The space between the grass and the street

"A city sidewalk by itself is nothing. It is an abstraction. It means something only in conjunction with the buildings and other uses that border it."
- The Uses of Sidewalks- Safety: Jane Jacobs

That is one of the most profound things that I’ve heard in a long time. Not so much because it has deep intellectual meaning but because it is such a simple though completely overlooked truth. She goes on to say that how people view a particular street really has nothing to do with the street itself but rather with the emotional connection that they have with it. A street can be beautifully manicured with impressive architecture and still promote such a feeling of insecurity that it will remain empty and unused.

The connection between use and safety that she made was an interesting one. After reading this piece, I started thinking about streets where I felt safest and where I didn’t. Even when surrounded by strangers, the feeling of safety is much higher than when walking around campus at night alone. This campus has very few areas that many people would view as "dangerous" in that there aren’t many places with tall bushes or any dark alleyways; it is typically well-lit and open. However, even just walking home the other night by myself after a lecture, I was distinctly nervous. Part of this is undoubtedly due to the stereotypical view that a female walking alone at night is at risk, but this feeling was substantially due to the fact that I live on the academic side of campus, so even though there were buildings around, there was no one in them. In The Uses of Sidewalks there is a passage that reads, "There must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street." That was the missing piece that factored so strongly into my feeling of apprehension.

I will only make a brief comment on the second piece. The main theme that I got from this reading was summed up well in this passage from Woodruff Park and the Search For Common Ground, "This pattern of destruction has been repeated, and there is little beauty, culture, or humanity left. What we have instead is precisely what the powers say they want: a ‘sanitized son,’ ‘vagrant free,’ and deserted enough to appear safe, devoid of the color of a rich urban culture whose life has never been antiseptic, colorless, cold, and heartless." It is critical, in order to make places safe for everyone, to create an environment that fosters that feeling of community and belonging, that feeling that makes people want to be out in their environment. Only then will the streets, sidewalks, and other spaces that define our lives be truly safe.