Blood Flow Metaphor

by B.J. on 3/23/2008 08:32:00 PM 0 comments Print this post

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This insight was inspired by my trip to see the Bodyworks 3 Exhibit...

...same bizarre feeling of seeing dead people
...same disbelief of whether some things were real or not
...same blank staring at some exhibits and pretending to have a level of sophistication
...same wannabe physiologists talking aloud trying to explain why a body part looks the way it does

This time however, I was particularly struck by the blood flow and its relation to city planning. I think transportation planning can be like blood flowing through the body.

In transportation planning you just hope things can keep running smoothly, just as in your body, you just hope that things can keep running smoothly. However, inevitably there will be traffic, bumps in the road, potholes to hold up traffic, just as there will be little things in your body that will hold up optimal blood flow and probably make you sick.


I'm not sure exactly how that makes sense to anyone in the transportation planning discipline nor the neuroscience discipline, but I see the connection and I wonder what other insights I can glean from such a connection.

Whom should you thank for this insight?

1) a talk in January by a bunch of USC professors about the "expiration date" of cities, who spent the talk making a metaphor between the city and a living organism. 2) my desire to connect my two biggest interests of late: neuroanthropology and city planning.

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