Realizing the sort of earthy smell I’ve been detecting is… well, the Earth. This makes sense in retrospect, the strongest scents are going to be from wherever you are, and if there’s nothing strong around you it will be dominated by the ground.
It’s somewhat abundantly clear that very little attention is paid to the scentscape of cities. It’s not that it’s bad, quite the opposite: The mixing together of all the random odorous objects is surprisingly pleasant. It’s also quite grounding, I feel like I have a different degree of awareness of the places around me.
But, on the other hand, no concern had been given to ventilating streets, or planting flowers, or encouraging restaurants to put out food scents. I can imagine the last one to be a matter of regulation, it may be too strong for casual downtown pedestrians.
Leave a Reply