weekFAN41_071011

something about distribution of usage in plymouth.
there is a core that is dedicated to shopping. amazing it works like one of these corbusier ideas about functional city concepts. works is probably not the right word. anyway the core is spending money here, although mentioned earlier this peace of land is not the richest in england, shopping is THE entertainment down here.
its probably the effect of "going shopping". as the shopping area is isolate and very precise determined by the urban patter/streets it really feels like going somewhere special. even for me although I life just across the street. but for people traveling further along boring lines of terrace housing this must bee heaven to finally reach the spot.
as this function is concentrated like this the area is really able to generate masses of people moving trough it. even early in the mornings like 09h00 its busy, noon and afternoon its packed, all weekdays. although the spaces are really wide and one looses the sense for space easily, surprisingly often there are enough people to fill it and bring up a glimpse of sense. my experience with such spaces is so far that they stay dead and are not able to compete with the surrounding, but here is no competitor. this is area has the shopping monopoly. there are small shops like cornershops, spaar and costcutter, distributed but this is just to keep the residents calm.
the map is amazing. beside the colored areas there is really only housing (as far as I know at the moment - further observations in progress).
far to the left side in STOKE, there is the royal navy dock, the former main employer here. an to the left there is some industry and a bit of goods handling, mainly liquids. I really don't know where all these people work...
axial to the center there is the leisure area. there are two pub and club streets going off from the center. one of them runs trough the middle of the university area towards east-north sort of (this is where I live) and the otherone is unionstreet from the center towards west and was the former connection road between the three settlements of plymouth, stonehouse and stoke. in the beginning clubs and pubs, then turning into redlight district. the area was not long ago the worst in the UK, is now seventh... rest of the leisure is ports for sailing boats and the hoe in the middle for tourists and in the north of course the central park with all sorts of sports activities. (wanna see some pictures of all these areas, let me know. didn't wanna bother you with too many images.)