How to be an urban flâneur and city planner.
(Imagine found on the bog Paper Pills : http://www.paper-pills.com/2009/05/10/this-weeks-goal-be-a-flaneur/ ) Often city/urban planners merely sit at their desks, go to meetings, interact with other government officials or politicians, but rarely wander around the cities or regions that they assist in guiding development. Perhaps, part of a planner’s activity should be to sit at a café, watch the people, watch passing pedestrian and vehicular traffic, listen and engage in conversations with his/her fellow citizens in this informal setting; or perhaps wandering or driving around the streets of a city, observing the everyday lives of its citizens. However, in the modernist framework of urban planning, this would be considered wasting time, as you are not pursing knowledge in a systematic way. It would be frowned on by local politicians who expect public servants to be sitting at their desks ‘slaving away’ and not ‘goofing off.’ Being an urban flâneur is...