It's 15 years since I got turned on to Jane Jacobs while I was in the midst of travelling around Europe with my dog. Her writing is both dense with insights and so damn readable!
I spent two months in Paris and became a short term street character because my dog was so recognisable and friendly. I replicated that experience in other locations. I've also been part of informal neighbourhood watch groups based around dog owners collecting in local parks. We check in on each other, and because we all walk our animals so much, are invested in our neighbourhoods.
A bit of both. People come for the dog and stay for the human :-)
My dog - a 75kg Alaskan Malamute - was like a walking reference for me. The thinking seemed to be, that if I could have such a well-behaved companion, then I was a good guy. They could welcome us into their homes - we were a bit too conspicuous to disappear if we misbehaved!
I also felt quite privileged in the way that complete strangers opened up to me. Very moving experiences of people telling me of pets they'd loved, and then crying and hugging me.
I remember visiting a small store in a Parisian neighbourhood that I was exploring for the first time. The proprietor asked if I lived near Rue Montmartre. "Why yes, but how?"
"Oh your dog's famous" she said.
I met so many wonderful people on the road through dozens and dozens of cities. Locals and tourists alike would talk to me - all assuming I was local because of the dog. Some people would buy me a meal so I could talk about my experience, others opened their homes to me and I'm still in touch with them nearly 20y later despite living on a different continent now. Ironically after 36+ countries that I've visited with my dogs, the least friendly toward them (in public infrastructure terms) has been my home town of Sydney! In London I walked up Downing Street and was greeted by the Town Crier of London; I've walked the city walls of Dubrovnik, the underground of Naples, and ridden a Venetian gondola - all with my dog. Yet in Sydney and other parts of Australia you can't walk certain city streets or footpaths without a security guard or policeman escorting you away because "no dogs".
This is an interesting approach to crime and safety!
Based on my experience living in a few North European countries I would like to bring another viewpoint. If we take The Nordic (Sweden, Norway, Finland) and the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) as examples, then the only streets that are unsafe due to crime are the suburbs of Stockholm, Malmö, Gothenburg and some other cities where there is a high concentration of unemployed and immigrant population. Put together hundreds or thousands of people who lack economical opportunities, are poor and have a lot of time to hang around and you get a concentration of crime, drugs and unsafe streets. Eventually riots.
On the other hand, if it weren't for cars, I would not be afraid to send a 10y old child walking on any street in Estonia, Finland, Latvia or Lithuania even though all the streets of all the cities of all these countries absolutely lack the local small business owners keeping an eye on things. A big part of this is weather. Mostly it is so rainy, snowy and cold, that the (double) shop doors have to be closed - thus nobody watches over the street....but nobody also hangs around on the street, because it is cold. :-)
The other thing is that in North Europe people don't talk to each other. You don't talk with the shopkeeper or your neighbour or any other stranger. Thus such local safekeepers cannot appear. But the streets are safe!
(When it comes to crime, but could be much better in regards of traffic.)
The cold is very interesting. I have never lived in such a country, so didn't get an intuition for it. And nothing I've read on urbanism so far comes from Nordic Countries. Very interesting, thanks for sharing!
On the poverty: yes, it's a major driver of crime. I discuss it in the premium article this week!
"The other thing is that in North Europe people don't talk to each other. You don't talk with the shopkeeper or your neighbour or any other stranger. Thus such local safekeepers cannot appear. But the streets are safe! "
Because there is cultural homogeneity. This is the politically incorrect "third rail" that American commentators will not touch. We want "diversity" but only on comfortable, safe, familiar terms - like a stage setting or Disneyland environment or tourist town... which isn't the diversity of real cultural differences.
Thank you for your fascinating articles. I’m always impressed by your knowledge of the topic and the data you provide to backup your conclusions. Until now, I have not been an expert in any of the article topics. In this piece near the end, you talk about lighting in the urban environment and its relation to crime. Lighting design in the urban realm is something that I do know a lot about.
Your summary about the value of lighting at night is basically right. But I’m concerned with statements like “but they can’t see what is happening around them, crime can take place unabated.” Do you have any evidence that this is true, or do you just think it’s intuitively obvious? I fear you may be reinforcing two misunderstandings that dog us in the lighting design community. These are: “Light prevents crime” and “more light means less crime”. There has been very little research to prove or disprove this, but my understanding is that there is scant evidence that light reduces crime and in some cases there is evidence that it increases crime. And of course, plenty of crime takes place during the daytime!
You do say “good lighting”. I’m not sure what you mean by “good”, but hopefully you mean high-quality. There is much low-quality lighting out there installed in the name of security and crime prevention. Sometimes it can make a neighborhood less secure when glare makes it harder to see a threat, or when you abruptly move from an area with excessive light levels into an area with appropriate light levels that now is perceived as too dark.
