Life between buildings

Life between buildings
http://www.rudi.net/books/3610

How does the design of urban spaces accomodate the "need for contact" between people? There must be spaces for random, spontaneous face-to-face interactions to occur--something between being alone and being intensely involved with other people in an activity like school or work. There has to be a forum for just mingling, bumping into people, passing by--just being around other people. Just shopping, dining, and parking with other people, which is the thrust of much of the "mixed-use development" today, won't cut it.

"The varied transitional forms between being alone and being together have disappeared. The boundaries between isolation and contact become sharper - people are either alone or else with others on a relatively demanding and exacting level. Life between buildings offers an opportunity to be with others in a relaxed and undemanding way. One can take occasional walks, perhaps make a detour along a main street on the way home or pause at an inviting bench near a front door to be among people for a short while. One can take a long bus ride every day, as many retired people have been found to do in large cities. Or one can do daily shopping, even though it would be more practical to do it once a week. Even looking out of the window now and then, if one is fortunate enough to have something to look at, can be rewarding. Being among others, seeing and hearing others, receiving impulses from others, imply positive experiences, alternatives to being alone. One is not necessarily with a specific person, but one is, nevertheless, with others. As opposed to being a passive observer of other people's experiences on television or video or film, in public spaces the individual himself is present, participating in a modest way, but most definitely participating."

This is the urban manifestation of Tocqueville's emphasis on the importance of face-to-face interaction in a democracy:

"Sentiments and ideas renew themselves, the heart is enlarged, and the human mind is developed only by the reciprocal action of men upon one another. I have shown that this action is almost nonexistent in a democratic country. It is therefore necessary to create it artificially there. And this is what associations alone can do."

Designing good public spaces encourages and facilitates the messy, haphazard, unplanned face-to-face interaction that makes democracy work.