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> Go to Europe and enjoy your stroll through the public streets of cities that were designed for walking. Go to Venice and get hopelessly lost. In a hailstorm.
by msla 8y ago
> Go to Europe and enjoy your stroll through the public streets of cities that were designed for walking.
Go to Venice and get hopelessly lost. In a hailstorm.
I kid, but, one, that did happen to me, and, two, the Classic European City is pleasant to walk but unpleasant to navigate unless you're head-down over a GPS-enabled phone with turn-by-turn navigation, in contrast to, say, Chicago or Manhattan, where the streets are a grid and you can plot a course almost instantly upon hearing an address.
- bobthepanda 8y agoYou can have a walkable European city on a grid, e.g. Barcelona, Turin.
- 4ad 8y agoGee, I wonder how we europeans managed to live in cities for hundreds of years without GPS devices.
- azernik 8y agoBy living in the same city for your entire lifetime and learning the quirks of the local layout by heart. Accessibility to newcomers was not optimized for.
- 4ad 8y agoI don't know, I visited almost every major european city back when portable GPS devices were not a thing, and I never had a problem navigating. Even now, I almost never use the GPS. In fact the only time I ever got lost in a foreign city was a few months back in New York because instead of going with my gut I trusted the GPS.
- acjohnson55 8y agoI got lost plenty of times in Europe pre-GPS. I typically had a physical map, but this wasn't always sufficient. You'd simply have to fall back in things like payphone calls and asking strangers for help.
- akie 8y agoIs asking people for directions in an unknown environment really that terrible?
- vageli 8y ago> Is asking people for directions in an unknown environment really that terrible? If there's a language barrier that becomes more challenging.
- wenc 8y agoAlso in places like Venice and Barcelona that are overrun by tourists, asking for directions disrupts the lives of locals. Imagine being asked for directions a dozen or more times a day. Thank goodness for Google Maps and data plans.
- the_clarence 8y agoLol. I guess you should stay in your comfortable country
- wenc 8y agoOlder parts of European cities can be a bit harder to navigate. I’m thinking the El Gotic neighborhood in Barcelona and Alfama in Lisbon. But one does get used to it after a day or so.
- the_clarence 8y agoOh. It must be so hard to be tourist in Europe right? Well... No.
- azernik 8y agoThose old cities make up for it in other ways ^_^
- the_clarence 8y agoIs this a joke to point out how "hard" it is to find one's way if streets are not perfect grids? I like it.
- __jal 8y agoIf you expect everything everywhere to be a grid, sure, your mental model is not reality-compatible. Thing is, that's also true of most "grid" cities, too - San Francisco offers you two grids, and then ignores both of them in hilly regions. Most cities I can think of in other places also are inconsistent.
- justinator 8y agoThere's a great story of some Parisian aristocrats that attempted to flee Paris, but became hopelessly lost! Turns out a map of the city hadn't yet been created.
- solarkraft 8y agoEverything looking the same is not that great. Though I do appreciate the clarity of possible moves.
- rayiner 8y agoIt’s efficient which is great. The opposite is whimsy, which is bad.
- barrkel 8y agoEfficient and whimsical are not the only adjectives that apply.
- gregknicholson 8y agoEfficiency is good, but whimsy is splendiforous.