PD Smith

Pleasure Cities

28 May 2012 | City, My Books | Post a comment

I’ve writ­ten a piece for Arc 1.2, the new dig­i­tal quar­ter­ly from the mak­ers of New Sci­en­tist, about cities and fun:

“Every year for three whole days in the pic­turesque Pied­mont town of Ivrea, Italy, some three thou­sand peo­ple pelt each oth­er mer­ci­less­ly with oranges, until the streets are cov­ered with eight inch­es of gold­en cit­rus gore and the gut­ters run with juice. Wel­come to the Bat­tle of the Oranges, part of Ivrea’s Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties. In this age of mush­room­ing megac­i­ties, Car­ni­val is a bois­ter­ous reminder that urban life has proved so pop­u­lar in the last five thou­sand years not just because of the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits, but because cities are fun.”

Buy the issue — titled Post Human Con­di­tions — and read the whole arti­cle, “Built for Pleasure”, here.

 

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