I shot this photo yesterday morning during the German holiday of Pfingsten, or Pentecost. On a Monday morning, 9 AM, I stood in the middle of a Gelsenkirchen street and said I'd take a photo of the first couple on bikes...and it took all of about 4 minutes of waiting.
Almost nothing else going on that morning...weekends usually find the town closed, most stores shuttered, and on a Monday holiday, well, the whole city was shut down. Nonetheless, there were still dozens of people going about, like these two by bike, or on foot, and with urban arrangements that allow for people to do such things without four lanes of forty-six mile an hour traffic right on top of them, people will do this.
Take note of the street -- a most fantastic stone mosaic that stretches for a mile in each direction from this intersection. Granted, this is the center of the city, and possibly most deserving of such attention, but all of this was built only within the past sixty years since the battle of the Ruhr. People fifty years hence had a vision to build public amenities that would last so long...man, what I'd wish for my Elk Grove to have build just one, even one thing, that would last fifty years in our last fifty years.
The subtleties of urban design make all the difference, like the mosaic stone. It makes this street worthy of human interaction. The workers who laid this stone, they celebrated the idea that the street (and their city) is a place with value, a place where an elderly couple would want to be:
The man walking might have once been a mason. He might have built that street he's now walking on in old age. His work wasn't just some steel and glass office park to be fled after the day is done. It wasn't some five lanes of one-dimensional asphalt moving motor vehicles. It wasn't some depot-sized consumer wherehouse. People want to be there.
I would implore you, my fellow American, to sit on any street corner in any small city in America and find an elderly couple riding bikes. Tell me you could find them on any given Monday. Tell me you'd find them within 4 minutes instead of once every 4 days. Tell me that German couple riding their bicycles suffers from arthritis, has at least one artificial hip between them, high blood pressure even with all that wurst and beer, and are on a combined twenty four different prescription medications...
2 comments:
i have a little good news for you. with some frequency -- and yes, occasionally on a monday -- i do see elderly couples riding bikes through Liberty Station, the mixed use redevelopment of San Diego's former Naval Training Center, where i rent office space: www.libertystation.com. by no means is it idyllic ... but it's a modern urban project that gives me a glimmer of hope for the future. the execution has been far from perfect, but i believe the city planner's ideas here were good ones. there are detached houses, duplexes, townhomes -- and even some "affordable" military housing. there are hotels, there are restaurants, there is a beautiful stretch of waterfront park, there are museums, and best of all: lots and lots of commercial space. people can live AND work here -- people with a lot more money (or military service) than me, that is.
You know, that's the most frustrating part about all of this...you and your significant other have to work and have to both be professionals to afford to live in such places in America, and even then, you have to be exceptional professionals. Engineers need not apply.
What does that say? The most desirable places are places that you and I know are human scaled, mixed use, and everyone wants them, but because we don't build them any more those that exist are in such high demand that we can't afford them. Those that can...well, I'll hold back a little, but to be sure, those with wealth don't give a damn about the issues I raise...they only give a fuck about living among others like themselves, and wealth is usually the sole means of differentiation. 4,000 sq ft starter mansions in Lower Hermosa also provide the same level of exclusivity, even though every resident commutes by solo vehicle every day.
No, this city in Germany houses regular people, not just the wealthy. Everyone is able to live in a correctly scaled arrangement with transit that is second to none. I tried as best I could to communicate with many locals (primarily in the pubs!) but even with a language gap I was convinced they were people like you and I...most normal.
I got the exact same reaction here in Sacramento about my disdain for our multiple tiered suburban slums -- many people who cast aside my castigations and tell me how Sacramento proper is a great city for biking. Yes! It is! But they totally disregard the 92% that live outside its borders who don't have those options.
Amy, you are describing the top 8%. I can accept this. They are those of means who can afford it, while 92% of us fuck around with solo vehicular commuting living in an arrangement that has no viable future.
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