Creating high density of not only people, but ideas and energy = serendipity and aliveness. Lewis Mumford writes that the primary purpose of the city is “to permit—indeed, to encourage—the greatest possible number of meetings, encounters, challenges, between varied persons and groups, providing as it were a stage upon which the drama of social life... See more
Notting Hill is one of my favorite neighborhoods in London because of its unique spatial layout
Instead of large private backyards, the homes and apartments back up to large private communal gardens shared by the entire block