The Sunday Diigo Links Post (weekly)

• A 70-Year-Old Documentary About Cities Shows We Haven’t Come Very Far – Arts & Lifestyle – The Atlantic Cities

  I don’t know… I think Goodyear’s assessment of this film is too generous. It gave me the creeps: both ‘the city’ (which was a polluted, congested hell-hole) and ‘the suburb’ or planned ‘idyllic town,’ which was pure pablum, and unpleasant in its ‘everything has a place and a place for everything’ approach. Wayyy too tidy…
  QUOTE
  What’s interesting is that the idealized suburb/cities presented in the film are all walkable and bikeable. Autos are part of the urban disaster that is to be left behind by progress. We see from the air the familiar cul-de-sacs of today’s America but there are no six-lane arterial roads, no massive shopping centers with enormous parking lots. Kids ride around on bicycles along paths that look very much like what you see in the Netherlands of today, and in a few American cities such as Boulder, Colorado, or Davis, California.
  UNQUOTE

  tags: atlantic_cities video urban_development urbanism documentary cities suburbia

• City Life Changes How Our Brains Deal With Distractions – Arts & Lifestyle – The Atlantic Cities

  Makes sense…
  QUOTE
  …a quick summary, for those readers on the verge of losing focus: the brains of people in remote places seem ready to focus on the task at hand, while the brains of their urban counterparts seem prepared to explore the ever-changing conditions of city life. Certainly explains why some country folk find the city overwhelming, and some city folk find the country a little dull.
  UNQUOTE

  tags: urbanism cities atlantic_cities neuroscience brain environmental_psychology

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