In 1932, Frank Lloyd Wright -- the architect who hated tall people -- published a book called The Disappearing City. And in this book, he proposed a city planning concept known as the Broadacre City. Wright would go on to spend the rest of his career trying to both promote and perfect this concept, but the salient point is that it was fundamentally anti-urban:
Imagine spacious landscaped highways …giant roads, themselves great architecture, pass public service stations, no longer eyesores, expanded to include all kinds of service and comfort. They unite and separate — separate and unite the series of diversified units, the farm units, the factory units, the roadside markets, the garden schools, the dwelling places (each on its acre of individually adorned and cultivated ground), the places for pleasure and leisure. All of these units so arranged and so integrated that each citizen of the future will have all forms of production, distribution, self improvement, enjoyment, within a radius of a hundred and fifty miles of his home now easily and speedily available by means of his car or plane. This integral whole composes the great city that I see embracing all of this country—the Broadacre City of tomorrow.
It's important to remember that this was first proposed before the arrival of today's suburbs. So this was Wright's response to the squalors of urban life at that time. Many have called the Broadacre City a precursor to the modern suburb and, in many ways, that makes sense. Integral to his plan was, "the man seated in his automobile driving on highways."
But others see the plan as something totally different. It was about low-density and self-sufficient communities that could sprout up along highways, and not necessarily rely on some sort of decaying urban core. It was thought of as a place for Americans to return to the land.
Whatever your opinion, you'll be happy to know that Kith has just collaborated with New Balance and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation on a trainer that commemorates this utopian vision. It is called the New Balance Made in USA 998 - Broadacre City, and naturally it comes in a variety of colorful earthy tones.
So if you're looking to celebrate the ethos of Wright and eschew the modern and walkable city, these are, I would think, the shoes for you. Apparently they're available online, or at Kith Tokyo, which is maybe intended to be ironic? Let's sell this Broadacre shoe from the largest urban center in the world.
Or maybe I'm overthinking this.
Photo: Kith
Toronto has a lot more CCTV cameras than I would have thought.
According to this (2022?) data from Comparitech, there is estimated to be about 19,236 cameras installed around the Greater Toronto Area. With a population of around 6.31 million people, this translates into a per capita rate of 3.05 (CCTV cameras per 1,000 people). What this means is that there is almost surely footage of me enjoying a late-night shawarma sandwich after the bar somewhere on the streets of Toronto.
In some ways, this is a high number of cameras. Tokyo, which is usually considered to be the largest metro area in the world with nearly 40 million people, only has 1.06 cameras per 1,000 people. Dhaka is 0.71. Sao Paulo is 1.04. Osaka is 1.57. And Montreal is 1.03. Though to be totally fair here, Rio de Janeiro is up at 3.34 (and it may be the most dangerous city mentioned in this post). Paris is 4.04. New York is 6.87. Los Angeles is 8.77. And London is 13.35.
But where things get really exciting is in authoritarian places. Moscow is estimated to have 16.85 CCTV cameras per 1,000 people. And in China as a whole, there is estimated to be roughly 540 million cameras scattered around its cities, which works out to an average of 372.8 cameras for every 1,000 people. For a city like Shanghai, this crudely equals something like 10.6 million cameras.
It turns out that surveillance is pretty important for things other than shawarma-eating videos:
Vyborov wasn’t arrested that day, but the police informed him that he was under surveillance through Sfera, one of Moscow’s face recognition systems, for participating in unsanctioned rallies. Considered one of the most efficient surveillance systems, Sfera led to the detention of 141 people last year. “Facial recognition, and video cameras in general in a totalitarian state, are an absolute evil,” Vyborov says.
Here's the other thing. Safety is usually touted as the reason to have lots of cameras. But Comparitech's data suggests that there's an almost non-existent correlation between lots of cameras and lower crime. I mean, just look at Tokyo. It is basically the model megacity, and its per capita camera rate is only 1.06. The real utility, it would seem, is using cameras and face recognition software to restrict personal freedoms.
https://youtu.be/TjouGyWXVM0
You can tell a lot about a place by the quality of its public toilets. I don't know about you, but if I'm at a restaurant and the toilets are filthy, I automatically assume that the kitchen is at least as filthy.
And so what does it say about Japan that it decided to hire the country's leading architects to design 17 new public toilets in Tokyo?
I first wrote about "The Tokyo Toilet" back in the summer of 2021. But now that the majority of them have been constructed, I figured it was time to revisit the project.
The two toilets designed by Shigeru Ban are particularly noteworthy in that they are clear glass boxes that become automatically opaque when in use. This was done so you can see if there's anyone lurking inside.
I also love this one by Kazoo Sato.
But of course, all of them are remarkable and all of them are probably better than the general level of public architecture that you'll find in most other cities.
