Flaneuring Around Town

I've been observing a lot of lighting lately in my surroundings. Tonight, as I left from work and walked through president's circle, I couldn't help but notice how DARK it was even though there were STREET LAMPS. It made no sense to me, but oh wait, they light up the sky instead of the ground I'm trying to walk on! That's right! How silly of me to forget! I'll post a picture below so you can see how unbelievably stupid it is. We need to implement change and raise awareness of this issue ASAP. Projecting the light down towards the ground is beneficial to everyone using it.

I've also been looking at lights all around downtown. I happened to notice specific ones around the Leonardo when I went to the "No fixed address exhibit this evening.

This light was interesting to me. It was round and did not have a bulb open to the sky, so my boyfriend asked me if it was really that bad. I told him it wasn't as bad as the ones shaped like bulbs, but it still needed a shade around it to concentrate the light towards the ground, instead of out around it and with some of it still emitting into the atmosphere.

I have also observed many of these types of paths around campus! I know that we talked about them during class the other day, but I cannot for the life of me remember what they are called. The idea of a leisure path is becoming more and more appealing to me the more I see them though. I think if we push to make one, we should definitely collect data from around campus using these makeshift paths. The point of a leisure path would be to instill pleasure for people using it, so it only makes sense that we see where people feel the most comfortable walking, right?

I also have to wonder, why aren't these paths and patterns observed during the planning/design process of an area? I always notice that if there is a path that goes around an area, or if there is grass that people can cut across to get somewhere more quickly, the person will almost always go through the grass. I think that these behaviors should be studied when putting paths into a certain area. Why waste resources on a path that no one even wants to use, when you could make one that is perfectly accessible and user friendly? That is why we should observe where people walk to find out the perfect location for a leisure path on campus. I also think that we should try and put the solar powered lights that we saw in the path in Amsterdam into our leisure path! That would be so lovely to walk on as the sun sets and the lights wouldn't be bright enough to contribute to the light pollution (I hope). This idea is becoming more appealing to me as I go on, and I will keep my eyes open for more ideas over the holidays on how to implement it once we get back in January!