Non fiction

For a street to desire

There are many paths, tracks and roads that come before this street.

I've seen, heard and smelt this street; in fragments, built into my mental geography. Firmly programmed into my software. I can scan the scene and compare against my database that allows me to judge, perceive and predict.

When I was little, I loved the smell of viburnum trees. The ones with the little pink flowers that reek sweetly. As an adult, I now have a favourite viburnum which makes me stop on my corner.

My feet are continually updating my walked narrative. In this way, to put it egocentrically, two completely different times and places are linked by me. To avoid such selfishness, I could've said that In this way, place and time are articulated via the body, the senses.

As I've grown older, the appropriation has been reversed in my mind. It's less about imposing my experience on space or a place (being lived space). It's become more about the place imposing its own will and wants.

Have you ever considered, for example, that a street's boundaries are defined by territory? Territory which presents itself in the rows of houses that line up either side. It's in the cars parked on the pavement, extending the realm of ‘property’ to the space of the pedestrian. Territory shows itself every Tuesday when the bins haphazardly line up, dutifully waiting to be collected. A symbol of the rhythm of domestic life, where one person's private is transformed into everyone else's public.

Within these territorial boundaries, the pedestrian is reduced to a linear motion, confined to the pavement. Woe betide the rambler who mistakenly finds themselves down a cul-de-sac (or a bag's arse). These, to me, symbolise the ultimate territorial places. If you are not resident or part of a workforce, you have no business being there.

The gaze of the Big Other feels especially powerful.

These territorial places are a testament to spatial justice: who receives what and why.

Streets, being a manifestation of spatial justice, remind us that place is not a depoliticised or neutral phenomenon. It is a product of a decidedly unneutral people.

It's a strange thing for a street to desire, but these days I find myself constantly asking ‘what does this space want?’

As if I had a choice…