The “more is better” approach is also terrible for the environment, bad for wildlife, and in some cases human health. Excess light = wasted light = wasted energy = increased CO2 emissions. Excessive light increases skyglow making it harder to see the stars and maintain a direct visual connection with the Universe. A lot more evidence has piled up in recent years showing that anthropogenic light at night is bad for all kinds of wildlife, and plants too. And then there are humans. We need darkness at night for good sleep and if we don’t get good sleep, many negative health effects ensue.
And lighting in the urban realm is a social justice and equity issue. Cities have lit up “high-crime” neighborhoods with high-quantity, low-quality lighting in the hope it will reduce crime. Everyone should have access to high-quality lighting that makes their neighborhoods comfortable, reassuring, and secure. And every resident should have the right to darkness at night in their home and on their property.
And two more things:
You say: “Lack of visibility is one of several reasons why parks are actually crime spots: The less well-lit and farther from buildings (and hence potential witnesses), the riskier an area.”. Any evidence, or just intuitively obvious to you?
The Batman movie pic (I assume) ironically exhibits some of the principles of high-quality outdoor lighting. Light the “walls” of the outdoor room so you can see what’s out there and people will be silhouetted against the wall. Light the destination as the brightest thing in field of view (the doorway?), provide sufficient light levels on the ground so you can see any trip hazards. The reason it looks dark is mainly because all the vertical surfaces are very dark materials, not because there isn’t “enough” light. The “rookie mistake” would be locating four big unshielded floodlights in each corner blasting down into the space.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment. These are among my favorite: from experts in the field that I cover, helping correct me or improve the article.
I'll do a broad answer first, then the more specific one. It's impossible for me to be a world-class expert on all the topics I cover. My approach is to read the experts that I can access, as much as I can, as fast as I can. That means usually books, blog posts, and research papers. That means ramping up fast on topics I sometimes know little about upfront, and it means I will get things wrong. If knowledge goes from 0 (total ignorant) to 10 (world-class expert), I try to go from whatever my level is to, say, 8, and then explain it back at the 6 level. I do that because I think it's important that we get the core factors of many disciplines right, because only with that generalist approach can we solve some of our problems. Does that make sense?
"Interviews with criminals suggest that they consider visibility when selecting targets" (TREVOR BENNETT & RICHARD WRIGHT, BURGLARS ON BURGLARY: PREVENTION AND THE OFFENDER 58-62 (1984) Sally E. Merry, Defensible Space Undefended: Social Factors in Crime Control Through Environmental Design
"A(n) experimental study randomly selected sixty convenience stores and increased the visibility of cashiers to passersby through measures like removing signs on windows and increasing lighting. The study found that these stores had significantly fewer robberies in an
eight-month follow-up period compared to the sixty control stores with no
additional visibility measures." ( WAYMAN J. CROW & JAMES L. BULL, ROBBERY DETERRENCE: AN APPLIED BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE DEMONSTRATION—FINAL REPORT (1975). )
"Lighting should also increase natural surveillance, both because it
increases visibility and because it encourages more people to congregate in
the lighted place. Many studies have documented the relationship between
lighting and crime in different physical contexts." (Katyal, supra note 3, at 1056-57. CYRIL BURT, THE YOUNG DELINQUENT 160-63 (1925); KATE PAINTER, INST. OF
LIGHTING ENG’RS, A GUIDE FOR CRIME AND DISORDER REDUCTION THROUGH A
PUBLIC LIGHTING STRATEGY (1999); KEN PEASE, INST. OF LIGHTING ENG’RS, LIGHTING AND CRIME 7-8 (1999), MARY S. SMITH, NAT’L INST. OF JUSTICE, CRIME PREVENTION THROUGH ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN IN PARKING FACILITIES 3 (1996) CRIME PREVENTION
THROUGH HOUSING DESIGN 49 (Paul Stollard ed., 1991), Sherry Plaster Carter et al.,
Zoning Out Crime and Improving Community Health in Sarasota, Florida: “Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design)
Usually, in these situations, I look at the source paper when the point it makes is polemic or crucial. Since lighting was neither, I didn't look at the papers directly. Is that reasonable?
More generally, I'm shocked at the poor level of evidence in urbanism overall. I expected it to be one of the most studied fields given the stakes, but there's little research, and most of it is observational! As a result, I wouldn't be surprised if your developed experience has given you more insight than papers. Given that, I'd love to hear more from you. What else have you noticed or learned about lighting in your professional experience? For example, I don't know what "high-quantity, low quality lighting" means!
