The Life-Sized City Blog

Another chapter in our ongoing series about The  Arrogance of Space . This photo was taken by a friend flying to Cape Town. We are not familiar with the specifics of the location - probably near the airport - but that doesn't stop us from slapping our Arrogance of Space filter onto the photo. It's a badass intersection - the kind that makes old school traffic engineers feel all warm and fuzzy. It's a monster of extreme arrogance. Let's face it... if you have space for vendors to stroll down the car lanes (top centre), your lanes are arrogantly wide. Firstly, here is how the space is allocated. An ocean of car-centric red. Thin pedestrian crossings with fading paint. No bicycle infrastructure is present. Take away the photo and it looks like this. Making the red all the more shocking. There were a few pedestrians and vendors present when the photo was taken. A couple of mini-vans transporting people, but generally - like most places - just individuals in one c...

Here's a campaign from South Africa. A chain of fashionable cafés - Vida e - have placed these signs on their doors. No helmets. The amusing blog 2 Oceans Vibe posted about this campaign against socially unacceptable behaviour such as wearing a bicycle helmet whilst dining. Here's a shot of the door of their Kloof Street establishment in Cape Town. 2 Ocean Vibe also has an ironic, ongoing theme where readers send in photos of other shocking examples of what they deem "socially unacceptable behaviour". Generally focusing on people wearing those helmet thingys indoors. And 2 Ocean Vibe also reports about another establishment that refuses to serve 'cyclists' in 'cyclist clothes'. "Due to numerous complaints from customers..."