Place and Non-Place (2009) | Hacker News Reader

Place and Non-Place (2009)

newworldeconomics.com

37 pointsapsec1129 comments

I am not sure I understand why we want to get to 100% Places. This is a predicate of the author but I am not sure I agree. We do need transportation and easy way to go from Places to Places. Old cities were made by people who never needed to get out.

Having lived in Paris, Tokyo and Berlin, I can say that as a pedestrian I really enjoy the huge "non-place" avenues of Berlin, that are thrice the necessary width for this city.

If roadways are Non-Places, one solution is to minimize them (denser transit). Another interesting solution might be to Turn Them Into Places. For example, a commuter train with quietcars, wifi, and meeting spaces/dining car becomes a Place where you can do business while also commuting to a different Place.

What are concepts that do something similar to a highway of cars? Self-driving cars, seats that face each other, etc come to mind.

I don't think a roadway can become a Place in this sense, except by being a really narrow street -- although a train, especially the sort you describe, is certainly better than a highway. Foot traffic makes interpersonal interactions easier, but also makes it easier to reach and notice storefronts, and is easier on resource consumption than anything else, even commuter trains.

I'm glad to see this being discussed! Really Narrow Streets are already being adopted by a few young city planners, but wider knowledge of them is certainly a good thing.

This looks eerily similar to an article by Andrew Alexander Price:

http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20121015.php

Not that URLs are authorities on publication date, but the New World Economics article appears to have been published in 2009, and this article appears to have been published in 2012.

How can one talk so much about places and non-places without mentioning Marc Augé?

I'd never heard of Augé until you mentioned him. It looks (from his Wikipedia article) like his sense of Non-Place includes some things that New World Economics would call Place (supermarkets and hotels); but as for why he's not mentioned, I'd guess that the author of New World Economics just doesn't know about him.

Please don't post snarky dismissals, even when you know more than someone else does. In addition to going against what we're hoping for in the culture here (civil, substantive comments and intellectual curiosity), it's off-topic, since it changes the subject to how much you know.

A better way to express your knowledge would be to share some of it, such as by introducing readers to Marc Augé (whom most of us probably haven't heard of) and say something about his contribution to these ideas.

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