Reading question (late, sorry)
Discuss the conditions encouraging healthy urban street life, contrasting Jane Jacobs with one of our previous readings.
Discuss the conditions encouraging healthy urban street life, contrasting Jane Jacobs with one of our previous readings.
Jacobs’ idea of sidewalks and how and why they work was interesting. Something as simple as a sidewalk never really occurred to me as the main thing that allowed a city to function. This idea also reciprocates: “a city sidewalk by itself is nothing.” I think she took the view point of an urban planner in how the city’s sidewalks and streets work to create a safe and functioning environment for its inhabitants. She begins by saying how a city without its sidewalks would be boring, as sidewalks are the place where most of the interaction happens. But sidewalks are also the paths that allow people to get from one place to another. The problem, Jacobs states, with this is that there are sidewalks and streets that lead to places where there is less human activity. This is grounds for criminal activities. The denser the population, the less likely people are to commit crimes. The solution she proposes for this (which many cities have already adopted) is planning a city so the fronts of the buildings face the streets so there is constant surveillance. With people constantly watching the streets, people will think twice before committing a crime. This proposal that people need to be watching the streets for the purposes of safety is already practiced in cities. “People’s love of watching activity and other people is constantly evident in cities everywhere.” Windows and balconies of buildings facing the streets is one, effective, effortless way of “protecting” people.
I think Jacobs is ultimately describing what the ideal city should look like in terms of how it is planned. A well planned city should not only have buildings and other public places spaced strategically, but the streets and sidewalks should also be planned in an effective way. The sidewalks and streets should also collaborate with the buildings in such a way that Jacobs has stated. This all becomes a question of urban planning and society. A good city consists of two parts: well planned, and a society to collaborate with. All this, when working properly, can help prevent or reduce crime.
Another aspect Jacobs talks about is that sidewalks are filled with strangers, which is true, but that is one of the reasons why it is safer, even for children. That is contradictory from what we teach our children: that strangers are bad and essentially are the cause of bad things in a society. How could they be the reason of a safe environment? This, I think, goes back to her explaining that a place where the population is denser will drive away criminals. But this still leaves subtle criminals such as pickpockets. Their actions rely on a dense area. In general, I agree with Jacobs that a crowded place has its safety advantages, but at the same time, it also brings about new safety disadvantages. Many criminal acts takes place in a crowded place where other people wouldn’t be able to notice or tell what is going on around them because they are distracted by the high levels of activity. Perhaps this is where the onlookers from the buildings play their roles as they watch the city.
Abha
I thought jacobs was saying it was only safer when those strangers had a vested interest in the neighborhood and everyone felt welcome, but people were also able to retain a comfortable level of privacy.
The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety by Jane Jacobs was the laughable attempt of an agoraphobic old busybody to bring attention to mundane issues that city life has and always will have. Jacobs looks at, of all things, the sidewalks of the city as the most integral part of the city landscape and its safety structure. She begins her argument by asking when you “Think of a city and what comes to mind? The streets.” Not me. I think of the big city, the bright lights, the crime, the pollution but most vividly, I think of the buildings. Skyscrapers, monuments, town squares and city halls are what make cities. Sidewalks and streets are a way to travel around the city but they by no means define the city.
Jacobs uses the word barbarism a lot in her writing to describe the state of city sidewalks and streets. Barbarism is by definition (at least according to Webster’s) uncivilized; wild; savage; crude. Basically, Jacobs is saying that there are wild madmen out there that cause people to fear the sidewalks. I would argue that the streets have not been taken over by anything uncivilized, wild, savage or crude. I would rather agree with the Engelian argument that the density of the city simply breeds competition. Competition leads to someone loosing and the losers will turn to crime because alienation and disenfranchisement. The civilization, not the uncivilization, of a city actually leads to “barbarism” although I don’t think this word actually applies to city life. There is no way to fight competition or the run off resulting from the inevitable losers of the competition.
Jacobs follows up her barbarism bit with a look into neighborhood defense. She states that some of the safest sidewalks in New York are those along which poor people or minorities live. I would love to see where she gets this data. Marx would tear this woman apart if the two could ever meet. Marx (and I) would argue that the bourgeoisie use the working class and in turn the working class turns on itself because of competition for jobs. The “safe” areas of any city (or suburb for that matter) are the areas where competition is close to abolished. I don’t see how a poor area of a city could be safe nor do I buy that argument.
