enclosure and the death of cities
There is one important thing automobiles provide that bicycles do not: enclosure
the enclosure of the automobile also holds some far-reaching negative implications for the general character of American cities.
Perhaps the most valuable point in [Jane Jacob's The Death and Life of Great American Cities] is the idea that vital, flourishing, and safe city neighborhoods owe their success to what she calls "an intensity of users."
This coming and going leads to face-to-face contact among strangers and neighbors. According to Jacobs, these seemingly insignificant social contacts are the basic building blocks of safe, vibrant cities.
In his book Emergence, Steven Johnson celebrates Jacob's version of the city as an "emerging system," and compares it to the common anthill, in which individual ants at the bottom of the ant hierarchy exchange basic information in random nose-to-nose contacts, and, unbeknownst to these individuals, form a sophisticated community that can "engage in nuanced and improvisational problem-solving." The same is true of the cells in the human body, and the people on the street in the city. They all contribute intelligence, from the bottom up, to create successful self-organizing systems.
However, when everybody climbs into a car for every conceivable trip, no matter how short or insignificant, the face-to-face contact among strangers is drastically diminished. When city dwellers stay enclosed even when they leave the apartment, going from garage, to drive-thru, and back to garage in their private metal pods with blackened windows, this behavior casts a chill over neighborhoods and cities. [...] If Jacobs is right, then, American car culture starves the cities of their self-organizing fuel.
-- Robert Hurst, The Art of Urban Cycling (review w/ excerpts)
(bold: mine, italics: Hurst's)
comments
Heh. Interesting to see that, since I read something on the same wave function yesterday.
I've been mimicking your posting style sorta the last few days. It is a nice changeup.
-- Adam Harvey (October 25, 2007 2:11 PM)
Makes good sense. This is a superficial statement, but it could help explain why so many people I knew in Los Angeles were depressed. "Nobody walks in LA." But this can be said of most American cities, now.
I just read this short article right before yours. Same topic, but less scientific and more sentimental.
-- Eric Wiley (October 26, 2007 11:17 AM)
Eric, you might be interested in watching Los Angeles Plays Itself. In an interview with the director in STOPSMILING magazine he says the phrase "Nobody walks in LA" really means "Nobody like us [rich, white] walks in LA." I wonder if high standards of living contribute to this malaise.
-- Adam Harvey (October 26, 2007 5:01 PM)
And nobody takes the bus in Cleveland.
Look at all of the new houses in Tremont with garages, no porches, gates. Subdivision. And people blame the crime wave on low income housing?!
Drivers honk at me and my bike from their cockpits, and I curse back at their capsule-compartment. (Where does person end and TrailBlazer begin?)
On the internet, no one knows you're a dog, and on the freeway, no one knows you're really a nice person.
-- jeffschuler (October 30, 2007 1:01 AM)
Nobody takes the bus in Cleveland? Do they know that at RTA? They're the best rapid transit in America, right? I tell you, if I could take a train from Mentor, I'd do it in a heart beat.
-- Bill Milhoan (October 30, 2007 11:04 AM)
@Bill: re: "Nobody takes the bus in Cleveland," see Adam's 2nd comment. I'm pretty sure RTA knows it. Why not move closer?
-- jeffschuler (October 30, 2007 5:35 PM)
You'll probably appreciate these videos -
http://tobanblack.net/blog/?p=114
They indicate ways in which bicycling and mopeding can be a collective activity.
The links here
http://tobanblack.net/blog/?p=108
complicate all of this.
-- Toban Black (February 5, 2008 10:47 PM)
Thanks Toban. Dug.
-- Jeff Schuler (April 2, 2008 11:20 AM)