6
Figure 7: Spaghetti Bowl Separation
are problematic to the development of neighborhoods, because it suggests that the appropriate means of getting from point A to point B requires the use of an automobile. This leads to an increased lack of social scenarios that is usually the foundation to healthy lifestyles. Rather than people taking walks from their residential neighborhood to the mixed use shops on the other side of the infrastructural division, they isolate themselves in their cars, do their business, isolate themselves in cars again, and finally end their day isolated within their homes. This under-stimulating condition forces people to compromise their quality of life by limiting them to a few experiences at a couple points on a map. The treatment, rather than the presence, of infrastructure determines how people behave and interact within the city. Without addressing the problem that infrastructure is used to delineate urban activity and does not appeal to the needs of pedestrians, cities will continue on the downhill spiral of neglecting to stimulate people rather than create ease of vehicular mobility. However, infrastructure is not the only factor of weakness in cities; the abandonment of buildings and seas of parking lots also have a profound affect on how people relate to the city. As cities grow and develop over time certain features are replaced, while others linger. The presence of an abandoned building, with recognition that they are not permanent or necessary to the efficiency of the city, has a profound effect on their surrounding physical environment. The problems that arise with such spaces are quite different than that of infrastructure as their affects are more localized and often stand independent of its surrounding thus creating a void of activity. At a macro-scale it can be seen that unlike the reaction caused by infrastructure, these spaces remain isolated and monumental; leaving them untouched sculptural additions to the landscape of the city. These
Figure 8: Industrial Separation