Everyday Struggle

The importance of everyday life cannot be understated.  The routines we do every day add up to a lifetime of lived experience. These ordinary daily activities need to be positive.  If everyday you have a frustrating and long commute it will add up and can wear down your mental health and view of the city and there for society as a whole.   Just 1.5 hours per day of a frustrating commute adds up to nearly 3 entire weeks of frustration per year. I appreciated that Crawford brought up the fact that the city is experienced temporally and that a social map of the city is different if you're a driver, pedestrian, bus rider or cyclist. This fact is often ignored or unseen by the car centric American planners.  It immediately reminds me of Andy’s point about the process of buying groceries in Anderson via bus. More privileged people have no idea that task can take over 3 hours of someone's day just to get to a store that’s a couple miles away. This is clearly a result of Anderson separating zoning districts and failing to create the multiplicity and accessibility Crawford and many others are calling for in the city.  I also appreciated her point on small incremental changes instead of large sweeping master plans. This bottom up democratic approach she is promoting is something Kari and I have intended to incorporate into our studio project by providing a framework for the public to make the changes they see fit not the architect.