Parks --> As I started looking into available evidence, that part of the article took life and now is a standalone (future) article. So yes, I agree there's much nuance needed there! Especially because crime is just one of many aspects that are relevant for parks.
The Batman pic is used ironically indeed. In fact, it's the fact that it's not a cul-de-sac that made it most relevant for me. Also, the scene is well-lit, but because it's a movie rather than a street. That said, hearing your description of what is good lighting is super interesting, so I'd love to hear more!
I've been subscribed for a year I love how you are able to dissect huge topics such as seaflooding as well as these tiny but important topics as urban design. I love your example of little kids free to roam around.
I want to provide a couple personal examples. I grew up in Downtown Vancouver, specifically in Yaletown. This is known as one of the urbanist haralded successes, supposedly inspired by Jane Jacobs, and it even has its own name, "Vancouverism".
For what its worth, the only great parts of Yaletown worth going to (in my opinion), is not the new parts with shiny towers and parks. The problem is that some of these areas are far away from any shops, and they're purely residential. The only saving grace is the old industrial part built 100 years ago now lined with restaurants, shops, tech companies and brick facade buildings (Mainland & Hamilton Streets).
Without these 2 blocks, all Yaletown would be would be some suburban towers along some tree lined streets and far away from any shops. In fact, there's a place across town with just this situation, called "Coal Harbour". It's mostly the same development pattern as Yaletown, but it didn't have any old industrial buildings, so today is 100% residential and only luxury condo towers. The local saying is that half of these condo towers in Coal Harbour are owned by the Chinese and are empty.
So even in the most supposedly "successful" urbanism of the last 30 years, the only part that makes it work is the part that was built over 100 years ago.
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My second point, is that we actually know how to build good "urbanism" today. They're called "malls". Most people drive long distances to go to these places, and they like to hang out inside them for hours. In reality, there is nothing really special about malls, other than that they are lined with storefronts, car free, and weather protected.
There is one exceptional urban place, not in my hometown, but nearby in Whistler. The car-free downtown mall is probably the most charming ski town in the world, and it's part of what makes it internationally famous. People travel from across the world to stay in Whistler, and pay upwards of $500 a night in the local hotels. I just wish we built more of these places.
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My question to you is as follows... Do you know any places around the world that are not small towns, where young kids are free to roam around without fear of being run over by cars, harassed by child protection services, or other safety issues (eg kidnapping in china)? I'm asking this question for myself. Thank you!
On Yaletown: Jane Jacobs would say this doesn't work because it doesn't have commercial areas at the ground level. It sounds like that's the big mistake there? Why isn't there?
Malls are interesting, because you're right that, inside, they're sometimes pleasurable. They do have many issues, like not being in open air or not having enough greenery. But more importantly, they're not viable in that they require residential areas to be separated, and since they attract so many people who can't live close by, by definition most of them require external residential areas, which means a suburban lifestyle, which doesn't make people happy because they spend 99% of their time outside of the pleasurable area...
Would you rather live in google street view or an HDR photo? tsk tsk Thomas.
Bias-inducing imagery aside, cool article. Eyes on the street & visibility seem like real useful concepts.
Although now that I say that, there are dark sides to environments with that kind of social power / control over behavior. I wouldn't want to live in Japan because of the overwhelming every day pressure to conform. But also Burning Man has eyes on the street but high non-conformity?
"I wouldn't want to live in Japan because of the overwhelming every day pressure to conform"
I just returned from Tokyo after being away for a few years (I lived there for 2 years and have intermediate language ability). If conformity can be measured by what people wear, Tokyo is far more non-conformist than San Francisco. And the buildings are also far more non-conformist than SF - the zoning rules basically say that if the building meets safety standards and height/area rules, you can build a neon-pink copy of Neuschwanstein if you want to (also, almost everywhere allows small-scale retail or commercial, which is one reason there are so many small (and often quirky) shops.
Remember growing up in Mexico City, when I was probably not older than 8 or 9, my mother used to send me to pay her department store credit account to downtown. I never feared being attacked or anything. By 12, I used to ride my bike all over the city.
Multifactorial, I think. More importantly, the increase on population density and the closing of the neighborhood stores that could not compete with the big grocery store corporations, and a loss of community connection
Although I am not totally sure, I learned that increased population density (overcrowding) it is associated with increased violence and crime, particularly in places where the area of expansion is limited, as it would be the case of Mexico City and Manhattan.
By allowing a crazy population expansion, in Mexico City we have lost the community feeling of my childhood, where in the block we knew everyone, everybody's house was our house, and we knew by name our grocers (Don Paco, Don Fede, Don Manuel y los Ocampo) and even next door neighbors have become strangers.
