Problem
The homogeneous and undifferentiated character of modern cities kills all variety of life styles and arrests the growth of individual character.
Solution
Do everything possible to enrich the cultures and subcultures of the city, by breaking the city, as far as possible, into a vast mosaic of small and different subcultures, each with its own spatial territory, and each with the power to create its own distinct life style. Make sure that the subcultures are small enough, so that each person has access to the full variety of life styles in the subcultures near his own.
Related Patterns
… the most basic structure of a city is given by the relation of urban land to open country — City Country Fingers (3). Within the swaths of urban land the most important structure must from from the great variety of human groups and subcultures which can co-exist there.
We imagine that the smallest subcultures will be no bigger than 150 feet across; the largest perhaps as much as a quarter of a mile — Community of 7000 (12), Identifiable Neighborhood (14), House Cluster (37). To ensure that the life cycles of each subculture can develop freely, uninhibited by those which are adjacent, it is essential to create substantial boundaries of nonresidential land between adjacent subcultures — Subculture Boundary (13) …
Alexander, Christopher. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 42