelaide but I'm currently living in the US. A lot of what I'm passionate about is what I've experienced first hand. I've experienced big cities on both sides (Melbourne, Sydney, Chicago, New York) and many smaller cities, and I try to see what I think works and feels right about a city, and what doesn't. For example, I love pedestrian malls and you can find them in any decent Australian city, but they are somewhat rare here. So, while a lot of my blog tends to be US oriented now (because I'm living here), I draw a lot of my experiences from growing up in Australia, and I'm an active reader on this forum.