Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Space - Europe vs. Australia

Another thing I really like about what I have seen of Europe so far is the positive benefits of living in small, high density spaces. For an Australian travelling here for the first time this is perhaps one of the most striking things - used as we are to sprawling cities, more space than we know what to do with, and the mythological ideal of the quarter-acre-block. Some of my thoughts, in no particular order, are:

~ Having so much space has made Australians lazy when it comes to urban and residental design. We don't need to come up with interesting solutions to space issues, so we simply spread out.

~ There is such a thing as having too much private space, which is to the detriment of public space. Australians on the whole live more of their life in thier private space than Europeans, and I think we're missing out on something.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I lived in high-density urban, Chinese-speaking East Asia for 6 years, Anastasia (and still do for two months every year); and if you think that Australians having a large private space are missing out on something, you've got rocks in your head. We're missing out on absolutely nothing, except noise, overcrowding, and urban degradation.

I love and exult in my large private living area, its space and its quiet: you and those communal-living Europeans can keep their sense of community by living on top of each other. That is not the Australian way, thank God.

You are most amusing.

Long-time & Still-Yearly Australian Foreign Resident in High-Density Urban East Asia

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