their idea

The boundaries and spaces that exist in the urban environment are their idea—it's an idea they want you to have. It would make things much easier if you would just abide by it and stay within the lines.

One of the things I have a terrible amount of trouble with while walking in the city is the demand that's put on me to walk a certain trajectory and stay within certain boundaries. For some people, these boundaries are a given, expected course of action. For others, they are loose and their loose treatment of those boundaries usually get them into trouble (even if that trouble is just annoyance). I have to watch myself when I start to get bothered by someone's behavior in a free environment where I don't need to be concerned at all with what they're doing. I'm impressing my sense of order on what they're doing but they are living by an entirely different sense of order.

There's a sidewalk I used to take more often that went from my bus stop to my office. At one point, the sidewalk diverges from a straight line that runs parallel to the street and it takes serpentine twists and turns through a desolated park-like area. I never see anyone occupying this park even though it is painstakingly maintained and watered—another green area in the desert that no one sits or walks on. Sitting or walking on the green would seem contrary to the point of the building of the "park". It bothers me that someone had an idea that so obviously forced me to take a circuitous route when all I want in that location is a the straightest point to where I need to be. A lot of the time, we have to walk around buildings but here I was being made to walk around an invisible point in space. So I usually just walk on the grass next to the curb.

Close by to this area is nearly a square mile of vacant dirt lot. There are neat sidewalks that run around the perimeter and "No Trespassing" signs scattered throughout the lot. In this situation, it makes more sense to walk directly across the center of the lot on a diagonal to the corner I'm getting to. The lot is desolate and whatever plants manage to grow are raked up and sprayed with herbicide to keep it "maintained" by city ordinances. My decision to walk directly across the center of this lot has to be a deliberate decision since again, it's implied that I take the much longer route along the perimeter. No harm is caused to the lot by walking across it but at some point it was determined that this was unwanted. The city impresses it's control again. And as I cross the center, I take note of all the undisturbed footprints around me—like walking on the moon.