Paris --
Perhaps this is a universal phenomenon but I doubt it. Paris is a place of tight places. No one ever has any room. Streets and walkways are too narrow. When you're not on the path, you're on the street/ Tables are clumped up next to each other in restaurants, and customers are shoved up next to each other like animals at an abatoir. There is a genuine lack of personal space, from the beggar on the corner who has no problem breathing all your oxygen to the sidewalks where a couple holding hands can take up the entire width of a walkway.
I love Paris. I love it in August when everyone flees to the Southern shores and Paris is like a Sergio Leone Western Town. This way what seemed like narrow walkways and sidewalks suddenly are smoothly flowing passages where there is plenty of room for progress. I also love it at night, say at 3 in the morning where all one can hear is a distant drunk hurling in the night or snoring on a grill.
The reason I outline all this is that I feel it is very important in any sort of Metropolis where people are obliged to share personal space, to consider the dangers of stopping suddenly and to open your friggin' eyes. In Paris, the average citizen does not notice the other person behind him, or to his right for that matter, or left...Also this same person.....STOPS SUDDENLY....
That is correct. They stop in the middle of a healthy stride to a dead stop and without looking proceed to daydream. And when this happens, I am the schmuck in the back who suddenly must take evasive action to avoid a back collision. If I was not careful and was raised in a fashion similar to these obvlivious pedestrians so common in this city, we would all be crashing into each other....ALL THE TIME.
And it would get nasty.
I do not know if these people were raised as Robinson Curuso's but there are indeed other people in the world beside themselves and these other souls are often heading forward in continous momentum. When that momentum is halted, suddenly, violently, in a tight space, it is up to the person behind to also halt suddenly or else risk running right into that person's rear bumper.
Now, I am willing to admit that in other cities, people may be just as inconsiderate. But in other cities, the room for manoevring is much wider. In Paris it's the size of an an ant farm tube. I also have the theory that it is not that these strangers specifically do not care about their fellow man or lack manners. Most Parisians I know would be cursed by their mothers for failing to say goodmorning to complete strangers. No. It is that they for some reason have been raised with the conviction that Paris is a desert island from the show. "Lost". Plenty of palm trees and space.
I could also bring up the very serious saftey hazard cause by blocking main exits and entrances for extended periods of time as is often the case in this city.
What an ideal perch to cause anguish.
Of course, I know the retort. Parisians woud claim that these sidewalk blockers are tourists who have lost their way. But this is not so.
Through my own extended reasearch, mainly listening for accents, I have found that tourists only account for, at most half, of the sudden stoppages on sidewalks and narrow paths. The rest are the same daydreaming Parisians that claim that their lives are too fast. Parisians are claiming that they're city is too "speed" - y and then stop suddenly to pause and reflect on how right they are. Well things are not moving too fast when you're blocking the frigging path. In fact, at this point in the city's human history, there is no motion at all.
So if anyone is reading this, let's keep those walkways moving for the sanity of all. For less ridiculous pedestrian accidents that are hard to explain to loved ones and to preserve the reputation of an "active", "bustling" cosmopolitan capital.
Perhaps this is a universal phenomenon but I doubt it. Paris is a place of tight places. No one ever has any room. Streets and walkways are too narrow. When you're not on the path, you're on the street/ Tables are clumped up next to each other in restaurants, and customers are shoved up next to each other like animals at an abatoir. There is a genuine lack of personal space, from the beggar on the corner who has no problem breathing all your oxygen to the sidewalks where a couple holding hands can take up the entire width of a walkway.
I love Paris. I love it in August when everyone flees to the Southern shores and Paris is like a Sergio Leone Western Town. This way what seemed like narrow walkways and sidewalks suddenly are smoothly flowing passages where there is plenty of room for progress. I also love it at night, say at 3 in the morning where all one can hear is a distant drunk hurling in the night or snoring on a grill.
The reason I outline all this is that I feel it is very important in any sort of Metropolis where people are obliged to share personal space, to consider the dangers of stopping suddenly and to open your friggin' eyes. In Paris, the average citizen does not notice the other person behind him, or to his right for that matter, or left...Also this same person.....STOPS SUDDENLY....
That is correct. They stop in the middle of a healthy stride to a dead stop and without looking proceed to daydream. And when this happens, I am the schmuck in the back who suddenly must take evasive action to avoid a back collision. If I was not careful and was raised in a fashion similar to these obvlivious pedestrians so common in this city, we would all be crashing into each other....ALL THE TIME.
And it would get nasty.
I do not know if these people were raised as Robinson Curuso's but there are indeed other people in the world beside themselves and these other souls are often heading forward in continous momentum. When that momentum is halted, suddenly, violently, in a tight space, it is up to the person behind to also halt suddenly or else risk running right into that person's rear bumper.
Now, I am willing to admit that in other cities, people may be just as inconsiderate. But in other cities, the room for manoevring is much wider. In Paris it's the size of an an ant farm tube. I also have the theory that it is not that these strangers specifically do not care about their fellow man or lack manners. Most Parisians I know would be cursed by their mothers for failing to say goodmorning to complete strangers. No. It is that they for some reason have been raised with the conviction that Paris is a desert island from the show. "Lost". Plenty of palm trees and space.
I could also bring up the very serious saftey hazard cause by blocking main exits and entrances for extended periods of time as is often the case in this city.
What an ideal perch to cause anguish.
Of course, I know the retort. Parisians woud claim that these sidewalk blockers are tourists who have lost their way. But this is not so.
Through my own extended reasearch, mainly listening for accents, I have found that tourists only account for, at most half, of the sudden stoppages on sidewalks and narrow paths. The rest are the same daydreaming Parisians that claim that their lives are too fast. Parisians are claiming that they're city is too "speed" - y and then stop suddenly to pause and reflect on how right they are. Well things are not moving too fast when you're blocking the frigging path. In fact, at this point in the city's human history, there is no motion at all.
So if anyone is reading this, let's keep those walkways moving for the sanity of all. For less ridiculous pedestrian accidents that are hard to explain to loved ones and to preserve the reputation of an "active", "bustling" cosmopolitan capital.
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