If we zero in with binoculars we begin to see the details. The intimate human scale is everywhere in evidence with great diversity of detail, but the human scale also includes tall buildings. But these buildings are radically different in form and environmental and social effect. The severe simple boxes of an earlier era are broken up with terraces and design features that permit the sun to warm in winter and prevent winds from becoming excessively difficult. Most large buildings are mixed use, many apartments and condos, many work places.
People live here.
The views are breathtaking. Occasional covered streets have the grandeur of cathedrals. Unlike their predecessors, the larger buildings of the ecocity's downtown, provide workplaces for non-commuters mainly. The hundreds of thousands who once poured into downtowns over billions of dollars of freeway in hundreds of billions of dollars worth of cars, now quietly zip in and out by foot or bicycle from nearby, with a minority coming in by bus and rail. The larger buildings sport multi-story solar greenhouses and rooftop gardens that compete with local private and communal gardens for food production and horticulture.