This was an attempt to frame two radically different spatial experiences from two generic streets, one in Cambridge, Canada (for the lack of sufficient mapping info it is wrongly located in Toronto, but you can imagine exact same experience in Toronto for that matter) and the other one located in Venice, Italy.
When I first showed this in a presentation, one of the critics, a professor at UW, roared in protest "This is not fair!" ....that's exactly my point.
Cities today are largely driven by forces of market and the grim side of reality is that their shapes are also very much determined by the networks of global production and politics of economy. Those who join the train of development at this point of history have little or no chance to escape from the littering urbanization of Capitalism of neo-corporates or the market of empowered consumers. It is hard to imagine any new city coming to being that puts pedestrians, the people, at the top of its priority in design.
