why doesn't vancouver have a proper city square?

[Gunter S]

just thinkin

[gnosis]

^That's a European thing.
Most Canadian cities don't have a Plaza Mayor/Centre Ville.

I guess the closest you could get to one, here, would be either the Art Gallery, or the Library.

Frosty
(finds cheap Pensions in La Plaza Mayor)

[Ms.Tarantula]

Originally Posted by Gunter S

just thinkin

shut up.... go fuck your sister or something.

[Gunter S]

Originally Posted by gnosis

^That's a European thing.
Most Canadian cities don't have a Plaza Mayor/Centre Ville.

I guess the closest you could get to one, here, would be either the Art Gallery, or the Library.

Frosty
(finds cheap Pensions in La Plaza Mayor)

they would be cool to have

[Gunter S]

i'm thinking like London's Trafalgar square, where you can have concerts, protests, rallies, outdoor restaurants and cafe, street performers, etc.

[anewlife]

does it need one?

[Gunter S]

Originally Posted by anewlife

does it need one?

think of a happening place like robson or whatever. having a street right down the middle is like a moat cutting people off from eachother. we could also benefit from huge outdoor cafes in the summer.

[-evil-duerr-]

^ dude your being sucha city square

[Ms.Tarantula]

grass/ parks > huge concrete area

[Gunter S]

Originally Posted by Ms.Tarantula

grass/ parks > huge concrete area

cobble stones feel quite nice under the feet :)

[-evil-duerr-]

your sister feels quite nicer under the feet

[Courtney]

I Want A Pub Culture

[Gusto]

we have lots of places that are suitable for that kind of stuff downtown, even if we don't have a "city square". there's sometimes free concerts in the plaza by pacific center at granville and georgia in the summer.

[Courtney]

Originally Posted by Gunter S

i'm thinking like London's Trafalgar square, where you can have concerts, protests, rallies, outdoor restaurants and cafe, street performers, etc.

oh how I love thee

[.Promoter]

You seem to all be hating on his idea, personally i like the idea of a city square, but with a little more green to it.. the eupropean ones looks awesome but they are just giant stone space wasters.

[Courtney]

im not hating i would love it

[decypher]

In urban planning sometimes they do things like that so that there is no open space for aggregation of the masses = less riots. Easier to diffuse a crowd.

[gnosis]

^You incredibly IGNORANT fuck!

NEVER, in man's history, has a town/village/city EVER been "designed" for mass crowd-control!

Please do not post again without first doing a little research/reading/education on a subject that you so clearly have no clue about.

_SOMEONE_, PLEASE, show me I'm wrong!
Be specific w/ references.

Frosty
(spittin' mad!)

[BongMan]

You spit hot fire

[gnosis]

You know what?
I take it all back.

I'm sorry.

I was only thinking of old-world (European) cities.

I grew up in the anathema of cities: Disturbia (Bramalea, Onterrible)

It's a town without a city centre (although, there is a mall called the City Centre).

It's a "Bedroom" Community.

Houses, townhouses, apartment buildings, and the occassional shopping centre, on what used to be farmland.
Lucrative, fertile farmland.

This town was _SO_ designed for mass crowd control that it was all designed as courts, crescents, boulevards, in between Roads.

By alphabetical order.

When you were at the mall, all you had to do was ask someone where they were from: "I'm from the 'H' section...."....

You instantly knew where they lived.

I grew up in the 'B' Section: Burnham, off of Braemar, off of Balmoral, w/ Banbury, one over....

Get it?...

Apologies to decypher.

Frosty
(grew up in a controlled disturbia)

[decypher]

Originally Posted by gnosis

^You incredibly IGNORANT fuck!

NEVER, in man's history, has a town/village/city EVER been "designed" for mass crowd-control!

Please do not post again without first doing a little research/reading/education on a subject that you so clearly have no clue about.

_SOMEONE_, PLEASE, show me I'm wrong!
Be specific w/ references.

Frosty
(spittin' mad!)

hah, so you want to start an argument do you? How dare you call me ignorant, you must understand my rationalization so well.

What i was referring to was "crowd psychology." Sure i have no idea of the nuances of urban planning and the processes by which such designers go about there business BUT i do understand social theory. Much like anything you learn, it can be applied to other ideas.

Crowd psychology is a branch of social theory that discusses the reasons that people riot. People as an organism acting together, what are their motives?, how do they communicate in relation to a leader. Not just random crowds but political crowds as well. It's all inclusive and is the basis for understanding mass society and communication.

You want some research? ok:

"The larger question of public space is always one of access, where the spatial stands in for the political. In Great Britain, access to the public commons--a means of livelihood as well as visibly public space--became endangered during the country's transition to a modern nation [ANNNNNNNNNNND]


New measures of enclosure, as well as proto-industrial urbanization, signaled a shift in provincial English towns from a monocentric to a multicentric structure. Among other things, multicentricity meant that the rich and the poor were increasingly isolated from each other. This new spatial arrangement changed the stakes of rioting. Unlike the monocentric town, where a riot could easily claim victory after occupying the town hall, the multicentric town could not be straightforwardly seized" Guldi, E. Joanna. Chaos Creation and Crowd Control: Models of Riot Regulation, 1700 to 2005, (p. 61).

This source was in a TOC for a larger discussion on urban planning at UCLA: Welcome to Critical Planning


I used to think you had something to say until you flew off the handle without any merit what so ever. I don't know where you are getting your motives from.

The first question was of why Vancouver does not have any major public space, for example Britain? *Cough* What does it say above about England in Modernity? If these ideas are being floated around does it not follow that such ideas would be taken into thought when planning cities?

You are trying to tell me that with the Glorious Revolution and Locke, the English Civil war and Hobbes, the American Revolution, the RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE that there has never been a discussion about urban planning + crowd control? If you want large f'n piazza's go to Rome where it was designed 2500 years ago. A modern city doesn't really have giant squares for nationalist rallies. Much easier to diffuse a crowd without it.

The original question asked for a possible suggestion, of which I offered.


NEXT....

[decypher]

Ok well i didn't see your msg above when i wrote that so yeh no biggie. These arguments get me all worked up anyways, keep my brain from turning to slush.

[cubed]

"THAT'S MY BOY KAM, HE'S WICKED SMAAAAART."

[Courtney]

um dude he looks like rawb who is that

[cubed]

Originally Posted by Courtney

um dude he looks like rawb who is that

hahahahaahahahahaaha!!!!