Why the Tragic Loss of Towers in Bologna?
A friend of mine posted the following image of Bologna Italy, which illustrates the sad loss of so many beautiful towers in that city.
I responded with the following.
It is tragic that so many of those glorious towers are now gone.
My partner Maggie and I loved our visit to Bologna a few years ago, as the city remains wonderful in many ways.
It is telling that we have an enormous number of citizens who now fight aggressively against multi-story buildings being built in their city.
I'm convinced that an important reason for that opposition is that almost everyone hates the uglification of cities that results from the construction of hideous buildings -- hideous because they use an unlovable modernist design. A traditional or timeless or classical design -- as occurred in Bologna -- would mean a great deal more support for multi-story buildings.
I must also add that another important reason for contemporary opposition to multi-story buildings is the fear that such buildings will bring a big increase in motor vehicles to the city, and motorists hate the thought of the increased congestion of their roads and parking lots by such an increase.
This second reason illustrates why a car-dependent lifestyle that almost all of us live inherently breeds NIMBYism. Getting around in space-hogging motor vehicles (see below) means that most of us understandably consider new residents and new buildings to be an existential threat to our lifestyle, which means we must oppose new development vigorously.
Consider the fact that nearly all of us -- regardless of the size of our city -- believe our city has become "too crowded."
The image above shows us why that is.
A person in a motor vehicle -- on average -- consumes 17 to 100 times more space than a person sitting in a chair. That overwhelming amount of space consumption is utterly toxic to the health of our cities and neighborhoods.