Strolling the city “is the very opposite of doing nothing”. insisted Sainte-Beuve . Balzac said claimed that the urban wanderer is a connoisseur of street life - one who indulges a “gastronomy of the eye” . Using similarly culinary terms, Skinner describes the flaneur as one who savour s “the multiple flavours of his city”

However, we New Zealanders don't think of the pedestrian as a skilled “amateur detective and investigator of the city” (Benjamin) or a “passionate spectator” reveling in “the ebb and flow … the fugitive and the infinite” (Baudelaire). 

GREY (grei)

noun
1. City-dweller who relishes city life.
2. One who embraces the principles of urbanism including: - 
a Sense of Place, Walkability, Connectivity & Neighbourhoods 

GREY
adjective
  1. having grey hair 
  2. of or relating to people of middle age or above eg "grey power"

See also FLANEUR 

FLANEUR  (flɑnœʁ) 

The flâneur originated as a literary type in 19th century France, essential to any picture of Parisian street life. 

It carried a set of rich associations: the man of leisure, the idler, the urban explorer, the connoisseur of the street. 

Walter Benjamin, drawing on the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, made the flâneur  an emblematic figure of urban, modern experience.

URBANIST  (ɜr bə nɪst) 

noun
  1. City-dweller who relishes city life
  2. One who embraces the principles of urbanism including - 
  • Sense of Place
  • Walkability  
  • Connectivity 
  • Neighbourhoods 

Welcome to The Grey Urbanist

Although the flâneur or “stroller in the city” has rich associations in European literature and philosophy, the concept remains largely foreign to New Zealand. 

We New Zealanders don't consider the urban wanderer to be a connoisseur of street life - one who employs “gastronomy of the eye” (Balzac) to savour “the multiple flavours of his city” (Skinner). 

Nor do we think of the pedestrian as a skilled “amateur detective and investigator of the city” (Benjamin) or a “passionate spectator” revelling in “the ebb and flow … the fugitive and the infinite” (Baudelaire). Sainte-Beuve insisted that strolling the city “is the very opposite of doing nothing”....