UK musings
Aug. 1st, 2017 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johncomicI've decided to start recording some of my thoughts and feelings regarding our recent UK sojourn, to preserve them and make them easier to share if need be.
One thing I noticed, in both Greenwich and particularly in York, is how the environment seems designed for human beings.
The streets and sidewalks are narrow and curved. Shopping appears geared for foot traffic far more than for drivers. I saw a [small] number of parking garages but don't remember seeing any parking lots. Everything you need is within reasonable walking distance [I did A LOT more walking than usual when I was there, ended up losing four pounds over three weeks]. I came to really enjoy the freedom of not needing to (or being able to) drive. Streets blocked off for the use of "pedestrians only" are commonplace. It might sound cramped to some, but it didn't strike me that way -- the sense of coziness is all-pervasive. I loved it; I felt like I fit in, like I belonged.
When we returned home, and were leaving the airport in Toronto, I was struck by the strangeness of places I have seen many times over many years. The huge sprawling roadways, buildings staggered far apart with no rationale I could see, the space between them wasted: not available for anyone's use, not crafted to provide green space -- it looked deliberately left desolate.
Even the views from the plane of the English countryside versus the farmlands outside Toronto provided a contrast: England looking organic, curvilinear, compact, green, rolling... Canada a wide flat grid huge beyond all human need, brown and struggling.
And now that I'm home, I keep noticing little ways that the people are constrained to make more allowances for the cars, the waste, the unyielding inorganic strictures of my surroundings... can you tell that I miss England?
One thing I noticed, in both Greenwich and particularly in York, is how the environment seems designed for human beings.
The streets and sidewalks are narrow and curved. Shopping appears geared for foot traffic far more than for drivers. I saw a [small] number of parking garages but don't remember seeing any parking lots. Everything you need is within reasonable walking distance [I did A LOT more walking than usual when I was there, ended up losing four pounds over three weeks]. I came to really enjoy the freedom of not needing to (or being able to) drive. Streets blocked off for the use of "pedestrians only" are commonplace. It might sound cramped to some, but it didn't strike me that way -- the sense of coziness is all-pervasive. I loved it; I felt like I fit in, like I belonged.
When we returned home, and were leaving the airport in Toronto, I was struck by the strangeness of places I have seen many times over many years. The huge sprawling roadways, buildings staggered far apart with no rationale I could see, the space between them wasted: not available for anyone's use, not crafted to provide green space -- it looked deliberately left desolate.
Even the views from the plane of the English countryside versus the farmlands outside Toronto provided a contrast: England looking organic, curvilinear, compact, green, rolling... Canada a wide flat grid huge beyond all human need, brown and struggling.
And now that I'm home, I keep noticing little ways that the people are constrained to make more allowances for the cars, the waste, the unyielding inorganic strictures of my surroundings... can you tell that I miss England?
no subject
Date: 2017-08-03 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-03 03:59 pm (UTC)But it's also all only about 150 years old. London is about 2000 years old. There are buildings like the White Tower that are almost half that age, and churches about 300 years older yet, and of course ruins that are thousands of years older.
To be fair, much of the charm of England is not by design. Its people have always just been building by the standards of their times, like ours; its roads (in many cases) aren't designed for cars because there were no cars, not then and not for hundreds more years.
All the same I found it remarkably inspiring and in such an oddly familiar way. Even the weather seemed familiar, though in a different sense than the Austin weather I've known ever since I could remember.
And I think the world as a whole would be better if we could ditch cars, for the most part, and go back to walkable communities connected by rapid, clean-energy, mass transit like hyperloops (and of course the Internet).
no subject
Date: 2017-08-03 04:14 pm (UTC)