May 16, 2024
"People move through a space and dwell in a place."
In Building & Dwelling, Sennett draws this interesting relationship between spaces and places in terms of the speed at which people travel through them. He makes an interesting note around the way in which we can take in more liminal visual information when we are walking as opposed to being in a vehicle. This speaks to the role of a place in nurturing a desire to slow down and take in all the sights and sounds that it has to offer.
He also noted how the anxiety or frustration around the speed at which we are able to move through a city is a relatively new thing that came as we attempted to "improve" it. Slow movement through cities used to be the norm and this kept people in a far more relaxed state. Now, as sought to make moving through cities at greater speeds a goal, when it slows down it feels as though something with the city is broken.
Mobility then became a core goal or urban planning. And in the process, places to linger were reduced to spaces to get through.