A desire to contest
Desire lines as a form of contestation
Ik heb dit essay in 2020 geschreven voor het vak City Culture. Het is uiteraard niet het beste essay ooit want we doen een opleiding om te leren en niet om alles al te kunnen!!! Ik vond het gewoon een leuk essay om te delen.
Introduction
The Dutch photographer Jan-Dirk van der Brug takes photographs of a phenomenon that he calls in Dutch ‘olifantenpaadjes’, which literally translates to elephant paths. In English, this phenomenon is also known as desire lines. In the descriptions of the photographs, Van der Brug often shows how much meters people win by cutting the road or the sidewalk while taking the desire line. Sometimes this is only half a meter, which makes the photographs somewhat funny but also makes you think about how we use space in the city. The phenomenon of desire lines that he catches on camera clearly shows that people on foot always want to take the shortest possible route, as Van der Brug himself writes in the Dutch periodical Rooijlijn (186). They show a clash between the ideas of the city planners and the needs of the people walking through the city. In Rooijlijn Van der Brug raises the question: ‘why don’t city planners just make sidewalks where people want them?’ (186). That is a very interesting question that many researchers have touched upon. Henri Lefebvre is one of the researchers that writes about how people use and experience the city and how the city is alive because of that. In his chapter ‘Right to the City’ he uses the concept of contestation to explain that people sometimes use the city – or have to use the city – in a different way than it is meant to be used. In this essay I will use Lefebvres concept of contestation to explore how desire lines can be seen as contestation. This leads to my research question: How can desire lines be seen as a form of contestation? To answer this research question I will first further analyse the phenomenon of desire lines, then I will use Andrew Merrifields ‘Space and Place: A Lefebvrian Reconciliation’ to explore the concepts of space and place to finally look at how desire lines can be seen as a form of contestation, using Michel de Certeaus ‘Walking in the City’.
Desire lines
Before being able to tell how a desire line can be seen as a form of contestation, it is important to further analyse the concept of desire lines.
Rooijlijn defines desire lines as the route that people desire (186). In their article ‘Designing Desire. A Parametic Approach to the Planning of Landscape Paths’ Architects Elena Dorato and Gianni Lobosco write that ‘the notion of desire lines refers to the well visible traces left on the ground, or any other solid surface, by an act of continuous movement.’ It shows how people, often people on foot or by bike, actually use the city in a way that accommodates them (Dorato e.a.). In figure 1, a typical example of a photograph that Van der Brug took of a desire line can be seen. The goal of the path is made clear through the title of the photograph: the man cuts 5,5 meter by taking this desire line. In most cases, the path of the desire line represents the shortest possible route from A to B. It is a social signifier, as Dorato and Lobosco call it, that ‘people’s desires do not match the vision of the planners.’
Fig. 1. Brug, Jan-Dirk van der. Breedwater, Zoetermeer – Terreinwinst: 5,5 meter.
Dorado and Lobosco write that city planners often try their best to find out why people are taking desire lines and how they can prevent people from doing so. The fence in figure 2 exemplifies this. Though still, the person on the bicycle finds a way to avoid the fence and still take the shortest route from A to B. This leaves the question of why the ideas of city planners and city users do not match. Why do people, in a sense, rebel against what the city planners have in mind?
Fig. 2. Brug, Jan-Dirk van der. Hanzeboulevard, Amersfoort – Terreinwinst: 10,5 meter.
Space and place
Before being able to fully understand the notion of contestation, it is important to explore the notions of space and place. In his essay ‘Place and Space: A Lefebvrian Reconciliation’ Andrew Merrifield uses Henri Lefebvres ideas of place and space to lay out a theorethical framework for understanding the construction, meaning and reconstruction of the geographical landscape in place (Merrifield 527).
Merrifield emphasises that space and place are interconnected. There should not be a clear distinction between them because they constantly influence each other: ‘The space of the whole thus takes on meaning through place; and each part (i.e. each place) in its interconnection with other parts (places) engenders the space of the whole (520).’ Space is about relationships and flow. It is cultural and changeable. In place it settles down in solid form such as buildings, paths, et cetera. However, this is an apparent solidity. Because space and place are always in relation, the place will change when there is a change in space. For example, buildings change through time because space changes (521).
