norb 🦦🏗️🚋

Since the 11th century, the city of Bologna has allowed property owners to build over the public pavement provided that they maintain the ground level as an open 'portico'. Bologna now has 62km of porticoes, the longest network in the world. The result is a win-win-win: pedestrians gain welcome shade, homeowners gain space, and the city gains density and compactness. It isn't clear that this would work in the pale sunlight of England, but there are lots of other cities in sunny countries that might benefit from this. Other interesting features of this view: 1. The tramline is new: trams have not yet started running, but will do so imminently. Italy is having a light rail revival like France and Germany. In the historic centre of Bologna the trams will run on batteries, so no overhead clutter is required. 2. This particular street is a nineteenth-century cutting, a reminder that vigorous planning positively shaped Europe's urbanism far beyond the famous examples in Paris. 3. Bologna is one of Europe's great cities for exposed brick. Note the proliferation of terracotta ornament, all of which is cast in moulds and can be reproduced cheaply at scale without much skilled craftmanship. 4. The windows on the left are covered by *external* blinds. Italians make extensive use of these, and they are phenomenally effective. They are a fairly radical solution since they reduce visibility to zero, but we will surely start using more awnings and external shutters in England in the years to come.