FAST AND SLOW CITY TERM FOR EXPERIENCING THE REAL CONNECTION BETWEEN PEOPLE

URBAN STUDIES Nam Nhat Phan Lam2014-1015

3Nam Nhat Phan Lam_Final Paper Urban Studies

FAST AND SLOW CITY TERM FOR EXPERIENCING THE REAL CONNECTION BETWEEN PEOPLE

5Nam Nhat Phan Lam_Final Paper Urban Studies

Introduction

Working around the social housing complex of hunderenveld in Sint Agatha Berchem I got interested in the interaction between people. It looks like there are not many places and occasions where they can come in contact with each other. From their own apartment, most inhabitants seem to immediately take the elevator to the garage and leave the building by car. The dominance of the car is large in this area, which is near the border of Brussels and A10 Brussels junction, which is an important entrance to the city. It connects Brussels with the east part of Belgium. It also defines the area between the outside and inside of the ring as at the same time the distinction between the rural area and inner city. Future statistics show an even higher number of cars on the roads in and around Brussels.Is this car dominance the reason of a lack of interaction or are there other caus-es? What are the potentials of the slow city towards increasing the interaction between people? The term of Slow city is used in some cities like Copenhagen ,Melbourne and Venice where 50% of the inhabitants is using the bike or walks. Existing studies already suggest that by walking ,biking and using public trans-port the social interaction increases and also a decrease in traffic jams. The gov-ernment of Brussels already started programs for reducing the number of cars in the city like Car free on Sunday and Day without car in city.The method-ologies of this project will be combined with a research on case studies of slow cities and what the city of Brussels is already doing in this regard.