Speed Up, Slow Down or Both? Investigating the Contemporary Cities

Speed as a crucial phenomenon of modernism affects individual and collective life of human being and changes the traits of the places people live in. Increasing speed is the demand of the modern era, though on the other side in recent years there is a contrary incline towards slowing down different aspects of life. In view of this, the dualities in between social features of Speed up and slow down in current era is investigated in this paper and the interconnection of social and urban aspects is studied. This is obtained by analyzing the basic elements of speed included the space and time; two main modes of travel comprised of transportation and telecommunication; and the correlation between social and urban structure. Accordingly a paradoxical implication is derived from the factors relied on speed and slowness. Such standpoint is overviewed in a "balanced notion" in such a way that the positive sides of speed are accepted and the negative features ignored. Such analysis indicates the use of accelerated and creative technologies in a sustainable manner, as a result more time is saved in comparison to pre-modern eras and could be spent on different real and virtual activities. The balanced notion is regarded some regulations, educations, or policies to convince people to control over speed, do specified amount of essential activities per day and devote the rest time on social interactions in urban public spaces.