Jacobs then proceeds to argue that the informal casual enforcement of sidewalks is the true way to keep the streets safe. I would argue that the fear of law enforcement is actually the true deterrent. Neighborhood watch can be organized, but the only real power a group like that has is to call the police. Jacobs says that neighborhoods that rely entirely on special guards and police are jungles; that those neighborhoods with high informal control are actually the safest. That is in accurate and again I would need to see some data on this because neighborhoods that have high informal control can, in fact, be true cesspools. Why? The control can belong to faux petit-bourgeoisie drug dealers or crime lords.
In the end, a neighborhood has no real power to defend itself against the runoff of failed capitalism. Jacobs wrote this whole piece in vain and with flawed arguments that lack data. Capitalism has downsides and those will always cause some downsides be it lack of safety on sidewalks, streets, buildings or even in the home.
Dorian
Interesting insight--but when i was reading the part about informal control being safer than having police come into the neighborhoods, I gathered that she was saying that having social cohesion within the neighborhood would make it safer. Because with this, one can trust their neighbors and don't have to worry about their children being on the sidewalk. Yes, police can bettter control the drug dealers and such, but I believe trust between your neighbors creates more confidence of saftey in a neighborhood.
I am also intrigued by your comments. From the reading I understood that Jacobs was talking about the minority sidewalks as the safest and yet, I do believe she mentioned they are the least safe. I agree with Kate that in the minority neighborhoods, the people have a common ground. They look out for each other, but they also find a need to protect their territory (the unsafe aspect). For example: In "Little Village" a predominatly Mexican neighborhood in Chicago (near the Cook County Jail), I walked there to explore their neighborhood and culutre that they take pride in. I was very welcomed. I was given suggestions for restuarants, shopping, and even a free churo (spelling??). But then again, when I was walking around the area of Cabrini Green I was yelled at, tanted and called some very nasty things. I don't think all minority neighborhoods can be labeled the same. I think it has to do with how much the people of a neighborhood trust each other.
wow, hilarious. also, brilliant how you argue that it is civilization, not uncivilization, that leads to what she is calling barbarism.
i agree, her data is conspicuously absent. i think that she culled it from a place of anecdotes and nostalgia. i can almost see her getting teary-eyed with glee as she wrote this on her typewriter.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I almost felt like the word barbarism could have been replaced by apathy in Jacobs' account in some parts and it would have still worked.
Some of the stuff she was writing about reminded me of that one famous occassion where a woman was stabbed in front of a huge occupied apartment building in New York City and no one called the police beacuse they all thought someone else would, or were thinking it wasn't their job or were too desensitized or whatever.
I think your OBE is funny, and it's true that she doesn't have much emprircal evidence for her findings, but maybe this isn't that kind of account. These writings seem more like something that might be in an opinion column to me. The end of "The Uses.." is like one of those afternoon stroll style stories that Stansell wrote about. Jacobs aknowledges the problems of that arise when reading an account and getting a second hand view of city life in her analogy about rhinoceros prints. It seems like we've been talking a lot about how unprofessional Jacobs was but I'm wondering how important that is. We all share our unprofessionaland often purely subjective insights in class, and I find that helpful in shaping my conceptualizations of cities. Maybe Jacobs' is just another perpsective that the 'professionals" never put out there. It was certainly pretty radical for her time. She was criticizing the current architectural/city planning totems.
While Jane Jacobs is not necessarily an urban sociologist, nor a scholar at the level of Louis Wirth, her first hand view and description of city life in “...Sidwalks: Contact” is as accurate, if not more, than “Urbanism as a Way of Life” where Wirth expresses his theory on density, heterogeneity, and their contributions to urbanism. An increase in population does not necessarily mean an increase in heterogeneity, as Wirth assumes. Jacobs understands the truly important aspects of city life that make it great, though it doesn’t have to reflect the type of heterogeneity Wirth infatuates. Lastly, Wirth tries to maintain a broad description of social organization in urban life, but Jacobs depicts the social organization that takes place with specific examples from city life she knows.
Civilization is marked by certain elements – technology advances, etiquettes, social norms and institutions and, Jane Jacobs adds, sidewalks. It’s here that civilization works its best attempt at security without technology. Through a differentiation of public and private space, populated streets and eyes, lots and lots of eyes, the sidewalk is Jacobs’ safe haven between home and work. Demanding a mixed-use neighborhood, businesses, residents, and recreation and public places all working together, Jacobs’ theory focuses on personal safety through the ease of a city well planned. She prefers a street made safe by residents, pedestrians. Police officers are, perhaps, not unnecessary but can inhibit the natural flow of a sidewalk. Going off of her absolutely ideal experience on Hudson Street where neighbors are neighborly and safety is easy, Jacobs doesn’t leave much space for a reality that is sometimes a bit less Mr. Rogers and a bit more Compton.
