The Nervous System
I’ve always had a thing for overhead wires. People tend to complain about their unsightliness, especially in cities where they are abundant, like Toronto. But they add a gritty, functional dimension to the streetscape. If roads are the city’s veins, wires are the nerves, carrying the electrical currents, telephone signals and other bits of power and information that make urban life possible.
Even Toronto’s mess of hydro lines, telephone cables and streetcar wires can’t compare to the overhead wires of Saigon, where they are so numerous, so thick and so tangled they sometimes come close to blotting out the sky. It can often be a bit nerve-wracking to walk underneath them; if you aren’t worrying about a wire snapping loose and hitting you in the head, you’re dodging cables that have already snapped loose and are hanging dangerously close to the ground.
To be fair, this phenomenon is not unique to Saigon. It’s common in the cities of other developing countries, which don’t have the resources or will to effectively regulate the installation of utility lines. (Manila, another city famous for its abundance of overhead wires, has recently made an effort to bring some order to the chaos.) I have a hard time imagining Saigon without the wires, though — it would be as strange and empty as if it had no motorcycles, another defining aspect of the city.
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Tags: Exploring the City, Saigon, Urban Design
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Christopher Szabla says:
I think tolerance of the wires must have at least something to do with culture (on top of the obvious cost issues). Overhead wires are rare in the “developing” Middle East – but very common in “developed” North America.
February 17th, 2009 at 3:53 pm