Most discussions of place take their orientation from classic examples: the primitive village, the New England small town, Renaissance piazzas, London, Savannah. My suggestion is to start from our new places and refuse to measure them by the classic examples. Instead, look for our own modes of unity and possibility. Try for inspiration from places that are sprawling, fractured, multiple, paratactic, intersecting, from the suburban commercial strip, from the Net, from speeded-up, fragmented, virtual, discontinuous, mobile inhabitations.
Should today's places be like Italian towns* or New England villages? We and our lives are different. We should start from today's places to find features for all places, then turn and use those features to fight the current simplifications of place.
(c) David Kolb, 1 August 2001