Saturday evening, my husband and I set up some quick and dirty Halloween decorations: orange twinkle lights lined our walk way, battery-operated tea lights set upon the front porch banister, and one latex decapitated head hanging from a tree branch. We sat on our front porch in the early evening darkness and waited for the little trick-or-treator’s….and waited, and waited. Soon, a group of 5 children came bounding up the path. The little ones were slightly hesitant, due to the scary head, but that’s what Halloween’s all about, being slightly afraid and having fun. (This year my husband had a cold and didn’t want to dress up in his leafy suit and lay in the lawn.)

In between groups of children, my husband and I commented on how few houses were participating, yet again, this Halloween. We noted that only one house across the street was participating, like they do every year. I walked out to the sidewalk and looked up and down, trying to see how many houses were participating this year, or at least had their porch lights on. Between my house and the corner, which is only a total of 6 houses, only two other houses had their front porch lights on or decorations, making it inviting for children to approach. The other direction, I couldn’t see any, due to some tall hedges. Across the street, only the single house with multiple decorations was participating.

We do live on a highly trafficked street. It’s also quite wide, so our neighbor’s across the street aren’t really neighbor’s in any sense of the word. The frequent flow of cars and the 4 lanes makes it a little impossible to be neighborly. But, I also realized, while scanning the sidewalk, that our block is really long. On our one block, there are maybe 20 houses. So, if a group of trick-or-treator’s starts moving down the sidewalk, and soon realizes only one out of every 4 or 5 houses are handing out treats, they soon give up. We saw a few groups of children, turn around and head the other way.

The fact that I live on a very long, busy block, probably discourages some houses from participating in Halloween. Perhaps they feel few children will want to walk down such a busy street, or that parents may feel it is unsafe. Last year, we had many fewer children than this year. At least this year, they came in large groups. That may have made them feel a little safer on the long block. The interior blocks behind my house are a little bit shorter, the streets aren’t nearly as wide, encouraging a zig-zag flow of movement. There is also less traffic, which makes it a little easier to cross over to houses that are giving out treats.

My husband and I don’t plan to be living in our rental house this time next year. My observations about the type of block I live on now, will help influence where we will look for a house to purchase. For instance, my husband likes the flow of traffic on our street, he says it motivates him throughout the day. He works from home, so the noise and motion are comforting to him. However, I don’t like how long our block is. If it were slightly shorter, or maybe a little less trafficked, I think it would help build more of a community feeling and more continuity within the neighborhood. There are so many things to consider when planning to purchase a house, this is just one more thing we will need to think about.

Does anyone live on a really long block? Do you feel that the community is less connected? How about the opposite?

Yesterday I posted questions I had about how the suburbs were created and why they were patterned on a grid-system. Well, I started reading a terrific book to quell my curiosity about urban planning, published in 1961 by Jane Jacobs, titled The Death and Life of Great American Cities. I’ve only read the first couple of chapters, and yes, it is a book that is almost 50 years old. However, most communities were built around this time, so many of Jacobs’s points are still current today.

The first few chapters discuss the importance of bustling sidewalks and short blocks. She described how in New York City, the safest streets are streets that have multiple uses with lots of pedestrians. For instance, the street might contain a grocer, a dry cleaners, a deli, a florist, and a restaurant or bar that is open late. This gives people on the streets a destination to go towards all day long and even into the night. The movement of these strangers gives individuals a common feeling of safety, even though they don’t know each other. The inhabitants in the area know each other, if only by acquaintance, and this adds to that feeling of community. Jacobs’s points out that it doesn’t matter if there is a park, or grass nearby, that’s not what makes the area safe. The short blocks and cohesiveness of the area provides that feeling.

When a city “revitalizes” an area they feel has become run down, they often build expanses of spaces that people don’t use. The fewer the people, the less safe the area becomes. The taller the apartment complexes, the less connected the people living in them feel to the block. Current urban planning is based on a Garden City plan that is over 100 years old. It was a utopia-driven plan with the goal being to thin out the city of London. It didn’t work then, and it doesn’t work now.

When a sidewalk becomes desolate, there are fewer eyes watching it because there is nothing to watch. It becomes, as she says, “…a gray, dull area.” Who wants to watch a gray, dull area? No one. As this happens, the sidewalk becomes a little less safe since no one is watching.

This got me thinking about my neighborhood. I grew up in the suburbs and still live in the suburbs. Jacobs’s states that her observations and research don’t include the suburbs since she focused on dense cities. Yet, much of what she says about cities, holds true for the suburbs. For instance, when I was growing up in the late 1970’s and early 80’s, I played out side on the sidewalks and in the street. There were plenty of kids outside, with parent’s eyes watching from inside our homes. We felt safe in numbers. We felt safe because we could see our parents peeking out from kitchen windows.

