Re-Enchanting The City

In this Salon, Indy Neogy hopes to re-examine our relationship with the City as a key part of our ways of living.

Much of the speculation about post-Covid changes has centred on the possibility of digital communication technology making The City obsolete. Of course in this and other Salons we live some of that possibility on Zoom. Yet some inconvenient facts suggest that we may yet need to think again about the value of cities. In particular, many of the post-Covid-post-City futures simply don’t take into account the space, energy and transport requirements of “everyone living in the countryside.”

We’ll discuss the early positive and negative ideas – including the Flâneur and Simmel’s notion of desensitisation before sharing our ideas about the enchanting, numinous, uplifting and even spiritual possibilities of The City. We’ll talk on how cities might evolve to be more pleasant – incorporating nature more perhaps, opening up the space to be playful – but also consider whether there might be virtues to be found in the opposite of the wilderness – The City.

Interesting to look at pre-salon:

• https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/10/17/in-praise-of-the-flaneur/
• https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jul/29/female-flaneur-women-reclaim-streets
• https://campuspress.yale.edu/modernismlab/the-metropolis-and-mental-life/
• A Recent Song About City Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UTOacuwEec
• UNSW Trailer for their Urban Studies/Architecture course on Re-enchanting the city: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI13X4k7ysg
• Sheldrake excerpt on Spirituality and the Urban: https://www.theway.org.uk/back/454Sheldrake.pdf
• Metaphorical Link: https://breakingsmart.substack.com/p/against-waldenponding

Timezones:

Friday 14th May

11am in Los Angeles / San Francisco
2pm in New York
7pm in London
8pm in Berlin / Paris

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