I feel like it’s also old city building vs new city building. Everything that was built a long time ago is brick and stonework, which are beautiful buildings to put homes and shops in. Everything that was built more recently is metal with no shape, it’s whatever building materials are cheapest and the street level is barren and ugly with no character. It’s like IKEA built a city.
No one will build large stone or brick buildings anymore because it’s too expensive and requires too much labor, but the result is a place no one wants to live or work or dine or shop, we go to the older districts for that!
Yes! Here I'm focusing on crime, but many more articles coming. What should be the height of buildings? The role of cars? Of freedom? Why are buildings so ugly?
BTW most housing in Spain is still built in brick!
The height of buildings vs the space between them is an important matter. New York has its towers but the footpaths and streets are relatively wide. London has narrow streets but the buildings are not that high. In each case the proportions work.
The worst combination is tall buildings and narrow streets. So claustrophobic. Unfortunately central Sydney has become like that. Some efforts have been made to "widen" streets for pedestrians by removing vehicular traffic. However there is a fussiness of creating specific uses for a lot of the public space and parkland. There is little unstructured open space where people can just walk, run, lie down, stare at the sky.
Very cool article Tomas. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
I'm glad also you talk about safety, an issue often viewed with contempt on the left but that is so central to people's well-being. I'm in Japan this month and the safety is amazingly liberating, it just completely changes the outlook on life that the world outside is not a hostile and dangerous place.
Urbanism helps but many neighbourhoods are pretty much like the infamous French "banlieues", but are still very safe. Major difference here is the poor are not desperate: unemployment is low, they can find a job, "low-skill" workers are treated politely by most and generally not disrespected by society, their kids can have decent education and health, and they can expect a good life - starting with a life expectancy that's close to the richest (the U.S. being the extreme case of the opposite).
Also, I think there may be a darker side to this safety. It's just observation and intuition, I'm not sure there are formal studies on this, but I think there is an emergent cooperation where police sort of outsources the policing of rowdy youth to organized crime (as in, very organized and hierarchical crime). Basically the Yakuza are left to kill each other freely, and (very effectively) scare rowdy youth in line, as long as they don't threaten (most) civilians. This sort of "cooperation" is almost palpable in keeping clients safe in the nightlife areas (or at least was, when I hung around there 30 years ago). Any drunk or brute causing trouble, and almost immediately some scary dudes come out of nowhere and disappear dragging the trouble maker away from view. Police will come too, within ten minutes, but by then business is already back to normal. Not sure that's a good thing. But it's effective for sure, at least in the short term.
Indeed, poverty is a big piece about crime. I talk about it in the premium article.
And you have an interesting thought on the emergence of organized crime when police is not available. I've been toying with the idea of writing about that. The thought needs more maturing...
Great article, and looking forward to more of the series! As a former New Yorker and current San Franciscan (who's current street is featured as a negative example here!), I yearn for more lively streets -- though nearby Spark Social is a wonderful example of newly-built good urbanism.
I can't help but see parallels with current issues surrounding global supply chains; 20th century economics tends to conveniently ignore the accumulative impact of tiny externalities over time. If something's slightly cheaper to buy from a chain store (e.g. "I can get this for $2.75 from Walgreens vs. $3.15 from the local bodega"), many folks go with the former. Over time this erodes the small-but real benefit of having businesses invested in the community. Similar with supply chains and economic resilience or over-reliance on a supplier... I feel that we often weigh the immediate and more measurable impact of 'economies of scale' disproportionately higher than the longer-term, less measurable impact of 'resilience'.
In the long run resilience tends to find its way into the equation (resulting in wonderful old cities), but when developers primary goal is to build-then-sell, there's absolutely no incentive to think about long term neighborhood health. I'm all for making it easier to build new and more housing, but aligning developer incentives for long-term neighborhood health (which, as this ought to create value for the community, should be possible to make economically enticing) would go a long way.
Would you have ideas to bring back the value of proximity, other than better legislation that basically taxes distance? I think it would be so central to a better world.
Proximity can mean many things. If you mean walkable cities, the main problem is building height, which has been artificially kept low. The solution is to kill that limitation.
Yeah, let's keep it human-scale and geography-dependent though. In Singapore or Hong-Kong, where you basically have too much sun for most people year-round, as high as technology allows may be OK. New York at 40N, sky scrapers all around may still be OK much of the year, though perhaps many would like more light/sun in winter. In Paris, at 49N, I wouldn't like buildings to be taller than the Hausmanian 6 floor limit. Too much shade!
