Last week I looked at how space can impose a regiment upon our day to day actions, effectively pushing us away from chance encounters. This week I want to continue in the same vein, but with more focus on the relationship between living space and social interaction. The way I see it, and please comment if you feel differently, Edmonton forces many of its citizens to make the conscious choice of interacting with the city or remaining insulated from it.
Many cities offer a barrier between the personal and the social, but they do so through the use of distant suburbs, while Edmonton nestles them right into the heart of the city, creating pockets of insulation. For example, areas such as Garneau, Windsor Park, and Oliver, are sanctuaries that shelter their inhabitants from the daily frenzy of the city, ultimately allowing for a more gradual immersion into social space.
I like to picture Edmonton as a gradient--a smooth transition--rather than it being confined to the simple pairings of inside-personal / outside-social. Edmonton allows its residents to wander outside of their homes relatively free from social bombardment; however, this range of movement necessitates that Residents must consciously move towards a social nexus, instead of suddenly being immersed in one; the connection isn’t forced, only the choice is. In contrast, larger cities, or those cities with space constraints, don’t have outside space that is free from the bustle of the city; the instant you walk outside you are soaked with social stimuli.
The choice, then, to enter into social space is linked with the outside in these larger cities, while in Edmonton the outside still has some connection to the personal (sidebar: or maybe in larger cities the abrupt collision of personal space and social space causes them to spill into each other. Edmonton then would be reinforcing personal space by allowing a buffer to develop between the personal and the social...). Whatever the case, I think Edmonton embraces an approach to space that favours slow transitions over instant immersion. Next week I will be looking at the implications of this conscious, gradual movement into social space.
OK, I'm confused... Do you view this 'slow-transitions-over-instant-immersion' in a positive or negative light? Or, are you simply taking note of it's existence? Personally, I am extremely grateful that our city has preserved more centrally-located neighborhoods like Garneau, King Edward, Parkallen, Grandin, and Strathcona. It seems to keep some spirit on the inside. But that's just me... What do you think? When I go out to gated communities it almost seems like they are small towns in a way, organisms in their own right. They are so separated from what goes down in areas like downtown. The gates, while providing the idea of security, also seem to provoke isolation. How many people living in such communities, for example, use public transit?
ReplyDelete"OK, I'm confused... Do you view this 'slow-transitions-over-instant-immersion' in a positive or negative light?"
ReplyDeleteI was trying to avoid passing any judgement on whether Edmonton's slower transitions were positive or negative. I'm more so interested in how these transitions affect our interaction with space, how they force choices on us that might reveal something about the Edmontonian consciousness.
But to answer your question (horribly), I really don't know yet...I think having range of different social densities is a good thing. Potential connections, that only appear at lower levels of social density, could be pushed to the side if every area was socially hypersaturated. On the other hand, social gradients may serve to segment people based on their preferred level of connection. In other words, I have no clue.
Your comment about gated communities is interesting: "The gates, while providing the idea of security, also seem to provoke isolation."
This is the same trade-off I was talking about in my post from last week: increased security results in decreased interaction. Gated communities, in some respects, can be seen as modern day forts, protecting their residents from the wilderness of civilization.
I have always been fascinated with the idea of anonymity in the city. Edmonton although offering a choice to be social or not strips its citizens of any anonymity or seclusion due to its intense immediacy. Six degrees of separation truly exists in Edmonton. Cities like New York, although forcing one to combine public and social space, offers its citizens the ability to NOT know everyone. Edmontonians, while feeling open in physical space, are unable to avoid the minute social structure that comes with a 700,000 person city.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I am making a huge generalization about Edmonton but I find the physical space and social space are distinct opposites. One is vast while the other is condensed. So condensed and tightly woven that one is always within it instead of fluidly moving in and our of it.