In Vain OBE#3
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
Comments
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.
Posted by: Kate | February 19, 2007 02:45 PM
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.
Posted by: Kari | February 19, 2007 08:36 PM
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.
Posted by: sean d.s. | February 20, 2007 01:51 AM
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.
Posted by: Tavia | February 20, 2007 12:45 PM