Saturday, October 13, 2007

People spaces


Venice is the only car-free City left ... there are car-free towns, but any active City on land has been cut up by the automobile. Venice's ocean defenses saved it from a form of transportation whose very infrastructure destroys spaces for people.

This is the most important lesson that Venice offers the modern world ... after it has taught much else. But how many people, wandering through the City, serene in their safety from the auto, realize that it is possible to reshape Cities in the modern world? How many are inspired to take on the destructive orthodoxy of modern planning, development and architecture? How many are spurred to carve public spaces for people that are protected from the auto, spaces whose very existence will help make cars unecessary?

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