April - May 2009 | Vol.1, No. 2
Aybige Tek
The Connected City: Chicago
Photo: Aybige Tex
What makes one city connected ? If the easiest and most accesible form of experiencing the city is by walking; the power of getting on feet and hitting the streets from one side of the city to the other side maybe that one great quality to make a city connected within itself. Providing that information and assumption : Chicago’s grid system and its simplicity : organized lots, streets, blocks and especially its lakeshore drive makes this city a truly connected city.
Each city has their repeating actions, places, or behaviours between its people that in everyday life we do take for granted. These are endless and limitless experiences and connections we people register in the memorization of one city. These memories of thoughts, vary from through the eyes of a tourist, nomad or simply one who lives in those cities.
Picking up a “Redeye”s last issue magazine from the street, hearing a “Hello Sunshine” from the newspaper man or getting on the Red-Line subway train may seem such ordinary moves in the city however when there are thoughts of how many more people sharing those same moves with oneself makes the most powerful connection within a city.
There are also larger than life activites in between the architecture of Chicago such as : filmmaking, seeing the most exciting stars on the streets maybe even in your own neighborhood. These create a larger than life connection inside Chicago and its people because one moment when you were a stranger to a person the second moment you could be holding his kids so that they see Jennifer Aniston drinking a cup of coffee while filming “Derailed” on Elm Street, Chicago while their dad goes to get them some hot chocolate.
Graffiti in the streets, repeating advertisements of the city such as a radio or a tv show or a restaurant opening, a dj playing ad, even the most annoying ads connects the city.
The huge doors of the greatest skyscrapers of the whole planet and the people wellcoming a Chicagoian entering those buildings are also greatest helpers of the connected city. They may seem they hold the security and the entry to just one building or two however they connect the whole city together.
When a cop asks a homeless person on the street in Chicago: he may reply to the cop as he is the hero the protector of the streets right there and the cop gladly laughs at him back . In an observer of this scene one gets connected to the need to feel at home in the streets.
The comfort of sitting at the stairs in an international neighborhood and engaging in the best of the conversations with friends creates a couch in the streets of Chicago where the street now becomes a living room in ones mind. The comfort and the night setting in leaves a sense of belonging to the city and its brighter side.
Imagining a more negative aspect of a situation in the city where a person gets robbed, gets kicked in the streets, or gets all the belongings stolen; a very hurtful kick that will soon effect our good memories, of what otherwise is a connected city.
City records everything. Signs are there to make the connected city or to disconnect it for a while. A city such as Chicago with all the chaos and the calmness has all the power to connect and disconnect !!!