{"id":23146,"date":"2013-03-31T06:57:48","date_gmt":"2013-03-31T06:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145710.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=23146"},"modified":"2013-04-03T22:44:44","modified_gmt":"2013-04-03T22:44:44","slug":"appreciating-copenhaganizes-pointing-out-the-arrogance-of-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikocity.com\/appreciating-copenhaganizes-pointing-out-the-arrogance-of-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Appreciating Copenhaganize’s Thoughts On “The Arrogance of Space”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copenhagenize\u2019s recent article The Arrogance of Space<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>brings to the surface something bicyclists, modern urban planners, and many common people find simmering in their minds all the time. Mikael Colville-Andersen, the\u00a0Northern European<\/a>\u00a0author of this article cuts through the simmer: \u201cI\u2019ve been working a lot in North America the past year, and I’ve become quite obsessed with the obscenely unbalanced distribution of space. I see this arrogance everywhere I go. I see the insanely wide car lanes and the vehicles sailing back and forth in them like inebriated hippopotami.” Oh how I love to hear someone say this… or, rather, read it in writing.<\/p>\n

\"Chengdu,<\/a>
Chengdu, China — Separated Bike Lanes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Streets that are seldom used, empty concrete parking lots instead of greenery devouring once-so-green landscapes of North America — this is what dominates the continent.\u00a0It is not even the streets he writes of in this age of foreclosures — there are also large vacant buildings sitting around whilst children and families are\u00a0homeless and displaced. Now, this is another subject. However, it is related, or of a similar arrogance.<\/p>\n

Copenhagenize notes that every city is different, that all have unique personalities. Some are willing and able to accomplish innovative changes, increasing bike lanes, increasing bike-sharing programs<\/a>.\u00a0Some, such as the small town I live in, even make sure there is space between the bike lane and car lane for safety\u2019s sake. Too many remain indulgent, living in a past time’s viewpoint and (hopefully a passing) ideology of worship to the shiny, large, isolated armor of autos that drive a few people over even larger slabs of streaming, excessive, overdone concrete jungles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Copenhagen<\/a>
Copenhagen Fashionista on Wheels<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In my own experience visiting the Northwestern US, which is a more progressive place than other parts of the country, the story goes something like this:<\/p>\n

\"Concrete<\/a>
Concrete Jungle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I usually rent a remarkably small, fuel-efficient car (unfortunately, not yet an electric car<\/a>) to drive out of Seattle to the place I am visiting. I proceed in 7 or 8 streams of traffic that are often stuck, or moving in a unusually slow motion. This car I am in is small and filled with 3 of us, so the waste is minimal. However, if there were a better train system<\/a> out of Seattle, as one finds from San Francisco, flowing to all the small towns surrounding it, I would not even be using this small car but would readily travel by train<\/a>. Instead of 8 lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic, one might have a grassy side view of the track with the train run over land not concrete. Am I a dreamer? Well, I am not the only one.<\/p>\n

Consider the lyrically streaming bikes of the bike video, Cycling For Everyone \u2014 an Expose: Organically Flowing<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(below).<\/em>\u00a0The sense of concrete infringement is diminished. Less is more. The kind of experience developing urban planners hope for are one of less concrete, fewer cars, increased fresh air, more living life outside.<\/p>\n

Already from such a place, folks from Copenhagen and the lands about teach us what we already know:<\/p>\n