July 16, 2007
everything new is old again
As noted in this article, the city of Paris has instituted a low-cost civic bicycle system. It is unfortunate (though not perhaps surprising) that the one US resident reaches exactly the wrong conclusion: “I’m never taking the subway again,” said a beaming Justin Hill, 47, a real estate broker from Santa Barbara, Calif.
The Paris Metro is, of course, extraordinarily effective for getting around the city, and practically sublime for experiencing the social existence of the city. The bicycles, as one suspects is obvious to most folks who are not Santa Barbara real estate brokers, are meant to decrease private rather than public transportation.
Such is the history of like schemes. Only in very brief passing does the article note the system's beginnings as one of the various "White Plans" of the Amsterdam Provos, promulgators of a radical environmental urbanism that seems now as prophetic as it does hippie-dippie. One notes that among their numbers one finds the artist, the architect, and tract-writer Constant, who made the picture above, from his series New Babylon.
Posted by jane at July 16, 2007 08:06 AM | TrackBack