Mirrors

Mirrors on Yongkang Street, near Shida, Taipei

Wall Trees

Wall tree on Bonham Road in Western Mid-Levels

Walls are nothing special but wall trees certainly are. When I first came to Hong Kong I was astounded to see enormous banyan trees growing from what appeared to be the flat surface of a wall. I wasn’t mistaken: they really were growing out of walls. Every so often, a passing bird poops on the wall, and once every thousand times that happens, one of the seeds contained in the feces finds enough nourishment in the wall’s soil and moisture to grow into a full-fledged tree.

Unfortunately, these trees aren’t given the respect they deserve by Hong Kong’s environmental authorities, and most wall saplings are removed before they have a chance to thrive. Earlier this year, a survey revealed that of the 288 saplings growing atop or on the sides of stone walls, 159 had been removed. The government’s tree-removal efforts reached a new peak at the end of this summer, when a giant tree in Stanley fell and crashed a woman passing underneath.

But Hong Kongers have become ever more sensitive to the things that make their city special. Trees are no exception. Over the past few years, attempts to clear away trees for development have been met with howls of protest from conservationists and residents alike. It’s true that in some cases, the trees pose a danger, perched as precariously as they are. But in most situations they add a certain intangible character to Hong Kong’s streets, a sense that even nature is caught up in this city’s rush to build things on top of everything else.

Street Racing for the Penniless

The homeless guy pushing around a shopping cart full of bottles and cans is so well-entrenched in our imagination that it has become a bit of a stereotype. In cities with large concentrations of marginalized people, however, like Vancouver, they serve as a constant reminder of the dredges of the urban economy. When they are in such an unfortunate position, then, how can they assert themselves and make the city their own?

Carts of Darkness might shed some light on the answer. Former snowboarder and sports filmmaker Murray Siple turns his gaze to bottle-pickers in the suburbs of Vancouver’s North Shore who engage in an exhilarating and potentially lethal pastime: shopping cart racing. “I don’t have any furniture, I have no wife, I have no kids to look after, I got nothing,” says one of the characters in the film, explaining why he gets such a rush from something that could potentially take his life.

What seems particularly interesting about this in the context of urban space and social order is how unbelievably subversive cart racing is. Just imagine — grown men speeding down steep suburban streets in stolen shopping carts. It’s completely at odds with everything they are supposed to do and everything the environment around them tells them to do.

How a Supermarket Shapes the City

There’s something particularly iconic about supermarkets, especially in North America, where they first emerged in the 1940s and have a good half-century of history behind them. While supermarkets today are an entrenched part of the urban landscape, there was something particularly fresh and innovative about them in the 1950s, which you can see in those that have survived from that era without too many alterations.

But even those that have been altered significantly have left a big imprint on the shape of our streets and neighbourhoods. I never realized just how big of an impact Steinberg’s had on the Montreal landscape until Kate McDonnell pointed me towards a Flickr photostream containing a few dozen then-and-now images of Steinberg’s supermarkets around town.

Steinberg’s was one of those businesses that was more than just a business: in postwar Quebec, it was a cultural phenomenon, a Jewish-owned grocery chain that became an entrenched part of working- and middle-class francophone culture. “Je fais mon Steinberg” became a phrase housewives used to mean they were going out to buy food for dinner. At its height, it was one of the largest and most important food businesses in Canada, with stores throughout Quebec and Ontario and at least one location in each neighbourhood of Montreal.

Steinberg’s went under in 1992, the victim of a family dispute, and its assets were divided between Metro and Provigo, its two Quebec competitors. But its legacy lives on in popular culture. Fifteen years after it disappeared, pretty much everyone in Montreal still knows about Steinberg’s; its logo has even become a trendy accessory, thanks to buttons and t-shirts made by Montréalité.

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