Walking the streets at 7.30am on New Year's Eve could as well be walking through the 'faceless housing estate' at midnight on any other day of the year. At such a time in the morning, it's still so dark as to be nighttime. It's so quiet that there is little sign of any rush hour traffic about, vehicular or human. Today, in the eerily deserted streets, streetlamps still resolutely aglow, I passed one fellow traveller en route. I say 'fellow traveller' but in reality she was standing on a street corner, waiting for something or someone presumably (no, this is not a red light district, despite the Christmas lights still on display) . I returned her greeting and noticed her smiling, dark brown eyes were open wide. I picked up on her warm humanity, and that wide-eyed optimism she exuded, and carried it with me all the way in to work.
On the streets, there is always that possibility of human contact, however transitory, and such an experience serves to remind me that in any 'characterless city', it is the conurbation's parts rather than its sum that are important. Cars serve to alienate us, dehumanise us into 'traffic'; housing estates into mere 'residents', capitalism into 'consumers'; and the workplace into 'human resources'. The Flaneur reconnects with what's real and human by walking in the open air and actually greeting another person face to face.
A happy and peaceful 2011 to all other suburban souls!
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