Urban hubs – living, breathing, entities.
Zoom in to the impressive megacities of our globe: Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Dubai, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. Cars, like a steady blood flow, weave their way through the streets that appear like veins essential to our bodies. The urban heart is pumping to keep its centers moving, working, functioning: alive. It transports oxygen to every end of its precious body so it can breathe.
The symmetric stream of pedestrians has its own pulse – the pulse of time. Millions and millions of people find their way through the aforesaid urban hubs. Remarkably enough, there seems to be a system that controls the flow of both vehicles, public transportation, and pedestrians. So, what might look like crowds without any structure is, in fact, highly regulated.
Complex Urban Bodies
Urban hubs are like bodies: a complex, interactive system.
Carefully designed as the playground for interactive life, technological advancement and the common sense of the people navigating the streets of the megacities they live in automatically contributes to a regulated movement.
One look. One touch. For a split second, the eyes of strangers meet. The moment freezes. Strangers connect without words in the pool of anonymity. Time – for them – seems to stand still. But the clock continues to keep ticking. The world around them continues moving. Before they know it, they are sucked back into the moving crowds.
Gazing forward; moving with the crowds. People are so close, yet so far from each other. They might seem different, yet they have more in common than they think. But the stream is moving. There is no time to stop. It keeps ticking. The world continues moving. And so do they. In a little world of their own, within a bigger entity: the urbanworld.
The flow never stops. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. Just like a rhythmic, pulsating cycle on repeat. Slower at dawn. Picking up pace and heart rate throughout the day. Slightly calmer during dusk – before taking a deep and powerful breath at night time, filling the lungs of the city.
Megacities as Living Organisms
Its clubs are awaking. Nightlife is taking over. Hence, like a ball of energy, cities, all of a sudden, alight. The bass makes the bodies tremble. They move in the changing light. Strangers come together. They mingle. They meet. It’s a game of fate and chance.
Urban centers are organisms in themselves. Therefore, they consist of so many different micro parts. Zooming out to an aerial view, we see a functioning whole. Zooming in: Just like individual organs, each with a different task essential to life, pieces of the megacities work together in a beautiful symbiosis.
We are all individuals, but meant to be part of something bigger. Our urban centers continuously advance – because of brilliant human minds. Let’s not forget to “zoom in” often and look closer. Because the details are what put the whole puzzle together.
And a vibrant, moving, living, functioning entity comes alive that would not exist without its vital parts.
