Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Chapter 2: The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety.

I have lived in Chicago for all of my life. My entire family lives in this city. I am one of 8 kids with an old, Irish, Catholic background. If it were up to my mom, we would all live on the same block, because that is the way she grew up. Two of my sisters work in City Hall and my mom was constantly involved with the politics regarding the neighborhood I grew up in. I also come from a long line of Chicago police officers. My father worked the streets for 36 years. My brother was a detective. My uncle was an officer in Area 1, which concentrated on gang crimes, and two of my cousins are police officers. Throughout the years I have learned and experienced first hand the mental, physical, social, and political aspects in being a person designated to “serve and protect” the streets. These streets, like any major American city, consist of diverse groups of people. Despite this diversity, Chicago has a reputation for being one of the most segregated major cities in the country. http://www.thechicago77.com/2009/01/chicago-is-americas-most-segregated-city//  After reviewing chapters from The Death and Life of Great American Cities, I decided to focus on Chapter 2: The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety.

In introducing the book, Jacobs states that, “this book is an attack on city planning and rebuilding.” She goes on to say that it is primarily, “an attack on principles and aims that have shaped modern city planning and rebuilding.” The attempt to change and revitalize a city by building low-income projects, commercial centers, and expressways, only further destroys and segregates a city by creating these “amputated areas.” According to Jacobs, city planning destroys small businesses and tears communities apart. She states further that government no longer cares how a neighborhood works but rather, cares what kind of quick impression it gives. She notes that city planners create dishonest masks of a pretend order by ignoring and suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist. City planning and rebuilding attempts to bring order by repression. She argues that ultimately, planning is irrelevant to the working of cities and that, cities that are not respected and nor  studied by city planners, have served as “sacrificial victims.”


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75fz6iU8r6k

Jacobs was the first to bring forth the issues that now define American urbanism. In the reading, Revolt of the Urbs, Robert Moses and His Critics, Jane Jacobs was a mother who put forth an effort to save Washington Square Park. She rallied and created a full-scale critique of Robert Moses approach to his title as parks commissioner. Jacobs believed that the American city is the battleground for the preservation of diversity and that city planning demolished this diversity. She believed that city planning and rebuilding demolishes unity within community and citizen participation. Moses believed that cities were created by and for traffic whereas Jacobs believed that cities are created by and for neighborhoods. She believed in putting people first by recognizing the pedestrian and rebuilding a city through rediscovery and diversity, not rebuilding and destruction. Jacobs believed that diversity is the fundamental nature of urbanism.

Because of the sheer number of people, cities are full of strangers. People consistently use the streets and sidewalks in any major city on any given day. Jacobs argues that the fundamental task of the streets and sidewalks are to keep a city safe. When a crime occurs, it creates fear, which makes people use the streets less. When the streets aren’t being used, they become unsafe. According to Jacobs, the problem of being afraid in the streets does not stem from slums or older parts of the city. She notes that it is not fair to tag the poor or minority groups as reasons for city danger. The safest neighborhoods in New York are located in poor neighborhoods occupied by minorities. Jacobs feels that the problem of being afraid in the streets stems from re-built, middle-income projects and quiet residential areas. According to Jacobs, The most dangerous streets are occupied by the same kind of people. I have always felt that diversity creates understanding, perpetuates knowledge, and obliterates fear of the unknown. According to a study from the Chaddick Institute at DePaul, which examined Chicago’s diversity by neighborhood measuring ethnic diversity, income diversity and age diversity, Chicago’s reputation as a place lacking integration between white residents and black residents seems destined to persist. 

Dempsey Travis

Jacobs notes that city peace is kept by involuntary controls of its citizens and that no amount of police can enforce civilization where the casual enforcement of it has been broken down. This casual enforcement is broken down when people are spread out (using the suburban building plan as an example) and throwing away the fecundity of the city. The safest city streets are the ones that are used by people of every race and background. Streets that are being used by citizens are naturally policed. Jacobs writes that a city well equipped to accept strangers are ones that have a distinction between public and private places, buildings that face the street, and sidewalks that are constantly being used by its residents. Jacobs believes that in order to make a city safe, the focus must be on the residents, not by artificial means such as creating districts and public housing.

