New city life
 | new public spaces new public life |
New city life
It is the year 2000, a summer day in the middle of Copenhagen. The city centre, once dominated by cars, has completely changed character. Pedestrian streets, pedestrian priority streets and ordinary, narrow peaceful streets form an extensive network of comfortable walking routes. The city actually invites foot traffic. The eighteen squares in the core of the city have been stripped of parking spaces and returned to the public for recreational activities. They too invite people to come and stay awhile, and to engage in other public activities that need space.
The city has created space for many different forms of human interaction. Over the past forty years, a total of 100,000 m2 once devoted to motorised traffic have been converted to 100,000 m2 of traffic-free city space for pedestrians. The surfaces of streets and squares have been replaced with fine stone materials, and street lighting and furniture have been refined as well. The entire city centre now has a character and an atmosphere that invite people to walk and to spend time there. The streets seem to signal: Come, you are welcome. Walk awhile, stop awhile and stay as long as you like. City space has been given a new form and a new content.
The new reclaimed people spaces are used often and used well. On this June day the streets are almost completely filled with pedestrians moving through the city at a leisurely, almost languorous pace. In fact 80% of the movement through the city centre is foot traffic. The whole of inner Copenhagen has become an area devoted to people on foot. Copenhagen has also become a place to stop and stay awhile. On this summer weekday there are between 5,000 and 6,000 Copenhageners taking advantage of the many opportunities the city offers for recreational urban activities. 1,500 seats on benches and 5,000 sidewalk cafe chairs provide ample opportunity to sit, and they are in almost constant use. Children play, young people skate by on rollerblades and skateboards, while street musicians, artists and agitators of many kinds attract crowds to the squares. Life on the street unfolds as a colourful and varied pageant this summer day. One common trait is that a solid proportion of the activities are recreational. Another is that most of the activities are social. The city's new car-free space is used for a special form of social recreation, urban recreation, in which the opportunity to see, meet and interact with other people is a significant attraction.
This summer day in central Copenhagen speaks volumes about renewed city spaces. In addition, the pattern of the city centre is now being followed in the surrounding residential areas of the city. The conversion of streets and squares has inspired new urban patterns, which in turn have breathed new life into old neighbourhoods. Similar patterns can be found in cities throughout Europe and in other parts of the world where room has been provided for public life.
Renewed interest in public life and the city as meeting place, as it has developed over the past 30 or 40 years, has naturally led to noticeable development in urban planning and public space architecture. This development forms the central theme of the descriptions of city strategies and projects for new public spaces in the following chapters.
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