Small streets are all over urban planning blogs right now. Nathan Lewis at New World Economics is leading the way with beautiful images of really narrow streets along with Charlie Gardner at Old Urbanist, Small Streets, and Cap’n Transit. They have all compiled photographs of pedestrian-centric streets from all over the world with very inspiring results. Some of my favorite posts on small streets are here, here, here, and here.
I’ve started a Flickr group with the hopes of providing another way for urbanists to share their own images of beautiful (or not beautiful) streets and talk about city design. I’ve started it off with some of my own photos with a couple of disclaimers. I know nothing about photography except that I’m not good at it, and I’ve never been to many of the cities known for really narrow streets. I hope to add some photos of nice small streets right here in the Mid-Atlantic sometime soon.
I’m sure you all have many better pictures of really narrow streets and pedestrian environments, and I hope you’ll share some. I would suggest flagging your photos as Creative Commons which means that any bloggers would be free to use them with attribution, but if you’d prefer not to allow others to use them, feel free to add them to the group as copyright protected. To add photos to the group, you just have to create a Flickr account, upload photos, and then add away. You can also comment on any of the photos I’ve added or on the group’s discussion board.
Don’t forget the photos of J.H. Crawford over at Carfree.com. He has the biggest collection that I know of. Our project has made extensive use of Nathan Lewis’s photos and also those of J.H. Crawford to explain what we’re all about at the Piscataquis Village Project. It would be almost impossible to convey what we’re all about without those photos. Looking forward to more options from your newly started Flickr group. Thanks, Emily – Tracy Gayton