The “ballet” of the sidewalk isn’t necessarily impossible; it just sits more on the utopian, theoretical side of city planning. Jacobs admits that not all people are good people, willing to secure their neighborhood’s safety but it goes beyond that. Her plan requires an unconscious desire for security, where “people are using and most enjoying the city streets voluntarily and are least conscious, normally, that they are policing.” (Jacobs, 117) On surface level, I agree that the best street is an informal one, one with casual interaction and concern for your fellow pedestrian. It’s just that though – a surface level. A neighborhood in my hometown, Milwaukee, has fences demarcating private and public space. On one block there are daycares, restaurants and clubs. The next block holds privately owned or rented houses with plenty of windows onto the streets. The area is densely populated with a diverse crowd. Yet this neighborhood, filling all the requirements of Jacobs’ plan for a safe street, is not safe. Personal motivation is totally lacking in Jacobs’ theory. It’s undeniable that you and me would want a safer street but is that to say everyone else does? There are people who may maximize on self-interest or who may benefit from unsafe streets. These are not necessarily barbaric streets, wild and crude, but instead uninterested.
To fill in the blanks of Jacobs’ plan for casual security, I took another look at Wirth’s anonymity theories. If it’s true that “…one major characteristic of the urban-dweller is his dissimilarity from his fellows,” (Wirth, 102) then it may follow that an urban-dweller isn’t interested in keeping an eye on his dissimilar fellows. With pedestrians carrying pepper spray, cell phones, being prepared for uncomfortable situations with extra money, contact information etc. there is this not necessarily new but certainly modern idea that personal safety cannot be put in the hands of someone else. When the street is made of strangers, as Jacobs’ so rightly put it, trust isn’t a given.
In Jane Jacobs’ “The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety” there are true observations of the city but where she applies theory to these observations she loses reality. This is also where she loses me.
-Bethanie Kloecker, 2-19-07
Jane Jacobs piece on “The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety” brings attention to city streets and the arrangement of buildings. An argument is made, within the piece, that city streets and sidewalks are directly related to the safety of the city. Safety is related to sidewalks on the premise of the density of strangers, the watchful eyes of citizens, and the positioning of stores or buildings.
The main point, which I took from this piece, is that Jacobs believed that density and safety had a direct correlation. She first described what makes a sidewalk empty, which is fear. It was noted that violence occurred in quiet neighborhoods and empty streets. This violence created a sense of fear that discouraged people from using those streets, making them even more desolate. I believe that this is a very rational conception. For instance, if I was told about a street where someone was injured or harassed, I would make sure to find a different route for fear of the same thing happening to me. Here it is assumed that others would do the same with a result of less activity on that street. With less activity comes less difficulty in violence because one does not need to be as devious due to the watchful eye not being present. Therefore, safety in numbers applies to Jacob’s article. This can be seen with her idea of more strangers equals less violence. I agree with this understanding that brutality is prevented through more strangers on the street because the strangers would be there in the interaction and could give aid if violence ever did occur. What I disagree with in Jacob’s article, is that the watchful eye of people in their homes discourage violence. People do sit at their windowsills and people watch, but what happens if violence does occur?
Here I would like to bring in Wirth’s idea of density. He believes that density creates more physical contact, but less emotional affiliation. Because of this conception, Wirth would say that an on looking resident would be close in proximity but because of the detachment psychologically, the resident would not react to the violence occurring. I am unsure as to whether a resident would report violence observed from their window or not. It seems that emotional relationship could take place through detachment, but also one could explain the lack of concern through assumption. Once example is a car broken down on a highway; as you drive think that they might need help but then justify not stopping as someone else probably already called the police. This could also pertain to a burglary that takes place outside your window. What I am trying to say, is that the attempt to call is more than just someone watching, as Jacobs would say, and not only recognized as the lack of emotional connectivity. Safety due to residence is based on a personal decision.
The last thing that I would like to discuss is the protection or safety that buildings offer. Jacobs described that the more stores on a street, the greater attraction strangers have to that street. This creates not only the security through greater population, but it also perpetuates shops into a larger business. Because strangers feel safe on the streets, they will walk past the businesses, that are unconsciously protecting them, and in turn will give them business. With this increase in sale, the area could become more appealing which will bring in more strangers for the attraction and make the sidewalks safer. The safety is there due to the idea of safety in numbers.
I believe that safety can occur on sidewalks through a greater population. More people in physical distance may be more subjected to react to violence than others in optical distance, but there is still a chance that violence is decreased. It can be seen that the more strangers in an area provide more opportunity for business. In the end, safety can not be assumed due to density but rather by choice of the witness.
In Jane Jacobs' book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, she discusses the various uses of city sidewalks. Sidewalks are vital to the interconnectedness and the operation of American cities. The selected pieces from Jacobs book focus on safety and contact within said sidewalks.