The Watchers

The Users

Neighborhoods consist of stores, bars, and restaurants. All of these factors contribute to the safety of a city and give reasons for people to use the streets. People are also drawn to busy streets from other neighborhoods because of the activity. In shore, people attract other people creating diverse neighborhoods. Businesses on any given street become watchers of the neighborhood. I live in a neighborhood where there is a little, family-owned store on the corner. Next to it is an old car repair shop. The owner of the grocery store just recently had his window broken by a passer by and someone from the car shop caught the vandal. These residents casually took care of their neighborhood by observing, noticing and taking action. In Jacobs’s city, the reaction of the mechanic is a natural one. Her writing is almost ridiculously idealistic. Her rhetoric contains an old 1950’s, vision of society that can be overly animated at times. Unfortunately, her vision and philosophy has another side. People are not always willing to step in to help one another. In the reading, “Claes Oldenburg’s The Street and Urban Renewal in Greenwich Village, 1960,” Joshua Shannon refers to Jacobs’s views of the city as “delightfully quirky.” According to Shannon, Jacobs does not recognize the poverty and violence as a part of everyday agony in the street. 

Claes Oldenburg In 'Ray Gun Specs'

In the reading, Jacobs speaks of the butcher in her neighborhood who noticed a little girl being lured away by a man. He and several other street watchers in the neighborhood got involved to make sure she was ok. She also notes that the residents of a new, small, high rent, apartment building were the only people who did not respond. These occupants don’t have an attachment to the neighborhood. They are transients who are unaware of the people who take care of their streets. After a while, the neighborhood becomes them and becomes unsafe. All neighborhoods have evolved into places where new occupants live in new buildings. Sometimes this occurs in an old neighborhood as Jacobs notes. The Pilsen neighborhood here in Chicago is an example of gentrification. Parts of this neighborhood remain safe because of the people who live and walk the streets. When I lived in Pilsen, it was primarily a Hispanic neighborhood. I moved there because the rent was something that I could afford on my own. I lived next to a family of 5. At the time, I had a sports car with expensive rims. Shortly after I moved in, one of the sons came up to me and said, “Hey, don’t worry about your car. I’ll keep my eye on it.” And throughout the 3 years I lived there, I felt safe because I lived in a neighborhood where people watched out for one another. I do feel that neighborhoods such as the one I lived in work well to contribute to the safety of a city as a whole because of its residents.

Pilsen, Chicago

Jacobs notes that insufficient street lighting leads to crime. She argues that the presence of people contributing their own eyes to the safety of the street is important factor in maintaining peace. She talks about a housing project called Radiant City whose halls and elevators became a blind-eyed street. This housing project was accessible to the public and didn’t’ have doormen monitoring the traffic in and out. This reminded me of the fences that ran along each outside corridor floor on the buildings in Chicago’s Cabrini Green. It was as though the people were being caged in and locked away from the street below. According to Jacobs, when a project is closed off, there is a lack of psychological openness, which is vital in making a lively and interesting living space. Residents do not have the ability to interact with their neighbors making a space where people are not capable of caring and watching out for one another. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KOM3l1afgs

Jacobs refers to the Hyde Park-Kenwood neighborhood plan. This plan called for the replacing of blight with a garden city to minimize the use of street. It was believed that this action would minimize the use of the streets, which would minimize crime. The city planners wanted to build large shopping malls, creating empty spaces. They settled on a small mall because they were concerned with drawing extraneous people. But what is interesting is that most neighborhoods are filled with people who are completely unconnected. Jacobs argued that creating even more space between people does not correct the functional inadequacies of a neighborhood. If anything, a plan of this nature makes street crime even easier because of its added emptiness. 

Hyde Park, Chicago

Building and re-building cities creates insecurities within its residents. By building low-income projects, the city ultimately allows those less fortunate to suffer the consequences of being poor. The institution of “turf” has evolved within many cities. Jacobs notes an argument that facts about turf are subversive.  But housing projects essentially are turfs that use fences and barbed wire to keep people out and keep its residents in, resulting in the loss of freedom within the city. Being a mother of 8 and growing up poor herself, my mother once said, "Community integration is integral, because once the youth see the educated people around them, they will have no choice but to rise to a new standard of living."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJf-if_NInQ&feature=related