Marrakech is one of the most frenetic, vibrant, and exciting cities that I have been to in a long time. Walking through the Medina means walking on streets that are only a few meters wide, but that are still somehow filled to the brim.

Filled with a beautiful cacophony of people, smells, and merchants, selling everything from leather sandals to engine parts. Filled with an endless supply of people vying aggressively for your attention (and who all seem to coincidentally have a relative in Toronto). And filled with motorbikes that are liable to ride over your feet if only you let your guard down for a second.

Sensory overload. It is at the same time exhausting and one of the coolest experiences ever.

Another name for these streets would be "shared streets," which is a way of saying that the formal distinctions between areas dedicated to pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists have been removed. While they are intended to be pedestrian-oriented, the overall approach is that all users just, you know, figure it out. Today, this is viewed as an enlightened approach to street design. Though it's clearly not a new one.

I will, however, be the first to admit that it's easy to feel like an uptight Canadian in the Medina of Marrakech. This thought definitely crossed my mind: "I can't believe they let motorbikes rip through these tiny streets." You can see why somebody at some point felt it might be a good idea to carefully segregate uses.

At the same time, the architecture of Morocco feels like the perfect complement to these chaotic streets. Notably inward facing, the central feature of a traditional riad is its courtyard. These spaces offer much-needed protection from the hot Moroccan sun, but they also allow for family privacy, which is something that is important in this culture.

The result is that you immediately feel it every time you walk inside. You have now entered a beautiful and calm oasis in the middle of a frenetic and exciting city.

Earlier this week, a friend of mine shared this TED talk on my Facebook wall talking about the state of climate change in the world. The talk is by Nicholas Stern. And at one point he talks about the incredible urban transformation that has taken place in Beijing over the last couple of decades; specifically, the shift from a bicycle oriented city to a now automobile oriented city.

I knew that this was the case, but it got me thinking. Because alongside this mobility change, there’s also been – not surprisingly – pronounced changes to the urban fabric of the city. The most significant is perhaps the demolition of the city’s hutongs and siheyuan. Hutongs are basically narrow alleys (see above photo) and siheyuan are the traditional Chinese courtyard houses.

For centuries, these alleyways and courtyard houses have defined Beijing. And while I realize that not all of them were as glamorous as Melbourne’s laneways, only about 1,000 of Beijing’s original 6,000 hutongs remain (according to Time). Which makes me wonder: Is China making the same mistakes that we made in the 20th century?

Because as the developed world moves toward transit oriented development, bike lanes, heritage preservation, and compact urban living, China has seemingly gone and done the exact opposite. They got everyone off bicycles and into cars, and they went and erased a scale of urbanism that has been in place for centuries.

This is not to say that China doesn’t deserve to have the same standard of living as the developed world. It absolutely does. It just seems a bit ironic to me that the things we’ve become sharply critical of, are exactly what China seems to want to recreate.

Image: Flickr