We have a tendency to give cities human character traits when we describe them. It’s a friendly city. A dynamic city. A boring city. Perhaps then a city can be arrogant. Arrogant, for example, with it’s distribution of space.
In my work as an urban designer in over 100 cities around the world, I’ve become quite obsessed with the obscenely unbalanced distribution of space that I see everywhere I go. The nauseating arrogance of obscenely wide car lanes and the vehicles sailing back and forth in them like inebriated hippopotamuses.
Calgary, Canada
Back in 2013, I was in Calgary, Canada for five days and from my balcony at the hotel, I watched the traffic below on 12th Ave. A one-way street that was never really busy at all.