Nearness can be a false economy. I see delivery vans taking over our streets to deliver small items. More pollution as a result and the breakneck speed of delivery vehicles racing to meet unreasonable deadlines makes roads everywhere less safe.
It will be a decade before existing trucks are replaced with electric. It won't change the behaviour of delivery drivers. I am more likely to be knocked down by a/n (electric) bike than any other vehicle since they cross parks and footpaths. Neighbourhoods have to be reconfigured for drop off points. The nearest suburban drop off location to me is about 2km away. I'm not going to walk that far to collect groceries or other items. As our population ages, that is even less likely.
Amazon has set unnecessarily high standards. I can't choose slower delivery or to group parcels before delivery any more. One day I had 3 separate deliveries for 3 books by one author from the same publisher! Insanity!
FWIW I see this in Europe work wonderfully, even without electric delivery.
• Delivery vans are cautious. You just need to create the physical environment for it. A stroad is terrible. A narrow street made for pedestrians is great.
• Why would you need to reconfigure neighborhoods for dropoff points?
• Dropoff points can easily be every 500m or so
• Air delivery!
The overarching point is: I have seen walkable areas with cars allowed only for local delivery and it can work really well
Thanks MW and Tomas for the interesting thread. Just wanted mention, MW, we probably talked of a different scale when I meant proximity. Mostly meant small neighbourhood shops you can walk to, instead of large malls you must drive to (less sustainable, ugly, no neighbourhood life).
Though I think the proximity concept in general must come back for supply chains in general, as we saw with covid for e.g. masks, long supply chains carry risk, and that cost is externalised in the current legislation. It also, of course, destroy local jobs. Not talking about autarky or full protectionism, but perhaps, reforming WTO to allow sufficient protectionism a 15-30% national/local producers for most goods, and self-sufficiency for certain key goods like food - sufficient national calorie production for the risks of supply chain disruption.
Competition has many unique benefits, but when you get to a single global winner, it is not good.
I think we are realising that completely erasing the relevance of distance in supply chains, as allowed by technology now, was not without risks. Far must mean something again.
Hi Joannes. I did mean it may take 2km to walk to neighbourhood shops - that's the nature of sprawling suburbia. A mall might require a much longer walk or car journey. It's like living in a country town/village.
Firstly can I just say how enjoyable this was to read, but at the same time fascinating and thought provoking. I will definitely get around to subscribing as I could read articles like this all day long.
As for the topic in hand, I'm sure it suffers from the problem of both being potentially "solvable" given enough central planning and aligned objectives (see the theme park or university examples mentioned in the comments), we have unlimited 'data' at our fingertips and enough examples of towns and cities to surely be able to have AI/machine learning give us 'next block' suggestions/analysis for the optimal way to expand existing urban centres (given rarely in the West entire cities are built from scratch). Basically we should be able to know what cities need to move closer to being desirable to live in.
But also at the same time with so many competing interests, and the fact most of us live in free democracies that aren't centrally planned, beyond what local governments have the power to do, which typically doesn't go quite far enough to equate to the theme park/university situations, it's typically an organic method of growth that prevails, with an uneven spread of 'desirable' locations in towns perfectly shown in the example photos in the articles. We really try to plan cities but as the article demonstrates, far too many modern streets end up lifeless and soulless.
I have faith that we can continue to improve cities, but am resigned to the fact that with so many competing interests, change is hard to come by in most countries.
It’s worth digging into Jacobs eyes on the street a bit more by paraphrasing an example she uses in the book.
She gives an example neighbors and shopkeepers noticing a young girl playing on the street. A man unfamiliar to one observer comes up and instructs the girl to follow him home. She refuses and he somewhat roughly begins taking her home by the arm. The observer intervenes only to discover through the intercession of another neighbor that this person is the girl’s father and she is expected home for dinner. (Again, I’m paraphrasing because I don’t have it in front of me.)
Jacobs point is that random people, including those wealthy transients, don’t have enough knowledge of a neighborhood and their eyes on the street aren’t as useful in sudsing out potential transgressions, they might even falsely accuse people! It’s the locals with deep community knowledge who can make more informed judgements.
One could imagine, for example, an eye on the street calling the police whenever a black person came by under a misguided and racist view that black people don’t belong there and will do crimes. This is why there has been a recent backlash to the eyes on the street idea, equating it with broken windows policing and NIMBYesque ideas of preserving neighborhood character. To be clear, I think this is a misreading of Jacobs!
As TP says, it’s not just any eyes but a specific set of eyes informed with local knowledge. Otherwise it’s just “Karens”!
Interesting series, Tomas… looking forward to all your info.
If not now, I hope sometime you’ll look at co-housing communities. The idea of deliberate architecture for living, often centered around a public square (of some sort) intrigues me, especially as I get older.
