growing up in new areas of rotterdam and spending part of the week in old areas i learnt from an early age the differences between housing areas that were plannend as much as possible and areas were urban planning was much less stringent. later, studying urban planning and getting involved in experimental housing projects it became more and more clear how restricted urban planning was, how much urban life was forbidden or made impossible and how much city life would suffer.
in the early nineties i had turtle soup in berlin, in the restaurant on top of the space tower of alexander platz. the restaurant makes a 360 degree turn every hour so that you can enjoy your very very small cup of turtle soup and see the whole city of berlin from 300 meters high. it was astonishing for me tho see that the post war areas in east berlin looked exactly the same as the areas where i grew up: eastetically ok , but extremely boring to live in.
i often have to think of the book by jane jacobs, death and life of great american cities. i had to think of berlin and the areas i grew up and noticed that in new areas there are no little companies anymore, no places were all kinds of things happend, where peope work, where you can see (and smell) as a child how bread is baked, how wood is sawn, how car arere repaired for example and by watching could learn. besides that people in those older areas can work there and use the services of those places. youngsters can learn a lot be watching.
those companies are gone, those areas are being transformed in new living areas similar to where i grew up. basic education in the sense which i mean here above does not take place anymore. i know it might seem romantic and it might seem i am longing for periods from years ago, but that is not what i have in mind. what i am aiming at is that nowadays schools have to work very hard to learn younsters basic skills, much more then i had to do, simple because those new areas are so empty, so rigid. there is not so much to discover anymore.