In this ontological understanding of space and place, there can be found a trialectics of space: representations of space; representational space; and spatial practices. Representational space is what is in the heads of the people in power, of the professionals. The city designers design the city in a way they think the city is supposed to look like (523). The representational space is based on rules and laws of space that are reiterated through daily practice. It is ‘directly lived space, the space of everyday life. It is space experienced through the complex symbols and images of its “inhabitants” and “users” […] Lived representational space has no need to obey rules of consistency or cohesiveness because it is, as Lefebvre says, alive (523).’ The imagination of people using the city appropriates the space. Ultimately, the user will attempt to usurp the lived space. This very much interconnects with spatial practices. Spatial practices are practices that show how space is used by a society. It shows how people use space on a daily basis, for example their routes to work, their networks in a city, their ways to leisure, et cetera. Spatial practices are something societal: ‘spatial practices structure daily life and a broader urban reality and, in so doing, ensure societal cohesion, continuity and a specific spatial competence (524).’
The lived representational space shows how people actually live in space. It shows how people live with symbols. This is the space of resistance. For example, people know that sidewalks are meant to be walked on, and usually do so, but in lived space they sometimes cut edges to be faster. They go against the representations of space. This is how desire lines are created. Desire lines can therefore be seen as an act of resistance against the representations of space, which ties in well with Lefebvre’s concept of contestation.
Contestation
Now that it is evident that desire lines are a visible representation of people going against the ideas that city planners have in mind, it is possible to use the notion of contestation to describe this phenomenon more clearly.
In his essay ‘Walking in the City’, Michel de Certeau uses the concepts of space and place in a different way than Merrifield, but the essence stays the same. De Certeau makes the distinction between the people in power that are looking at the city from above – which can be compared to Merrifields notion of representational space – and the individual walking through the city (158). The individual unconsciously takes certain routes through the city. In doing so, sometimes place and space do not match with each other. For example, the city designer made a road or a sidewalk in a certain way, while the walking individual wants to take the shortest route. This creates desire lines. Only the people that actually walk through the city, notice how the sidewalks and roads could be planned to meet their needs in a better way. The people looking from above do not immediately notice this (159).
In his article ‘The Right to the City’ Henri Lefebvre also writes that the city does not always meet the needs of the people using the city. Space is built with a certain purpose, but that purpose does not fit everyone. This leads to people using space in a way it is not intended to be used. According to Lefebvre, this will lead to a creative solution:
‘To these anthropological needs which are socially elaborated (that is, sometimes separated, sometimes joined together, here compressed and there hypertrophied), can be added specific needs which are not satisfied by those commercial and cultural infrastructures which are somewhat parsimoniously taken into account by planners. This refers to the need for creative activity.’ (147)
Desire lines serve as a good example for this. People feel constrained by the way the actual pavements or roads are made, so they come up with a creative solution. By walking over the grass they take the shortest route that suits them better. The purposes of space evolve in a different way. This social signifier shows that people that feel constrained in a city will always find a way to be able to answer their needs. Lefebvre does not see this as a bad thing. He wants the makers of the city to look at the city as something living. The city is something all inhabitants work on together. The urban signifies something living and moving and so do desire lines. Desire lines very much show something living and moving, something that people work on together. They can only exist if people continuously and collectively walk on them.
Conclusion
Merrifield and De Certeau show that the representational space and lived space can clash. Lefebvre adds to this that this clash leads to creative thinking. People always want to take the shortest route from A to B and think outside of the box by not taking the usual path, but taking the desired path. It shows the intriguing combination of people being lazy and smart at the same time. The cultural phenomenon tells a lot about human behaviour and society. While looking at the pictures of Van der Brug, the viewer will probably laugh a little because they reflect perfectly how humans work. It could be said that desire lines are a collective social form of contestation. All kinds of different people work on creating a path that suits them better. It shows that the city is alive, that people are using and ‘abusing’ it collectively. It is a mild form of rebellion against city planners, though still city planners do not seem to be able to find a good solution to end the rebellion of desire lanes.
Bibliography
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