Urban Quiet – The Dream Of Ficition

There’s an interesting essay in the Morning News by Jonathan Bell about the concept of quiet in London. Bell says that the image of an empty street can only remain in advertising or science fiction films.

The contemporary city can never be truly idle. Even nighttime has lost its morbid fascination, with the sodium glow of streetlights banishing the darkest corners and a steady stream of activity, illicit or otherwise, animating the streets. London might not have a claim to be a true 24-hour city, but a sizeable proportion of its population appears to be nocturnal, stumbling from one destination to another, eating, clubbing, brawling. Passing through this sodium-hued tableau, on a bus or in a cab, one observes a thousand dramas, relationships emboldened or destroyed, people lost and found. It can be threatening, even overwhelming, and the reaction is almost always to get away quick, leaving the turmoil of the town center for the relative calm of the suburbs.

The Morning News – London Sprawling, by Jonathan Bell

[via Archinet]