The Life-Sized City Blog

Cities use various methods in order to draw attention to themselves. Tourism campaigns, posters on busstops to advertise events or municipal services. City Branding is also a thing . Countries and organisations do the same. Usually the money is spent on highlighting positive angles. What often goes unnoticed is that cities have a tendency to spend taxpayer money on broadcasting the sad and undeniable fact that they are completely inept at keeping the streets safe. They try, unsuccessfully, to thinly disguise their incompetence as "safety" campaigns. Consider the simple idea of school crossing guards. It's a concept well-known around the world. Hey, I used to be one back in the day (and I remembering hating having to do it). I was waiting at the crosswalk by Lulu and Felix's school in Frederiksberg yesterday morning. Waiting for the lovely kids to step out and block the cars and bicycles to allow us to cross. Then I realised... the concept of school crossing g...

Golly. What a lovely place to live. When I was in Ferrara, Italy a couple of weeks ago I was having a good chat with a colleague who works for the City. We were looking at a map of the city and he was filling me in about the various traffic and bicycle-friendly initiatives in place. For example, Ferrara doesn't have a congestion charge - it has a congestion BAN. Non-residents are not allowed to enter and goods transport must pay a fee. Eight cameras are installed around the city to photograph number plates. If you're caught in the city without a permit, you are fined €100. Ah, simplicity. Anyway, he was telling me about a main route through the city and plans to tackle the motorists who use it. He called them parasites . I thought it was a bit out of character for him but he kept using the word. Finally, I had to ask why he was using the word and he looked at me quizzically and said that it was simply the word they used. Parasites. First attested in English 1539, the w...