Safety is an ever-growing public concern. Jacobs states that via sidewalks, people can feel either secure or threatened within a city. The sidewalks that have a purpose - the ones that people have a reason to use - provide the most safety for its residents, visitors, and commuters. In the city, fear is not isolated to a single area, but rather integrated into all parts; it is dispersed throughout the slums and residential neighborhoods. High-traffic sidewalks increase security.
Security not only depends on high-traffic usage, but also on surveillance of an area. Police are reactive, not proactive. In order for the peace to be kept, citizens and visitors must take on the role of watching over the streets. Safety is supported by a system of social networks. Daily contacts that are made through shops, businesses, and the streets insure the city's security.
Allison
In Jane Jacobs’ “The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety“ many of the initial ideas seemed to relate to the Janet Abu-Lughod piece, as both writings contain the idea of the neighborhood taking control and working together to ensure safety. As I read further these similarities end as Jacobs denounces the Islamic city style as futile, while she develops an idea of safe streets through a seemingly positive commercialistic attitude.
Even though the circumstances are different in both the Jacobs and Abu-Lughod piece there is a great emphasis on the creation of a neighborhood and the ability of that neighborhood to work together and live peacefully. In the traditional Islamic city the "neighborhoods handled many of their internal functions on a more ad hoc basis." This sounds a lot like Jacob's idea of placing responsibility of safety in the hands of the community due to inefficiency of the current policing system. City structuring presents itself as one of the major difference in these living styles, according to Jacobs, “It is futile to try to evade the issue of unsafe city streets by attempting to make some other features of locality, say interior courtyards, or sheltered play spaces, safe instead.” Jacobs rather implies that a city sidewalk lined with stores and other businesses, the best way to create public safety. While having public spaces for meeting and the sharing of ideas remains essential for any society, claiming that these areas should be places of business and that they will keep the sidewalks safe, sounds idealized and biased to her neighborhood. The concept of having businesses and stores everywhere reminds me of Louis Wirth when he observes how capitalist profit by “Catering to thrills and furnishing means of escape from drudgery” and that “there is virtually no human need which has remained unexploited by commercialism.” Within the Jacobs piece, it suggests that personal wealth has a role in the way you make your presence in the neighborhood. The idea of people creating “characters” in the local neighborhood businesses, begs the question of how one functions in society when faced with economic limitations. Maybe some homeless people can move into her neighborhood and make their “character” as the homeless person that never gets any attention because the middle class is bustling from business to business chatting with their acquaintances. For Jacobs style of safety to work there must be a complete revamping of neighborhoods into areas where places of business and residential are mixed evenly. Her seemingly perfect neighborhood has evolved naturally into a place that functions, but her ideas do not take notice of neighborhoods and massive apartment complexes that do not have this desired living arrangement. The people living in these places do not have access or power to make structural changes in the neighborhood and only exist in a passive role. I must question the ability for this style of sidewalk protection to work in areas of high poverty and disagree with her promotion of trendy neighborhoods where you make your social presence at the places you are able to perform business.
tyler
All this talk of sidewalks makes me think of a poem I read over and over again as a child. In grade school my librarian introduced me to “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” by Shel Silverstein. The poem starts out:
“There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins.
And there grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from he flight
To cool in the peppermint wind…”
(taken from: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/where-the-sidewalk-ends/)
As children we were taught that the sidewalk is safe, just as Shel Silverstein and Jane Jacobs depict. The sidewalk is a place for a child to draw with chalk, learn to ride a bike, be safe from cars on the street, and during the winter it isn’t slippery to walk on. The sidewalk is a place of transition, you can see your life evolve, and if you don’t have one, you want one.
Everyday people walk on sidewalks, but do we really think they are safe? Jacobs seems to think so. Although we often don’t pay much attention to the sidewalks and their purpose, but they really do provide boundaries and protection for people. In “The Uses of Sidewalk Safety,” cities are compared to organs and that sidewalks play a vital role in keeping the city alive and healthy. This illustration demonstrates that it is important to maintain all aspects of a city, even the concrete we walk on!
But not all sidewalks are safe. In certain neighborhoods, not necessarily minority neighborhoods, the sidewalks are a place not to be touched; almost as if it were a sin to step out of your door. In these neighborhoods the crime has taken over and the sidewalks aren’t really the place of safety. These neighborhoods are rough, tough and bad to the bone. Where children don’t exist because they have seen too much to be children, and innocence has become just a faint idea.