In 1932, Frank Lloyd Wright -- the architect who hated tall people -- published a book called The Disappearing City. And in this book, he proposed a city planning concept known as the Broadacre City. Wright would go on to spend the rest of his career trying to both promote and perfect this concept, but the salient point is that it was fundamentally anti-urban:
Imagine spacious landscaped highways …giant roads, themselves great architecture, pass public service stations, no longer eyesores, expanded to include all kinds of service and comfort. They unite and separate — separate and unite the series of diversified units, the farm units, the factory units, the roadside markets, the garden schools, the dwelling places (each on its acre of individually adorned and cultivated ground), the places for pleasure and leisure. All of these units so arranged and so integrated that each citizen of the future will have all forms of production, distribution, self improvement, enjoyment, within a radius of a hundred and fifty miles of his home now easily and speedily available by means of his car or plane. This integral whole composes the great city that I see embracing all of this country—the Broadacre City of tomorrow.
It's important to remember that this was first proposed before the arrival of today's suburbs. So this was Wright's response to the squalors of urban life at that time. Many have called the Broadacre City a precursor to the modern suburb and, in many ways, that makes sense. Integral to his plan was, "the man seated in his automobile driving on highways."
But others see the plan as something totally different. It was about low-density and self-sufficient communities that could sprout up along highways, and not necessarily rely on some sort of decaying urban core. It was thought of as a place for Americans to return to the land.
Whatever your opinion, you'll be happy to know that Kith has just collaborated with New Balance and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation on a trainer that commemorates this utopian vision. It is called the New Balance Made in USA 998 - Broadacre City, and naturally it comes in a variety of colorful earthy tones.
So if you're looking to celebrate the ethos of Wright and eschew the modern and walkable city, these are, I would think, the shoes for you. Apparently they're available online, or at Kith Tokyo, which is maybe intended to be ironic? Let's sell this Broadacre shoe from the largest urban center in the world.
Or maybe I'm overthinking this.
Photo: Kith
Toronto has a lot more CCTV cameras than I would have thought.
According to this (2022?) data from Comparitech, there is estimated to be about 19,236 cameras installed around the Greater Toronto Area. With a population of around 6.31 million people, this translates into a per capita rate of 3.05 (CCTV cameras per 1,000 people). What this means is that there is almost surely footage of me enjoying a late-night shawarma sandwich after the bar somewhere on the streets of Toronto.
In some ways, this is a high number of cameras. Tokyo, which is usually considered to be the largest metro area in the world with nearly 40 million people, only has 1.06 cameras per 1,000 people. Dhaka is 0.71. Sao Paulo is 1.04. Osaka is 1.57. And Montreal is 1.03. Though to be totally fair here, Rio de Janeiro is up at 3.34 (and it may be the most dangerous city mentioned in this post). Paris is 4.04. New York is 6.87. Los Angeles is 8.77. And London is 13.35.
But where things get really exciting is in authoritarian places. Moscow is estimated to have 16.85 CCTV cameras per 1,000 people. And in China as a whole, there is estimated to be roughly 540 million cameras scattered around its cities, which works out to an average of 372.8 cameras for every 1,000 people. For a city like Shanghai, this crudely equals something like 10.6 million cameras.
It turns out that surveillance is pretty important for things other than shawarma-eating videos:
Vyborov wasn’t arrested that day, but the police informed him that he was under surveillance through Sfera, one of Moscow’s face recognition systems, for participating in unsanctioned rallies. Considered one of the most efficient surveillance systems, Sfera led to the detention of 141 people last year. “Facial recognition, and video cameras in general in a totalitarian state, are an absolute evil,” Vyborov says.
Here's the other thing. Safety is usually touted as the reason to have lots of cameras. But Comparitech's data suggests that there's an almost non-existent correlation between lots of cameras and lower crime. I mean, just look at Tokyo. It is basically the model megacity, and its per capita camera rate is only 1.06. The real utility, it would seem, is using cameras and face recognition software to restrict personal freedoms.
https://youtu.be/TjouGyWXVM0
You can tell a lot about a place by the quality of its public toilets. I don't know about you, but if I'm at a restaurant and the toilets are filthy, I automatically assume that the kitchen is at least as filthy.
And so what does it say about Japan that it decided to hire the country's leading architects to design 17 new public toilets in Tokyo?
I first wrote about "The Tokyo Toilet" back in the summer of 2021. But now that the majority of them have been constructed, I figured it was time to revisit the project.
The two toilets designed by Shigeru Ban are particularly noteworthy in that they are clear glass boxes that become automatically opaque when in use. This was done so you can see if there's anyone lurking inside.
I also love this one by Kazoo Sato.
But of course, all of them are remarkable and all of them are probably better than the general level of public architecture that you'll find in most other cities.
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