There was a huge shift in the late 80’s and early 90’s, a fear of strangers and the beginning of a two-parent working household. This lead many children inside or to the backyards. In my community, our backyard fences are frequently 6-feet tall. Today, I rarely see children playing on the sidewalks or in the streets in their neighborhoods. Since fewer children are venturing out of their houses, there are fewer eyes watching, making the neighborhoods seem less safe. In my opinion, this not only is affecting the safety of communities, it is affecting children’s social skills.

What are your thoughts on this? Am I right in saying that neighborhoods, whether suburban or urban, need eyes watching? Does a bustling sidewalk equal safety?

I’m currently working on a research paper for school, so my mind is a little cluttered at the moment. The class is teaching diversity in the classroom, and my topic I’ve chosen to research is environmental racism. So far, I have read a couple of books by Jonathan Kozol, a prominent author  in detailing segregation in our schools, that describe instances of environmental racism. I chose this topic because 1) I am an advocate of cleaning up our environment, 2) our cities are very segregated for the most part due to poor city planning (this poor planning also affects my bike riding!), and 3) I grew up in a desegregated school district that had enforced busing, but has since discontinued this practice leading to more segregated schools.

Kozol’s books specifically focus on apartheid education and how there is great resistance to move towards integration. In part, this is due to people’s ignorance and the government’s unwillingness to do anything about it. A couple of things that have struck me, and why I chose my topic of environmental racism, is how poor communities are surrounded by manufacturing and industrial plants. It’s not that these people have chosen to live near the paper plant that occasionally has a toxic chemical spill, instead the paper plant chooses a community that they know won’t fight them. The poor community doesn’t fight the plant moving into their neighborhood because they don’t know how to or who to contact, and they usually don’t have the financial means to do it or, unfortunately, the education to even know that they can fight something like this.

How can we expect children to learn in such a decrepid environment such as East St. Louis?

Another interesting topic that Kozol’s research shows is that some communities have literally segregated their racial populations by physically altering a neighborhood or cutting off one section of town to another by removing a bridge or building a freeway. For instance, East St. Louis (a prime example of environmental racism) built a bridge, that the neighboring suburban community had fought, connecting a poorer neighborhood to a more wealthy neighborhood. During an Independence Day celebration, the wealthier suburban neighborhood blocked access across the bridge so that the people from the other side couldn’t partake in the festivities. They claimed that the reason this was done was because they were worried about violence and crime. However, they completely segregated themselves from what they perceived as a racially inferior group of people. How truly unpatriotic for a July 4th celebration.

The biggest contention I have is that so many of our cities are poorly designed with no central meeting area or community center that makes a community feel connected. If we could redesign some of our suburban areas, our cities would most likely become more desegregated on their own, which would lead to desegregated schools. Desegregated schools allow children to become familiar with many cultures, which is a more accurate picture of what their adult lives will be like. Children learning in a desegregated environment are more comfortable in social situations, and social skills are just as important as academic ones. As I continue researching how chemical toxins affect children’s learning capacity and how communities purposely segregate themselves because of their own ignorance, I will update my posts to include my findings.

I have a personal dislike for JP Morgan Chase Bank. They canceled my husband’s credit card, even though it was paid in full, and paid in a timely manner without any late payments. They closed his card for very vague reasons that we still don’t understand. However, they recently posted a profit that made the stock market zoom off the charts. So, does this mean our economy is now recovering (in part due to JP Morgan Chase)?

Stock Market October 14th, 2009

I’m slightly hesitant to say we’re in a recovery, even with the profits posted and the stocks improving.  In my opinion, I think the economy has seen the worst, in terms of banks losing so much money on irresponsible loan practices, which negatively impacted our economy. Yet, with a high unemployment rate, or people living in fear of losing their jobs, consumers aren’t yet ready to spend like there’s no tomorrow (nor do I hope this happens anytime too soon). I, personally, feel like the majority of the population will become more financially aware and avoid sinking further into debt given the lessons learned from their own individual mistakes and the mistakes of large banks.