In order for sidewalks to be safe, certain criteria need to be met. Sidewalks need to be accessible and reasonable, they need to bring people places as a means of travel, stores and establishments need to exist, and store and establishment owners need to patrol the sidewalks with their eyes as a means of safety. Sidewalks need attractions, and lots of people in order to attract more people. It is unlikely that crime and violence happens in crowded streets and that when others are looking no one will rob a store. Sidewalks also bring people together. They are a place of meeting and exchange, they provide for entertainment and learning. The sidewalks may end, but it is there to protect and provide, and after you cross the street another sidewalk awaits.
“Where the Sidewalk Ends” – Shel Silverstein
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
Posted By: Kari J.
I wish that, despite Teresa’s insistence that we read the intro to each writer, I hadn’t for Jane Jacobs. I wonder, had I not read the intro, whether her piece would have seemed as amateur as it did to me. The reason I’m blaming the intro for this is that I got impression that no one really took her seriously. Whatever, this is not the point. Despite her initially pedestrian (pun wholeheartedly intended) involvement in academia, I think that Jacobs make some very insightful and pointed observations. Her idea that cities are full of strangers from whom we need some way of feeling safe in order to operate and that this safety is actually peer-mediated totally makes sense. Jacobs very clearly delineates the features that are necessary for a street to become a “safety asset” (116). Unfortunately, what makes her argument seem unconvincing is that she relies on the common sense of her “eyes on the street” theory to speak for itself; without an explanation of the mechanisms behind the salvation in self-policing, the reader wonders whether her ideas are universally applicable or just the musings of someone about her own neighborhood structure.
Jacobs starts by saying that streets are the essence of a city. Ignoring what I think is just plain wrong (what happened to culture, buildings or, um, the people? Apparently Jacobs skipped reading Shakespeare entirely), I can say that she basically posits boring street life, boring city life; dangerous streets, dangerous city. Easy enough to follow. She continues to say that what differentiates urban cities from little towns and even suburbs are strangers. This poses a unique problem for city residents (i.e., one which does not affect suburban or rural residents): how does one feel safe enough to conduct the necessities of their life amongst all these unfamiliar people? Jacobs says that streets foster safety so long as they fulfill three things: there must be a clear demarcation between public and private, they must be monitored or watched (unofficially or otherwise), and must be fairly continuous used (116). She says that these qualities are necessary on city streets, but not rural or suburban ones, because these have less formal methods of control such as “reputation, gossip, approval, disapproval, and sanctions,” all of which, she says, are powered by resident-familiarity and word-of-mouth, two things allegedly absent from city life (116).
Here’s my problem. She never elaborates on these three vital traits or how they beget a safe environment. For example, why is it that the borders between public and private must be made clear? She later says that the in-between space is problematic, but not why. She never gets at what it is about surveillance that curtails crime. In fact, she says that in an urban setting, word-of-mouth is useless against crime, but it is actually one of the main mechanisms behind her theory, when it is working properly. There are no official warnings that a neighborhood is under surveillance by its residents (save for the occasional neighborhood watch sign), but somehow it is known that one area is perfect for burglary while another is a no-go. This corpus of knowledge and understanding is amassed somehow, and I bet that word-of-mouth has plenty to do with it. Her reliance on common sense being the, well, common language in which her ideas can be expressed has ultimately sold her short because she didn’t think, or at least explain, her theory through.
Another issue (which I haven’t really thought over perfectly so bear with me) is that she says that these characteristics of streets need to be so effective as to control the behavior of not only the residents but also visitors from less populated places. Then, in her anecdotal evidence of her own residential version of the street monitoring, she offers recollection of one disturbance perpetrated by a suburban kid. This pretty much shoots her theory all to hell, huh? I don’t quite get the point of using an anecdote, which is already pretty weak evidence, to more or less contradicting herself.
After all is said and done, I do think that there is some serious heft to Jacobs’s arguments. Unfortunately, the snobby academic in me chose this moment to flare and start with the “yeah, but…”s. Also, I totally jumped the gun and wrote this before reading the second Jacobs reading, so maybe she’ll have the perfect rebuttal to me.
when you think about public vs. private...well...when i do at least, I wonder what private actually is, because really everything we do is influenced by public, and so then it raises the question in my mind about whether anything is truly private. Your home is not private because you fill it will possessions and therefore it is full of consumption which is a very pubic thing. maybe i'm not explaining what i mean well enough...hmm....:-)???
O.B.E #3
Jane Jacobs shows that misconceptions of what is considered to be good urban design lead planners to make poor decisions regarding the macro and micro layout of a city. There are also misconceptions by individuals and businesses that cause for a depreciation of city sociability and city life, which deteriorates and creates dissonance with what Jacobs refers to as the “ballet” of the city.