Aug 6, 2023·edited Aug 6, 2023Liked by Tomas Pueyo
The whole co-housing concept, as it seems to be born and developing in Scandinavian countries primarily. I think the key thing is they are called deliberate communities.
Most of the co-housing groups I’ve read about, in the US and elsewhere, are small residential areas where the architecture is conducive to fostering a sense of face-to-face community, with vehicles stored around the perimeter and a shared, walkable courtyard or town commons surrounded by individual homes. Many homes have kitchen windows facing the common to encourage seeing what’s going on in the neighborhood, and most have a shared building for gathering including occasional meals or holiday celebrations. There’s often a guest room or two in the common building as well.
Generally these co-housing communities don’t have shops or retail, but they often have community gathering places like play yards or park benches outside, gardens and walking paths, and workshops or studios indoors that let residents share space and tools.
As I age, many aspects of this kind of living appeal to me: neighbors that I know being close but not too close, lovely outdoor areas I don’t have to maintain entirely by myself, the option to share some meals, living near people with values somewhat like mine. These places run on shared constitutions- that’s the tricky part, but there are a lot that are succeeding from what I read.
Some co-housing communities are all ages, and some are senior-oriented. Some are new construction and some are remodels… think converted shopping malls?
I’m actually interested in a co-HORSING community: a group of cottages with room for dogs and a community equestrian center to share with other aging horse ladies who want to continue our active, independent lifestyle in a small home, with friends nearby to keep an eye on each other and enjoy our hobby horses together.
Developers are always building to maximize profits and minimize costs. I believe there could be a niche for maximizing lifestyle and a sense of shared community with less concern about square footage costs and fashionable design trends.
An early and charming feel of co-housing that interests me are California bungalow courts, many still found in Pasadena and surrounding areas that were also called motor courts. The existing bungalow communities are now close to 100 years old and quite popular, it seems.
I had no idea about any of this. I just read through your comment and the wikipedia links. This is fascinating! Thanks for sharing. Please, do keep sharing similar content with me. I might end up writing on it!
You're welcome Tomas. This safer-cities topic has sparked a lot of great conversation here. Clearly, we all seem to realize that better communities could exist, where we feel safer and more like we belong... but the barriers to creating those more charming neighborhoods are daunting! Great to have so many passionate voices chime in.
So I have written to you before about one topic that I think would fit great with your skills and the interests of your audience. I realize the whole world is your oyster here but... I'd sure like to learn more from the Uncharted Territories sphere about homelessness/unhoused populations... and I think it has a lot to do with this the city series!
Thomas, if you haven’t already seen it, Strong Towns (https://www.strongtowns.org) has many good articles on improving city design, and the benefits of traditional, dense, smaller retail versus big box stores and drive-thru restaurants. I think you might find the deep dives on city revenue per block especially interesting!
I've seen a few blogs / newsletters like this, but I find that they focus a lot on news and not much on fundamental articles. But I'll ask Andrew since he's around :)
I grew up in Tokyo in the 80s and 90s, and was *expected* to go out alone by the time I was in school. I suspect it's a bit imprecise to say "people know their neighbors, and they know these neighbors will have their children’s backs". It's more that the parents basically trust that there is such a network wherever the child could go, not that the parents themselves know the people involved. My parents (N=2, highly correlated) didn't know that many of the neighbors in our condo building, let alone people outside the building (I guess it's also possible I was oblivious as a child).
I also have to say that my instincts about what's safe and not safe were not really well-tuned by my childhood in Tokyo. It took me a while after I moved to the US to recognize the signs of unsafe places.
Yeah, great question. My understanding is that in terms of kids being out on the street, people were less paranoid in the past everywhere (because of higher fertility and child mortality?). So one guess is that Japan was able to maintain this norm because the crime rate never got too high? I'm not sure how well it was maintained throughout the modern history of Japan.
I have read that children are spending less time playing outdoors in Japan since I was a child—not sure how much of this is about safety concerns and how much is things like video games.
It's 15 years since I got turned on to Jane Jacobs while I was in the midst of travelling around Europe with my dog. Her writing is both dense with insights and so damn readable!
I spent two months in Paris and became a short term street character because my dog was so recognisable and friendly. I replicated that experience in other locations. I've also been part of informal neighbourhood watch groups based around dog owners collecting in local parks. We check in on each other, and because we all walk our animals so much, are invested in our neighbourhoods.
I wonder if your dog was actually the street character and you were just the...wingman?
