The Urban fabric must guarantee social interactions, accessibility, as well as safety, and it ought to be easy to navigate. In addition, the networks used by pedestrians should be enjoyable and thus foment leisure. Streets should function as veins, transporting individuals to keep all the areas of the city alive. The characteristics of streets might differ as the functions and environment change, but they should all be held to the minimum standard of enabling and encouraging citizens to occupy public space.
Streets generate local identity; they shape the character of a city by reflecting the cultural activities that take place within it. They dictate connections, by joining different areas, forming a network of public spaces, and becoming sites of social interaction where people are capable of forming communities. The character of the street is ever changing, as technology and societies evolve, the forms of interaction change with them. Streets are physical manifestations of the transformations that take place. Each street should be unique as they are an expression of the cultural and historical context that is singular to its geographical position and functionality. Moreover, it is undeniable that streets are intertwined with the artistic expression of their inhabitants, whether they transform to adapt into the globalized architectural international style using skyscrapers or become covered in graffiti, these changes signal the singular characteristics of their users.
How cars changed the character of the Urban Fabric
The introduction of cars changed the transport system drastically, the ability of individuals to reach faraway locations on an individual mode of transportation altered the way citizens interacted with the urban environment. Consequently, public transport became a secondary method of transportation, an alternative applicable for those who live in the center of cities, where there isn’t enough parking space for all. The incorporation of motor vehicles led to an improvement in roads and transportation systems, making cities and citizens better connected. It is argued that the development of motor vehicles is responsible for the destruction of public streets, roads have taken over public space in the urban environment. However, a huge advantage of having vast road networks is how easy it is to reach any location, for example, when someone requires medical assistance, the fact that an ambulance can rapidly reach the location and then transport them to a hospital is a phenomenal advancement. In case of emergencies, the benefits of rapid communication are undeniable, yet citizens only realize this during these unique situations.
The use of cars over public transport reflects the victory of individualism over collectivism in the streets. Nowadays there is a growing demand for humanizing the urban environment, and taking space back from cars, due to the growing consciousness of the effects of climate change, the Urban Heat Island Effect is a scientific fact that is proven to affect mostly low-income earners, as the way the urban fabric is built directly impacts people’s living conditions. The debate on the future of street design is expanding and will continue to do so in the future, specifically now that self-driven cars are possibly becoming a new mode of transportation, this would radically alternate the way we understand transportation networks, and therefore how we approach this debate.
The Effects of Tourism in the Urban Fabric
Tourism has modified the character of major cities globally. Cities that are home to millions of citizens are becoming tourist attractions. Landmarks are flooded with tourists taking selfies, and Airbnbs are popping up rapidly, which leads to landlords raising rents, causing gentrification, meaning locals are pushed out of their neighborhoods. Furthermore, in Paris during the 2024 Olympics, many Parisians fled the city ‘ A large proportion of Parisians view the impending games as a nightmare, forecasting chaos in the already clogged city’. and in Madrid, tourists occupy the center during the weekend of the December 6th national holiday. Spaniards from outside Madrid travel to the big city to do Christmas shopping at the biggest stores and enjoy the Christmas decorations, the streets become flooded with national tourists that deter locals from leaving their homes during the holiday. The Christmas decorations on streets make it increasingly difficult for citizens to enjoy public spaces that are decorated using their own tax money. This reflects the turn towards policies that are focused on the economic exploitation of public space instead of focusing on improving it for the locals’ benefit.
Improving the Urban Fabric
The famous Parisian Boulevards are a great example of urbanism that transformed the character of a city through its streets. The Boulevards were created between 1853 and 1870 by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, following the instructions of Napoleon III. These long and open streets made room for vegetation and better air quality, they fomented public leisure, commerce, and provoked a sense of grandeur. However, the newly formed street character of Paris was not only about improving the Parisian Urban Fabric. The reality is that part of the motivation to produce this change was crowd control. Paris is well known for its protests. Back then a very common practice was barricading streets, to prevent forces from disrupting protests, this became increasingly difficult as streets became wider. Furthermore, the use of ‘macadam instead of cobblestones, setts or tarred-wooden blocks reduced the availability of ready-made missiles and fire starters’. Streets have always been the site of protests, where civilians manifest their discontent, the effort of governing bodies to control this function of public spaces is an ongoing battle as public spaces reflect the character of their citizens through both aesthetic and usage.
A good example of how streets could perform is the New York High Line designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and James Corner Field Operations. ‘The High Line is a 1.5-mile long public park built on an abandoned elevated railroad stretching from the Meatpacking District to the Hudson Rail Yards in Manhattan. The long paving units have tapered ends that combine into planting beds creating a textured, ‘pathless’ landscape where the public can meander in unscripted ways. The park accommodates the wild, the cultivated, the intimate, and the social.’ People instinctively know how to inhabit public spaces, streets are not simply the space in between architecture, they dictate hierarchy, and they reflect the political, religious, and cultural characteristics of their context. They are usually organized around public buildings and create direction for the public. Hence people shape the character of the Urban Fabric just as much as streets dictate the character of the social connections in the urban environment.
REFERENCE:
Reid, C. (2018). Parisian Boulevards Built Wide Not For Cars But To Better Quell Street Protests. [online] Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2018/12/20/parisian-boulevards-built-wide-not-for-cars-but-to-better-quell-street-protests/.
Arquitectura Viva (2019). High Line City Walk, New York – Diller Scofidio + Renfro James Corner Field Operations. [online] Arquitectura Viva. Available at: https://arquitecturaviva.com/works/paseo-urbano-high-line-nueva-york-4.
Alamoush, S.J., Ja’afar, N.H. and Kertész, A. (2021). Street character and current practices influence. Pollack Periodica. doi:https://doi.org/10.1556/606.2021.00433.
Architect’s hands: how can we design better streets | Evelina Ozola | TEDxRiga. (2015). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iQnrM3DkVI.