An underlying point in her writing is that good sociability and city life are not products ipso facto of cities. Particular elements need to be in place to create a healthy neighborhood or city, and once the design and layout have been accomplished, time is often necessary in order to create the relationships necessary for a trusting and flourishing society. This is perhaps telling of the different conceptions of cities that we read in Wirth and Stansell. Wirth describes Manchester as highly segregated and seemingly more poorly planned than parts of New York. The rich were able to go through the city without ever seeing the slums which were literally cut off from any chance of being economically and socially incorporated. However, in Stansell’s description of New York, there is a healthy mixture of different classes and temperaments. Thus, these authors opposing views of urbanity are not necessarily due alone to anti and pro city presumptions, but the versatility and many different forms that cities are able to take, creating either successful or unsuccessful city life.
Jacobs mentions the high crime rates in Los Angeles, which are certainly due in part to its immense sprawl. Low density and compartmentalized districts (of residential and commercial, for example) take eyes off the street. Furthermore, the physical distance between people allows individuals to be far away from others and alone. As Jacobs points out, urban designers often purport the necessity and desire of the individual to have space and thus suburbanize urban areas based on this assumption. In consequence, what were meant to be idyllic neighborhoods become boring neighborhoods or turn into slums.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities sheds light on facets of Minneapolis and points at which urban designers made wrong decisions. Something, for example, which has always stood out for me in Minneapolis is the high degree to which commercial and residential areas have been separated from each other. Jacobs would argue that this, coupled with low density due to the vast number of houses and few high density apartment buildings, corrode the possibility of creating a healthy and lively city. For example, consider Lyndale and Hennepin Avenue between Lake Street and Franklin Aneue, which (for Minneapolis) are highly commercial streets. Now, if we think of the streets between Lyndale and Hennepin we find for the most part only low density residential housing. It’s no wonder that the vast majority of crimes committed in this area, either personal or proprietary, don’t take place on the two major avenues but in the gray space between. The only people that have a reason to walk in this area are those who live there. And they often don’t have a reason to stay outside their houses long since they only use the area for either leaving or returning to their dwellings. Another stark example of this in Minneapolis is Philips neighborhood which is the largest neighborhood in Minneapolis composed of about 100 square blocks of what is almost entirely residential houses. Additionally, the crime rates in this area are among the highest in the entire city. This may very well be in part due to the lack of use by the streets except for a small number of purposes. The fact that there are less people on the streets in these areas cause there to be even fewer people because, as Jacobs points out, people don’t want to be where others aren’t. People don’t want to look at a street where nothing is happening. This kind of layout is due to a myth among urban designers that assumes people to desire a peaceful empty street to come home to with a large unused fenced off lawn. Although this desire sometimes does exist among city residents, it’s what suburbs were built for.
At one point Jacobs mentions multi use functions of areas, which is intimately related to the mixture of commercial and residential. In parts of downtown, for example, business districts are cut off from commercial and residential areas. This means that the streets are busy at 9:00am when people are going to work, around noon when they take their lunch breaks, and at 5:00pm when they go home. For the remainder of the day these areas become gray belts through the city because no one has any reason to go there. Jacobs proposes a spattering of commercial in such areas which is conducive towards use at other times of day and night. When the people that work in the area go home, a new group arrives to use the bars, restaurants and shops.
A final point that I would like to make can be exemplified by Block E. The city of Minneapolis came very close to making a huge mistake by almost tearing down the Schubert Theater (one of the few remaining historic buildings left in this city) to make way for this commercial complex. Luckily, a private organization stepped in and paid to have it moved a block north. This is a little beside the point but important all the same. Block E, although it is a commercial space and creates some street traffic is telling of misconceptions of urban areas. Pasted along the structure are signs which read “NO STANDING, NO LOITERING” in attempt to repel any possible street traffic away from it. This comes from the assumption that if people are just standing around that they must be causing trouble rather than simply absorbing the city life. However, as Jacobs makes very clear, people standing around does not create trouble but staves it off. Others on the street mean that people are not causing trouble because they’re surrounded by others. In addition, Block E is a structure turned in on itself. Because the majority of its shops are only accessible by entering the building and walking through its mall-like hallways this takes pedestrian traffic off the street and forces it inside. Rather, the shops should spill into the city street; they should face and be entered by the street rather than be protected from it.
Thanks Jonathan. You're feelings here are not alone.
As a native Minneapolis resident, I welcome Al Qaida or other terrorists to take out Block E. What Hooter's? We have to resort to an 80's style chicken wing joint to fill unsellable enterprise space?
Also you forgot to mention the sign that still states..."Guns not permitted on premises" just to remind everyone that yes,...o we still live in the wild west.
