Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban
“The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art. Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban forms condition mind.” Lewis Mumford
“An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it.” Wikipedia
I don’t live in an urban area anymore… I visit NYC frequently but I live in the suburbs, and the pace of life, the landscape and design/use of space differ greatly from that of the City. When I think Urban, I think crowds=human density, tall buildings, huge murals/art, food/merchandise carts, public transportation, and the accompanying noise that gives every major city a special quality.
“URBANITY, n. The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, “I beg your pardon,” and it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others. Ambrose Bierce
Major cities have their share of homelessness juxtaposed against the backdrop of huge and magnificent buildings; many of them residential complexes… The irony of it never fails to amaze me. How do we justify homelessness in the land of plenty? The answers are both simple and complicated…
“The car has become the carapace, the protective and aggressive shell, of urban and suburban man.” Marshall McLuhan
Access to all forms of transportation is imperative in a huge city and NY has many to choose from… I love Grand Central for outer borough travel. The Subway is fast and somewhat dirty- think big rats, and the buses are generally slow… However, it all works.
“They have no home town, urban life is standardized and they come from a place called Generica” John Perry Barlow
The people are the salt of the earth and make a huge difference in the lifestyle and culture of any city. New York has the full range of fascinating people; including all nationalities and faiths. While the above isn’t fully inclusive of all the faces of NYC, it shows a portion of the range… More Later. I’ll be by to visit you too! More below!
“A peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork. What is significant, and is so difficult for the urban stranger to understand, is that the two statements are connected by an and not by a but.” John Berger
“Living in cities is an art, and we need the vocabulary of art, of style, to describe the peculiar relationship between man and material that exists in the continual creative play of urban living. The city as we imagine it, then, soft city of illusion, myth, aspiration, and nightmare, is as real, maybe more real, than the hard city one can locate on maps in statistics, in monographs on urban sociology and demography and architecture.” Jonathan Raban
There are so many hidden nooks and treasured places in the city. I have barely scratched the surface here. Although I lived in the City during my college years, I moved to Park Slope after I married, and then moved to the suburbs when the kids were due. I will venture out soon to document my old neighborhoods; the Upper Westside and Brooklyn, but these and the shots above are not of them at all… Enjoy anyway and I will add more photos later. Thank you!
This is a pivotal time for urban regeneration. We must take a long term view. Richard Rogers