Cities of the world - Town Square? (Part 5)

We don't call it as such in the Philippines, of course.  It's called the town plaza and it's there in almost all of the "towns" (we call municipalities) in the country.  The town square is a western term, common in Europe since Medieval times (also during the age of empires), and the New World, which were but land colonized by European explorers anyway.  And since we were colonized by Spain, through a Portuguese explorer, Magellan, we have to call it "plaza" since we're sort of "hispanic."  But the plaza is a fixture always there but always taken for granted.

 Except for very few, mostly the new ones, Philippine towns have a triangular central core.  Again, almost always taken for granted, but the town center is almost always consisting of three main fixtures - the civil government, the military fortification, and the religious center.  Or simply speaking, a triangle formed by the municipio, the fort, and the church.  This is the pattern that was maintained for three centuries.  Spain's colonization was political, religious, and military.  16th-century settlements were always at risk of being attacked, and that's why most old towns (and cities) have military forts of some kind.

 Well, newer cities might have lost the fort, but the municipio is always there beside or opposite the main church.  In old cities like Cebu, the triangular pattern can be seen in City Hall, Basilica del Sto. Niño, and Fort San Pedro.  If we travel north or south of the metropolis, we can see the same pattern in other towns and cities.  But there's more besides these three.  Two other fixtures almost always accompany the triumvirate - the park (town plaza) and the public market.  In bigger cities, the latter is called the central market.  These five, lumped together form the urban core of a settlement, and it grows outward from there.

 The town plaza is a public open space.  It's not by chance that town plazas existed ever since Spanish settlements were established more than 3 centuries ago, as they continue to exist now.  Town squares are public spaces for community gatherings, because people need to interact with each other.  It might not be practical for the emerging megacities of the world, where millions of residents live, but in smaller communities, public gatherings and interaction is still a mark of a healthy society.  Coupled with the need for recreation, and open space, parks and open spaces are indispensable to the modern urban society.

 People need space, as they do need each other.  Even the most reclusive introvert needs to interact with another person regularly.  How much more for those who hates being alone and can't live without talking to other people.  Public interaction of residents is a hallmark of a democratic society.  Unfortunately, that is slowly being eroded today.  First, public spaces are slowly being eliminated, and second, the need for personal interaction is slowly being displaced by cell phones, iPads, Facebook, and SMS.  There are still personal interactions, of course, but these are now done in malls rather than in the town plazas.  The latter are relegated to public dances during town fiestas.

 We mentioned New York's Central Park last week.  Well, it's there, all 340 hectares originally purchased in the 1850s.  It can be considered a prime commercial land and can fetch billions of dollars if transformed into commercial districts.  In fact, I heard there were, and still are, outstanding offers.  But the government there recognized that the value of the land to their people and human society is much more than any monetary gain.  And yet, all over the world, two things are happening, or not happening.  One, parks and open spaces are slowly transformed into commercial spaces, and worst, parks and open spaces are no longer planned in new town development or emphasized in zoning plans.

The other side of the story is that cities are now designed for cars, rather than for people . . . (To be continued)