New Cities/New Soviets

June 25, 2004

Kowloon Walled City

I found out about this place called Kowloon Walled City from my friend Dan, and man was that place fucking cool! It was an architectural and historical anomoly, a part of Hong Kong that was originally a military outpost of Mainland China, came into contention, and was eventually abandoned and occupied by squatters.

Largely unmolested by Hong-Kong police (with the exception of a stunning series of 3000 raids to break the hold of the Triads) it became a kind of stacked red-light district, a refuge and a microcosm, a human termite mound, and, apparently, producer of about 80% of the fish-cakes in Hong Kong. I've ordered the definative english-language book on the subject. Unbelievable...I can't belive they tore it down to make a fucking park.

That's the real beef I've got with the "urban green" movement. Yeah, parks are nice, but our environments are largely not ones of leisure. We need better enviroments to work in and live in, first of all. Strolling only a distant third, if that. Leisure was the same cover-story Robert Moses used to build all these highways -- "think of a lovely drive with the family" -- and look where that has ended us. Bullshit, don't be bought off so cheap. I want better than sanctimonious chapels to nature, no-drinks no-moneychangers kind of places.

That said, my plan to "rejuvinate the waterways" of Manhattan is to have Vietnamese-style floating market. No location in Manhattan can thrive without commerce. We're just too fucking business, and there ain't no getting away from it. Let's fight to control what kind of business it is. (In fact Molly has made a passionate and persuasive argument for sex in parks.)

WE GOTTA LET THE CITY BREATHE! City life is an exchange between the public and the private, and the more and varied the exchanges are, the spaces that connect these two realms are, the more fertile our culture will be.

Posted by Sam at June 25, 2004 06:49 PM

in korea we have a name for this:

sexplanade
in korean
sounds like

hand grenade

Posted by: pak im sex at June 25, 2004 08:41 PM

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