What is culture? Wherever there are people, there are settlements and communities, which collide and blend with the elements around them, thereby immersing themselves in a certain conventional atmosphere and forming a relatively unique “culture”.
When I wander the “sidewalks” and “neighborhoods,” I am always looking for street culture. The street food stores, the delivery men shuttling through the streets, these are all urban scenes that move me so much.
The concept of “street culture” is an imported term that originated from the lower class black community in the United States, and has been gradually fused by Japan and Korea into the four main categories of DJ-ing, rapping, break dancing and graffiti or aerosol art. With skating, skateboarding, stunt cycling, street basketball, street soccer and other competitive and extreme sports, the collection of music, art, sports, fashion trends, once as a “Western subculture” of hip-hop has now become a popular attitude of young people, even a subtle cultural atmosphere. You may not dance, nor sing rap, but you always know a few trendy brands, unconsciously wear oversize clothes, and listen to a few R&B style songs. It can be said that the elements of street culture are no longer “underground” and have been integrated into people’s daily lives.
When we listen to hip-hop, even though this art form has gone from underground to mainstream, and has even become a cultural consumer product in global circulation, it has always been inseparable from the streets of the Bronx, from the realities of life for the underprivileged and marginalized, and from the soul of freedom and struggle. This culture is nurtured in such a diverse and vibrant public space.
But is there a real street culture in China? The soil of street culture is the street. It is its spontaneity, freedom, enthusiasm and relaxation that breed this culture. If this public space is lost, the discussion of street culture will be nonsense.
The current state of urban planning in China has squeezed the “street” space. For the sake of economic development, we have long been accustomed to wide, straight roads. The wider, the better. Building wider roads to speed up the flow of traffic as much as possible. But this comes at the expense of the public’s walking space and experience. For example, the bus stop, which used to be just across the street, now has to be two stops longer because the entire road has become a one-way street; there is never enough parking, and even the sidewalks are full of cars, and the blind corridors are also encroached upon…. …all as Jane Jacobs says in “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” about the “encroachment of the automobile on the city”.
We are losing public space, with street culture slipping away.
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