OBE #1
“When people say that a city, or part of it, is dangerous or is a jungle what they mean primarily is that they do not feel safe on the sidewalks.” (p115). This quote from Jacobs encompasses the main idea of this article in one short sentence. While claiming that the sidewalk is the road of the people, Jacobs makes a clear point to say that a city is judged by its sidewalks- through safety, appearance, etc. The violence or unrest that could be said to be held accountable for the lack of a feeling of security in a city does not take place (typically) in its movie theaters, stores, or streets, but on the sidewalk. It is here that the people of a city do most of their travelling, or at least moving between modes of transportation. It also is not only the police who keep (or do not keep) the peace on the sidewalks, but those who frequent them and the presence of local businesses and neighborhood inhabitants, people who have an investment into the safety of their sidewalks.
Jacobs brings this topic up in a way that I had not previously considered. I agree in that sidewalks are the life of a city, more so than in the suburbs or small towns. The sidewalks of a city are the main passing place of strangers, and a mutual trust must be made between these strangers in order to keep the sidewalks functioning in an efficient and safe manner. Once this trust is broken, people will discontinue their use of that area whether out of fear or lack of need. This anxiety of the sidewalks does, however, not appear to be revolutionary in any way, something of which Marx may be disappointed in. Jacobs makes no argument that these ‘dangerous’ sidewalks are inhabited by the poor or oppressed, which could easily be assumed and supported by many other theories.
I grew up in a small town, which may be one of the key factors in my agreeing with Jacobs on her three elements of creating a safe sidewalk. Stores and public places are vital building blocks for a safe sidewalk for they give people a reason for using the sidewalk and the people with time and money invested in that particular area will pay more attention to the goings on in the vicinity of their establishment, whether it be for the well-being of their own property or attracting customers. Pure residential areas, however, may have less lighting and surveillance of their sidewalks, creating a place prime for danger and crime. Even in our own Dinkytown, the crimes we hear about, muggings and altercations, do not take place (characteristically) outside the McDonalds, but on the darkened residential sidewalks.
I completely agree about that a mutual trust must be made between stangers. It's pretty amazing actually how many people interact everyday in every city. Thinking about all the nods, smiles, and glances is almost mind-blowing!.... :-)
Think back to the beginning of the year. You walk back onto campus after a summer of sunny bliss and once again begin the pleasant but monotonous routine of academics. As you make your way to your first class you quickly spot the “new kids on campus”. They all make eye contact with you, smiling and nodding as they pass by, as to say “hey, I don’t know anyone…do you not know anyone too?” As the year goes on, everyone gets into their patterns of quickly getting to class/work etc. and the rate of acknowledging one another decreases considerably, even those of “new kids on campus”. You will easily find students with their heads down and their stride frantic as if they are always in a hurry, either with an ipod or cell phone attached to the ear. And with all the denial of greetings we rely on the consistency of the people we pass by, strangers they may be, as a form of comfort. “We nod; we each glance quickly up and down the street then look back to each other and smile” (118), or we skip the nod and smile and rely solely on the glance. The people we pass become part of our routines.
We keep peace, mental it may be, throughout the sidewalks (pathways) through the consistency of our daily habits. As Jane Jacobs mentions, “The first thing to understand is that the city peace-the sidewalk and street peace-of cities is not kept primarily by the police, necessary as police are. It is kept primarily by an intricate, almost unconscious network of voluntary controls and standards among the people themselves, and enforced by the people themselves (116). We almost act as watch guards and are acutely aware of change. If someone does not pass by us for a few days we notice, just as we notice the new group of people that congregate on the west side of the Minnesota bridge. This idea, which I think Jacobs contrasts in some ways and agrees with in others, reminds me of Marco Polo’s narrative of Kin-sai. He notes that they have guardsmen that take notice of the out of ordinary behavior in the city and investigate it. “On opposite sides of each of these squares there are two large edifices, where officers appointed by the Great Khan are stationed to take immediate notice of any difference that may happen to arise between the foreign merchants, or amongst the inhabitants of the place” (Marco 51). Although in Kin-sai, there are particular officers delegated to watch over the unfamiliarity, the two cities still have mechanisms devoted to regulating these differences. And although in Kin-sai, there are particular officers they are still citizens and public inhabitants of the city.
The order of a city is important among a city and yet it is unique between each city. For example, in Kin-sai, “There are within the city ten principal square or market-places, besides innumerable shops along the streets…it is crossed by many low and convenient bridges” (Marco 51). In Constantinople, “it is enormous n magnitude and divided into two parts, between which there is a great river in which there is a flow and ebb of tide…its bazaars are spacious and paved with flagstones…”(Battuta 54). As Jacobs mentions “This order is all composed of movement and change…an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole” (117). Kin-sai, Constantinople, and Minneapolis all carry this order, this movement and change. As we walk through campus or downtown, we create this order through architecture and customs alike. Whether it is a bridge, market, or school, each person that utilizes the pathway that leads there has a different goal and yet the city continues to maintain an order.
