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Development banana
By admin | November 18, 2009
The economically densest region of Europe, the so-called “development banana,” stretches from London across northern France, the Benelux countries, the Rhine- Main region, Strasbourg, Basel, and the Alps to Turin and Milan. All the signs indicate that this area will become a continuous polycentrically structured development corridor. Let us take the Rhine-Main region as an example. A sprawling agglomeration is developing between Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Mainz, and Darmstadt, The space between the cities and villages recedes more and more. A city-like entity is emerging here, a prototype for areas increasing urban density, which defies description in terms of urban and rural areas and their transitional forms in the traditional sense of these concepts. What was once an unbroken expanse of landscape is being transformed into meandering park-like islands dotted about the increasingly dense architecture and infrastructure of the built areas that enclose them. The Gestalt pattern of the past, the city as figure with the landscape as background, turns upside down in the urban areas, where the landscape becomes the figure and the city the background.
Topics: business |