Reading cities as political text

I’ve this theory about reading cities as political text. No, it is not an empirically or quantitatively proven theory, just a hunch. But it seems to work.

It struck me once, as I stood on a pedestrian overpass high above a 10-lane street in one of the metropolis of the world, in a so called rapidly industrializing country. There were bus stops on both sides, between the lanes, so that I could imagine how the national government or city representatives would give talks in international conferences, boasting about the well functioning public transport system and the sustainable development principles guiding the urban planning of the capital city.

However, to cross the street, the pedestrians had to climb up steep steps, at least two stories high. And to get to the narrow isles of the bus stops between traffic lanes, they had to climb down to the street level again. The bus stops were so narrow and crowded that in order to pass another person, one had to step off the isle. No one needed to give me an explanation of the principles that had guided the decision making: I could see them in real life. The privileged men driving their new cars had voted in support of the growing inequity in their city.

It was easy to read the political value system in a foreign country, where it was so blatant. It may be a bit more difficult to see it in some of our European cities, where the dictatorship of the private car is less obvious. The car industry has created so much employment during the early years of industrialization that we’ve grown somewhat blind to see how it still guides our decision-making, be it about land use, mobility planning, road infrastructure or energy issues. Look closely, and you cannot help noticing it.

(This text is posted also in the Bloggers' Corner of Pes@ctivists at www.pes.org)