A bit of both. People come for the dog and stay for the human :-)
My dog - a 75kg Alaskan Malamute - was like a walking reference for me. The thinking seemed to be, that if I could have such a well-behaved companion, then I was a good guy. They could welcome us into their homes - we were a bit too conspicuous to disappear if we misbehaved!
I also felt quite privileged in the way that complete strangers opened up to me. Very moving experiences of people telling me of pets they'd loved, and then crying and hugging me.
Wow!
Fascinating! Tell me more!
Also would love to hear other stories like this.
I remember visiting a small store in a Parisian neighbourhood that I was exploring for the first time. The proprietor asked if I lived near Rue Montmartre. "Why yes, but how?"
"Oh your dog's famous" she said.
I met so many wonderful people on the road through dozens and dozens of cities. Locals and tourists alike would talk to me - all assuming I was local because of the dog. Some people would buy me a meal so I could talk about my experience, others opened their homes to me and I'm still in touch with them nearly 20y later despite living on a different continent now. Ironically after 36+ countries that I've visited with my dogs, the least friendly toward them (in public infrastructure terms) has been my home town of Sydney! In London I walked up Downing Street and was greeted by the Town Crier of London; I've walked the city walls of Dubrovnik, the underground of Naples, and ridden a Venetian gondola - all with my dog. Yet in Sydney and other parts of Australia you can't walk certain city streets or footpaths without a security guard or policeman escorting you away because "no dogs".
Wow! Unbelievable! There's probably some deep insight here on urbanism and socialization...
This is an interesting approach to crime and safety!
Based on my experience living in a few North European countries I would like to bring another viewpoint. If we take The Nordic (Sweden, Norway, Finland) and the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) as examples, then the only streets that are unsafe due to crime are the suburbs of Stockholm, Malmö, Gothenburg and some other cities where there is a high concentration of unemployed and immigrant population. Put together hundreds or thousands of people who lack economical opportunities, are poor and have a lot of time to hang around and you get a concentration of crime, drugs and unsafe streets. Eventually riots.
On the other hand, if it weren't for cars, I would not be afraid to send a 10y old child walking on any street in Estonia, Finland, Latvia or Lithuania even though all the streets of all the cities of all these countries absolutely lack the local small business owners keeping an eye on things. A big part of this is weather. Mostly it is so rainy, snowy and cold, that the (double) shop doors have to be closed - thus nobody watches over the street....but nobody also hangs around on the street, because it is cold. :-)
The other thing is that in North Europe people don't talk to each other. You don't talk with the shopkeeper or your neighbour or any other stranger. Thus such local safekeepers cannot appear. But the streets are safe!
(When it comes to crime, but could be much better in regards of traffic.)
The cold is very interesting. I have never lived in such a country, so didn't get an intuition for it. And nothing I've read on urbanism so far comes from Nordic Countries. Very interesting, thanks for sharing!
On the poverty: yes, it's a major driver of crime. I discuss it in the premium article this week!
"The other thing is that in North Europe people don't talk to each other. You don't talk with the shopkeeper or your neighbour or any other stranger. Thus such local safekeepers cannot appear. But the streets are safe! "
Because there is cultural homogeneity. This is the politically incorrect "third rail" that American commentators will not touch. We want "diversity" but only on comfortable, safe, familiar terms - like a stage setting or Disneyland environment or tourist town... which isn't the diversity of real cultural differences.
Along the lines of the guilt/shame components of social control, "eyes on th street" work best where the "shame" component is prevalent.
Tomas,
Thank you for your fascinating articles. I’m always impressed by your knowledge of the topic and the data you provide to backup your conclusions. Until now, I have not been an expert in any of the article topics. In this piece near the end, you talk about lighting in the urban environment and its relation to crime. Lighting design in the urban realm is something that I do know a lot about.
Your summary about the value of lighting at night is basically right. But I’m concerned with statements like “but they can’t see what is happening around them, crime can take place unabated.” Do you have any evidence that this is true, or do you just think it’s intuitively obvious? I fear you may be reinforcing two misunderstandings that dog us in the lighting design community. These are: “Light prevents crime” and “more light means less crime”. There has been very little research to prove or disprove this, but my understanding is that there is scant evidence that light reduces crime and in some cases there is evidence that it increases crime. And of course, plenty of crime takes place during the daytime!
You do say “good lighting”. I’m not sure what you mean by “good”, but hopefully you mean high-quality. There is much low-quality lighting out there installed in the name of security and crime prevention. Sometimes it can make a neighborhood less secure when glare makes it harder to see a threat, or when you abruptly move from an area with excessive light levels into an area with appropriate light levels that now is perceived as too dark.
