sidewalks running away from the streets we knew...

I have to say that i personally did not enjoy reading Jacobs' "The Uses of Sidewalks-Safety". It was equally entertaining as the great act of watching grass grow...in my opinion. The points she was making were very good; saying that sidewalks have a large effect on the town in which they are set but I firmly believe that to make any argument success, there needs to be a method do your progression. In other words, there needs to be a draw for the reader, something they find entertaining and interesting about it, in order to make them actually want to finish the reading. When i first started reading this essay i was bored to tears and found myself flipping through the pages, stopping every so often on a random paragraph. From doing this it seemed to me that the article never truly progressed. It just seemed to get longer and even more boring than the page preceding it. Now i may be critisizing this a tad harshly but in my opinion it is well deserved. People don't care about sidewalks. I mean yes, they may care about them being there, i know i always enjoy them being around and make good use of them when i am in their company. But who cares about reading an article about sidewalks?? Not too many people and i can guarantee that if not assigned this reading neither myself or my classmates would look through the table of contents and decide that "Sidewalks" sounded like a pageturner. Nothing against the assignment itself or the actual topic. What this all boils down to for me is that if an author wants to persuade people to believe something they believe, at least show a little passion for the topic. Make us find a reason to sit down and read it and we will give you a reason to be proud of your piece.

However, the second reading i did find more enjoyable. Davis' writing style is both informative yet mildly satirical. Saying things like " a five million dollar face life" makes the article more entertaining to read, therefore more likely to be read. Although the writing style was enjoyable to read, it did not take away from the serious message in this article. It was not distracting and if anything made the author seem more passionate about her argument than someone who was simply displaying the facts.
It made me sad that the park was geared to make homeless people stear clear of it. I suppose i can understand the perspective of the city on this but at the same time, homeless people are still people; they are still part of our society. By shutting them out of public areas, we are sending the message to the public that homeless people are beneath us. We cannot give birth to a society that breeds poverty and then so carelessly turn our back on those we have poisoned.
The main concept of this article was that, by trying to keep out one type of person you end up eliminating the welcome people from the facility as well. I'm not sure how i feel about this actual statement. My question would be when do people go from being welcome to being unwelcome? Is a child molester dressed in a polo shirt more deserving of a park than a homeless person with no shoes? I suppose my feelings really come down to something other than the actualy article topics. Overall the article was written well with good points made. However it does make me wonder various things about the judgements people places on each other and on society as a whole.