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Jams
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Username: Jams

Post Number: 2862
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 69.212.123.178
Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 - 4:57 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

After being soundly walloped by people from both sides lately, I've realized my definitions are different from others. I pulled out my old textbooks from my geography and sociology classes, but realized they are quite out of date.

Is it possible to come up with a definition we agree on, so we're debating the same thing?
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Rustic
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Username: Rustic

Post Number: 2155
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 128.36.108.81
Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 - 4:58 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

WØRD
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Barebain
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Username: Barebain

Post Number: 10
Registered: 02-2006
Posted From: 66.208.220.242
Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 - 5:43 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

While many claim that 'urbanity' is simply the stuff of densely developed land, public transportation, and orthogonal street grids, great cities have defined themselves for generations in many different ways. And while these attributes certainly add to the 'urban' experience, I believe that the urban experience is actually much more.

It begins with that feeling of place that only a city can inflict. You pass somebody walking on a street and that person couldn't give a damn about you. But to meet that same person thousands of miles away, and suddendly you're the closest of friends. You shop at the same stores, you vote in the same elections, you visit the same parks, you pay the same taxes, and most importantly, you both know that you are part of something larger. You are both known and annonymous at the same time.

I believe that the suburbs fail in this respect because they serve to stretch society out across the landscape. As a result, people have to rely on their cars more, and those personal interactions are subsequently stifled. Chances are that the person in line behind you at Target lives in a different city, goes to a different school, uses a different library, and has never even heard of the person you voted for.

Some suburbs do provide an "urban experience", but I fear that this condition is much like going to an amusement park. It is something you go to and then leave. Detroit, on the other hand is a city, but its urban offerings are limited. Some neighborhoods can connect a person to a larger urban experience, (SW Detroit, Mexicantown, Corktown; Midtown and Downtown) but others are isolated, separated by vast stretches of empty land (Woodbridge, for instance)

We need to connect these places to the larger whole, and I think that's why the Staples building garnered such attention. That project is only one, but it is as important as any in this great infill project that is Detroit.
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Barebain
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Username: Barebain

Post Number: 11
Registered: 02-2006
Posted From: 66.208.220.242
Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 - 5:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

btw - Jams - nice idea
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Mackinaw
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Username: Mackinaw

Post Number: 1243
Registered: 02-2005
Posted From: 141.213.173.94
Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 - 6:24 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Urbanity: Refinement and elegance of manner; polished courtesy (from urbane)

according to the American Heritage Dictionary.
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Barebain
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Username: Barebain

Post Number: 13
Registered: 02-2006
Posted From: 66.208.220.242
Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 - 6:29 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Urbane: showing a high degree of refinement and the assurance that comes from wide social experience.

Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University
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Spidergirl
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Username: Spidergirl

Post Number: 162
Registered: 12-2004
Posted From: 68.61.200.101
Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 - 7:26 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

From Webster's New World Dictionary, Second College Edition (1970):

urbane - adj, polite and courteous in a smooth, polished way; refined, -SYN. see SUAVE

urbanity - n, 1. the quality of being urbane, 2. civilities, courtesies, or amenities
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Spidergirl
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Username: Spidergirl

Post Number: 163
Registered: 12-2004
Posted From: 68.61.200.101
Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 - 7:28 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

From Wikipedia:

The concept of urbanity, of the characteristically citified view of life, referred originally to the view of the world from Rome, and the popes who took Urbanus for a pontifical name were expressing their solidarity with the city they ruled as Bishop of Rome. The converse of Urbanus is Rusticus. Urbane bears a relationship to urban similar to the relationship humane bears to human, the OED notes.

In language, urbanity still connotes a smooth and literate style, free of barbarisms and other infelicities. In Antiquity, schools of rhetoric flourished only in the atmosphere of large cities, to which privileged students flocked from smaller cities in order to gain polish.

'Urbanity' as a word has also been used in recent years to describe the 'insanity' of urban life, as in the novel Urbanity by Francis Murphy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U rbanity

(Message edited by spidergirl on March 07, 2006)
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Mackinaw
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Username: Mackinaw

Post Number: 1246
Registered: 02-2005
Posted From: 141.213.173.94
Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 - 7:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The relationship of urbane to urban is, like that wikipedia excerpt suggests, a result of the fact that during classical antiquity, and then again in the Renaissance, cities were synonimous with high culture, manners, and learning. That last interpretation is kind of a bastardization I say.

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