Jane Jacobs makes a very interesting point: she wants neighborhoods to have their eyes open to others and a voluntary monitoring of individuals, because the city is "full of strangers".
I agree to some extent, because police are only impersonal guards of the street, and usually have less knowledge of neighborhood dynamics. I mentioned in class earlier the block leader on my street of 31st and elliot ave. The plan is that the block leaders take turns watching over the streets in order to keep the neighborhood safer. Ideally, that would be great, to use the residents of streets as a network of safety. But---there are always subjective views based on perhaps media stereotypes of "unhealthy" neighborhoods. I received an email from my block leader, and i think the only way this voluntary monitoring could be effective, is, of course, if everyone had an equal voice. In my neighborhood, only a few people meet to discuss the issues of the neighborhood, and many people do not have the time to watch the street action, even if it is such an interesting dance. (refer to the last page of Jacobs and her metaphor of the improvised ballet)
> To All,
>
> last night around 8:45 when I noticed a prostitute being dropped off
> down the street from our house Randy and I decided to take a drive and
> see what was going on in the neighborhood. From 9:00 to 9:30 we
> reported a total of five prostitutes, 8-12 juveniles hanging and loud at
> the corner of 32 and Chicago, and a total of 7 males (suspicious
> activity) hanging at alleys and corners.
>
> Here are some pictures of suspected prostitutes that were roaming our
> streets last night. They are not the clearest but I will give
> descriptions so hopefully you too can recognize these individuals.
>
> pic #1 (1-A) this white female,approx 5"4" thin build,early 20'S, brown
> shoulder length hair, wearing blue jeans and dark blue jacket and large
> hoop earrings. She was "hanging" on 11th and 31 Street
>
> pic # 2 and 3 ( 2-a and 2-B) this white female was 5' 4-6" med to heavy
> build, early 20's,blonde hair past shoulder, wearing a light powder blue
> jacket, blue jeans, quite strung out, hanging with black male (wearing
> all dark clothing), "hanging" at and on the property of 3104 13th Ave
> south and seen walking from Bloomington Ave to Elliot Ave. They were
> also somehow connected to the total of 7 other black males seen walking
> in the alleys and on 31 Street from Bloomington to Elliot
>
> pic # 4 and 5 (2-C and 2-D) is a white female, shorter brown hair, Hat
> on head wearing a camel colored jacket, blue jeans "hanging" with black
> male (wearing dark clothing) seem mostly on the corner of 15th and 31
> Street. seen walking back and forth on 31 to Chicago Ave
>
> pic # 6 (4-A) this is Elise Simpson (not sure of spelling) She was
> seen "hanging" on Lake street and 12th Ave. She has been reported
> numerous times for her activity. She is a lighter skinned female, brown
> wavy hair, extremely blue eyes, 5' 6" thin to med build, wearing a
> darker jacket with v shaped colors, jeans. She is also been reportedly
> connected to an address on 11th and 3000 block.
>
> There was another female that came from the side of 3104 13th Ave S, she
> was med to heavy build, short blonde hair wearing black jeans and a red
> and black jacket with some kind of sport logo on it, she was wearing a
> black stocking cap. She was seen on 14th and 3100 block as well as
> walking from 13th Ave to Bloomington. I do not have a very clear
> picture of her however she is very distinctive.
>
> There were a total of 7 black males that were "hanging" from 11th
> through Bloomington Ave, they were hanging in alleys watching/directing
> traffic, they were somehow communicating with some of thee gals as well.
>
> AS you can see in a matter of half and hour what is happening outside
> out doors is NOT THE ACTIVITY our neighborhood wants.
>
> 911 was called on on these and I did speak to the police (who were
> extremely helpful and proactive)
>
> I have video clips if anyone would like. Sorry for the dark pics...I am
> learning to now be a "photo journalist)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jeff
Hey, thanks for the play by play. You certainly have a lively street ballet going on. I wonder why Jacobs didn't mention prostitutes. After all they do make their money on her beloved sidewalks? I don't know why, but this entry just made me think of "THE BURBS", a movie where a laidback suburbanite soaks up what we could call the street ballet of the suburbs.
Comments
Here's a link for Project for Public Spaces.
http://www.pps.org/parks_plazas_squares/
Posted by: Kathy Xiong | March 1, 2007 07:02 PM