Last Sunday I was walking through the very heart of the city, and while the weekends in the centre are quiet at the best of times, it really struck me how few people were around. At the same time I also realised how incredibly hot it was and wondered why exactly I was walking around myself. But the lack of people really gave me a chance to take my time strolling along the avenues without others rushing past and bumping into me. I could look up at the buildings, which is my favourite part about the centre, and really appreciate my surroundings in a quiet way. I like the buzz and chaos that the centre of the city usually embodies but I have to say that the contrast was rather nice as well.
I have recently been given a book about the way people in different cities and places around the world occupy public spaces, from homeless people sleeping in the subway stations in Tokyo, to the way people come into a metropolis every day and then leave it virtually empty until the next working day, such as in the
microcentro (tiny centre) here in Buenos Aires. It really does change the way the space is both perceived and experienced, when the thing changing isn´t the space itself but the way it is used or occupied.