My view of the population’s habits may seem a bit optimistic, I guess I’m just a “glass is half full” kind of gal. In contrast however, I’m not nearly as optimistic as some realtor’s seem. For instance, my husband was searching for homes in our price range (mid $200’s) through Craig’s list the other day. Many homes in my neighborhood have fallen into foreclosure and banks are now trying to sell them for half of what the original owner paid for them a few years ago. But, some of the homes realtor’s are trying to sell are still around $700,000 or more. I understand how some homeowners may be desperate to sell their homes and do not want to lose much money on them. However, this is quite unrealistic given the current housing market and economy (especially California’s  state economy!).

So where does our economy go from here? And, when will we truly see a marked improvement? In a perfect world, our economy would shrink slightly, compared to what it was. Consumers would be more thoughtful about their purchases, instead of excessively consuming. Our country would begin to manufacture some of our own items, instead of relying entirely on imports from other countries. (Maybe this is too general of a statement, but I’m trying to make a point). Cities and towns alike would build a network around local businesses, supporting each other’s goods and services, generating income that moves within a city and across a county, state, or internationally (new money obviously needs to enter any city or town to drive the economy). Cities and towns would also work on building a better infrastructure of transportation, incorporating pedestrian friendly centers and bike friendly towns to reduce pollution.

When people can feel confident that they are not in jeopardy of losing their jobs, can save money for rainy days, and purchase items using cash, not credit, then I think we will be in the black and on our way to a healthy economy. The lessons learned during the depression of the 1930’s are similar to the lesson’s we are relearning today, don’t over extend yourself, your income, or your credit: live frugally.

I recently read an article in Scientific American about how bike friendly cities have many more women bicycle riders, and how one can gauge how ‘bicycle friendly’ a city is by looking at how many women are riding their bikes. For example, a terrific bike friendly city in Europe is Copenhagen. Copenhagen has a lot of women on bicycles due to their terrific bike infrastructure. (You can check out this great photo-based blog that inspired me to ride my bike.) Another county, cited in the Scientific American article, was the Netherlands. According the article, 55% of their bicycle riders are female.

The main topic of the Scientific American article is that women are more risk-adverse, so if you encounter a city where there are many women bicyclists, then it means they feel safe riding. Feeling safe riding a bike through a city usually depends on separated bike lanes, a bike infrastructure that gets you where you want to go, and more bicyclists on the road, which means the motorists are more aware of them. When a city lacks this type of infrastructure, it’s difficult to feel safe riding down a busy street among motorists who barely realize you’re there.

For instance, I ride my bike through the suburbs of Los Angeles to and from work and school. I’ve chosen a longer, less trafficked route that lacks any kind of bike lanes or signs. I’m often reminded at intersections that motorists don’t see me. So many motorists blindly whip around a corner not even glancing in a cross walk. (I mix my bike riding between sidewalk and street only because I feel safest doing so.) I’ve gotten accustomed to looking over my shoulder and swiveling my head in all directions to make sure a car isn’t running a red light or a left-hand turner sees me riding through the intersection. I’ve become a defensive bicyclist.

Me biking through Santa Barbara

If cities want to encourage more people to ride, then they need to get more women on the road. To do so, cities need to create a bike infrastructure where people feel safe riding in the bike lanes. Separated lanes are terrific, as are clearly marked lanes. If the bike lanes ran diagonally through a city, to shorten the path to and from a destination, this would also encourage more riders. If the lanes were separated from fast-moving vehicles, this too would encourage more riders. And, if the separated bike lanes got riders to and from stores, schools, and office buildings, then again more people would hop on their bikes. Currently, the separated bike paths in my community run through the park. There aren’t any stores in the park, or schools, or places of work. The only other separated bike lane we have runs along a bus line. This is very helpful, but then again, why wouldn’t you just hop on the bus instead of riding 5 miles to work?

There are a few cities working to improve their bicycle infrastructure, like New York City. I was there last summer and saw many more people on bikes, but in Mid-Town Manhattan, I didn’t see many bike lanes. It was a little intimidating watching people ride their bikes among the weaving taxi cabs. I surely didn’t feel like I could ride my bike in that city, at least not yet. I know that in the United States,  Davis, California and Portland, Oregon are bicycle havens, but I haven’t gotten the opportunity to check these cities out.

The problem boils down to what comes first? If people aren’t riding their bikes, a city doesn’t see a reason to improve something that no one uses. If a city doesn’t improve it’s infrastructure, then only the die-hard bicyclists will continue to ride and potential riders will be discouraged. It’s good to see more articles about city riding popping up in magazines, maybe this will encourage more riders.

Do you want to ride, but are intimidated by the traffic? Do you ride, but have to be wary of unaware motorists? Do you live in a city that is improving its bicycle infrastructure. I’m curious to know if others would be more willing to ride if their city improved their bike lanes.