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The Challenge: Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character
From the outset, defining the culture and character of a city is a daunting task. It involves storytelling and study, from within and without; it draws on art and science, religion and myth. It encompasses expectations, fantasy, and reality. Every individual has a different viewpoint based on his or her background and experience.
Imagine if the city around you disappeared, and everything familiar in your daily life and routine suddenly ceased to exist. Imagine the paths you are so used to vanishing, along with the people and places that are so familiar. How would you recreate this central experience in your life, and how would you help to create your city’s shared essence?
If you were a resident of Rome, Athens, London, or Dublin, you would not recreate the cities of the ancient world, Charles Dickens, or James Joyce. Nor would you elsewhere replicate cities of poverty, discomfort or repression. Most likely you would remember the best and most familiar times, perhaps from childhood, and ponder how to make them look and feel even better, and address carbon neutrality and affordability issues along the way.
For those in cities threatened or destroyed by a disaster or climate change, or for new residents of a foreign place, these are not idle questions. In fact, they are not irrelevant to any of us…
