Urban

Throughout my adult life and indeed before I got to adulthood, I have been fascinated by urban areas. I enjoy visiting urban areas, I enjoy learning about urban areas and one of my real joys as a geography teacher comes from teaching about urban areas. I’m conscious that I could ramble on and on and on about urban areas (and at the end of this you may likely conclude that I have), but I am limited by time (I heard that sigh of relief).

The word urban is derived from the Latin Urbanus: ‘of the city’. The origin of urbs – town or city – is unclear. Urban areas have almost certainly predated the origins of the word though, with some continuously inhabited cities across South Asia, the Middle East and Greece stretching back thousands of years to as early as the fifth or sixth millennia BC.

Why do I enjoy urban areas? One quote springs to mind, from Kevin McCloud. McCloud’s quote comes from a documentary he made about the Mumbai slum of Dharavi, imaginatively called Slumming It. I think it is a really good documentary, which offers a pretty balanced insight into the problems of squatter settlements but also the positives. During the programme, he says that humans love complexity and layers. He waxes lyrical about how Dharavi offers this layering, complexity and texture in abundance. I couldn’t agree more, but this quality is relatively true of many urban areas.

I have no issue with the rural or the natural. One of the biggest thrills I get is from visiting natural landmarks such as waterfalls or volcanoes. In fact, one of the most powerful experiences I have is visiting a landscape such as the Lake District or Snowdonia and thinking about how those vast trough valleys were carved by ice. I enjoy the country pub. Yet, for all the enjoyment I may get in the natural world, it pales in comparison to what I get from cities and indeed towns.

As I’ve written elsewhere, walking the streets of towns and cities is a joy. I love soaking up the character of an area; where you can feel the culture and the history oozing into your pores. There is nothing that compares to the way that a city can delight all the senses: the smells, the tastes, the sounds, the sights and even the feel. But while cities are centres of consumption you don’t have to set out to especially do anything. Just the walk, the stroll, turning corners and happening across things. There is an unbridled satisfaction in just being in a city, watching it at work around you.

Of all the senses that a city delights, the sight is perhaps supreme. Walking the streets, you constantly come across views that delight. I have repeatedly tried to get into photography (proper photography, with an SLR and everything) and along the way I’ve acquired various books on the subject. One of my favourites is Michael Freeman’s book The Photographer’s Eye. It is all about the art of composition. Walking the city, your eye is assaulted by interesting compositions, from the money-shot vistas such as the Manhattan skyline to the quirky assemblages that catch your eye between buildings. Thankfully with a smartphone you can capture so many of these compositions. In capturing those photos though, you also realise just how inferior the camera is to the human eye. What you can see and process with the eye is almost always greater than what you can squeeze into the frame of a photo. Perhaps this is a reminder to put the phone away and to live in the now with our eyes, rather than to try to live vicariously through the photos, most of which in all reality we’re not going to look back at anyway.

And it isn’t just the city which fascinates, I love the humble town, perhaps just as much, if not more. Having grown up in the town of Warrington, I am biased. I also appreciate, indeed find it part of the fascination, that the distinction between towns and cities are so arbitrary and inconsistent around the world. Just like cities though, towns prove the benefits of urbanisation – bringing people together, pooling talent, offering opportunity. And for all the forces of globalisation and transnational corporations delivering ‘anywhere land’ and ubiquitous high streets, every town evolves differently in its own unique context. Yes, that gives some towns more than others, but you only get to scratch the surface and discover that character by visiting and getting under the skin, on foot.

My passion for all things urban isn’t going away and will no doubt be the subject of future writing. It will give my daily challenge a topic or two to return to.