Asphalt Summer

This afternoon the skies finally turned dark dark grey and released buckets of water in Detroit. C. told me that last time this happened, the people in her street got out of their houses and let themselves get all soaked. Eventually they got cold until one person noticed that on the recently repaved street around the corner, the asphalt was still hot and the rainwater simply perfect. So here they were, regular adults on a regular night, lying flat on their stomachs and taking in pure pleasure.

This is the thing with cities and urban regeneration plans. Instead of importing out of context swimming pools or skate parks they should develop new sensitivities to local ecologies, re-inventing city life with as little hardware as possible, and in tune with the specificity of a site.

Thank you C for your story and embedded lesson...