Lecture 3 - Ruminations

Elements of a City

I did like the quote, "The city of a prince is beautiful, but the city of the people is ugly", (or words to  that effect), but I did not catch who was the quoter in the lecture.

I thought to myself, 'That's easy, streets, roads, houses, buildings etc.', but a city is not, there is a whole lot more than I realised.

As well as all that, a city has a 'feeling', it has typologies, urban spaces, some have canals, there is public transport of sorts, there are a myriad other parts that make up a city. It was something I didn't really think about, the city is just 'there'.

The explanation of what each type of street represented, gave me a better appreciation of the urban planner's dilemma. Do you  make it a boulevarde or an avenue? What is to be accomodated along that pathway?

I must have a look at Kostof's "The City Assembled", I think it will help me understand cities and the urban process.

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