The “more is better” approach is also terrible for the environment, bad for wildlife, and in some cases human health. Excess light = wasted light = wasted energy = increased CO2 emissions. Excessive light increases skyglow making it harder to see the stars and maintain a direct visual connection with the Universe. A lot more evidence has piled up in recent years showing that anthropogenic light at night is bad for all kinds of wildlife, and plants too. And then there are humans. We need darkness at night for good sleep and if we don’t get good sleep, many negative health effects ensue.
And lighting in the urban realm is a social justice and equity issue. Cities have lit up “high-crime” neighborhoods with high-quantity, low-quality lighting in the hope it will reduce crime. Everyone should have access to high-quality lighting that makes their neighborhoods comfortable, reassuring, and secure. And every resident should have the right to darkness at night in their home and on their property.
And two more things:
You say: “Lack of visibility is one of several reasons why parks are actually crime spots: The less well-lit and farther from buildings (and hence potential witnesses), the riskier an area.”. Any evidence, or just intuitively obvious to you?
The Batman movie pic (I assume) ironically exhibits some of the principles of high-quality outdoor lighting. Light the “walls” of the outdoor room so you can see what’s out there and people will be silhouetted against the wall. Light the destination as the brightest thing in field of view (the doorway?), provide sufficient light levels on the ground so you can see any trip hazards. The reason it looks dark is mainly because all the vertical surfaces are very dark materials, not because there isn’t “enough” light. The “rookie mistake” would be locating four big unshielded floodlights in each corner blasting down into the space.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment. These are among my favorite: from experts in the field that I cover, helping correct me or improve the article.
I'll do a broad answer first, then the more specific one. It's impossible for me to be a world-class expert on all the topics I cover. My approach is to read the experts that I can access, as much as I can, as fast as I can. That means usually books, blog posts, and research papers. That means ramping up fast on topics I sometimes know little about upfront, and it means I will get things wrong. If knowledge goes from 0 (total ignorant) to 10 (world-class expert), I try to go from whatever my level is to, say, 8, and then explain it back at the 6 level. I do that because I think it's important that we get the core factors of many disciplines right, because only with that generalist approach can we solve some of our problems. Does that make sense?
More specifically, in this case, I read Jane Jacobs' book, about 50 blog posts, and a dozen papers, including two meta-analyses on the urban research on crime. This is the meta-analysis that goes deep in lighting: https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=944003031017123104066005085092100099000056068039003000127072100072070125091006089118102007096001105013006094074124124023093094013019005026020122077006091019103089068076017096025109121004027016127001024066017082120089027127125110024109089104074089110&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE
Here's what it says:
"Interviews with criminals suggest that they consider visibility when selecting targets" (TREVOR BENNETT & RICHARD WRIGHT, BURGLARS ON BURGLARY: PREVENTION AND THE OFFENDER 58-62 (1984) Sally E. Merry, Defensible Space Undefended: Social Factors in Crime Control Through Environmental Design
"A(n) experimental study randomly selected sixty convenience stores and increased the visibility of cashiers to passersby through measures like removing signs on windows and increasing lighting. The study found that these stores had significantly fewer robberies in an
eight-month follow-up period compared to the sixty control stores with no
additional visibility measures." ( WAYMAN J. CROW & JAMES L. BULL, ROBBERY DETERRENCE: AN APPLIED BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE DEMONSTRATION—FINAL REPORT (1975). )
"Lighting should also increase natural surveillance, both because it
increases visibility and because it encourages more people to congregate in
the lighted place. Many studies have documented the relationship between
lighting and crime in different physical contexts." (Katyal, supra note 3, at 1056-57. CYRIL BURT, THE YOUNG DELINQUENT 160-63 (1925); KATE PAINTER, INST. OF
LIGHTING ENG’RS, A GUIDE FOR CRIME AND DISORDER REDUCTION THROUGH A
PUBLIC LIGHTING STRATEGY (1999); KEN PEASE, INST. OF LIGHTING ENG’RS, LIGHTING AND CRIME 7-8 (1999), MARY S. SMITH, NAT’L INST. OF JUSTICE, CRIME PREVENTION THROUGH ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN IN PARKING FACILITIES 3 (1996) CRIME PREVENTION
THROUGH HOUSING DESIGN 49 (Paul Stollard ed., 1991), Sherry Plaster Carter et al.,
Zoning Out Crime and Improving Community Health in Sarasota, Florida: “Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design)
Usually, in these situations, I look at the source paper when the point it makes is polemic or crucial. Since lighting was neither, I didn't look at the papers directly. Is that reasonable?
More generally, I'm shocked at the poor level of evidence in urbanism overall. I expected it to be one of the most studied fields given the stakes, but there's little research, and most of it is observational! As a result, I wouldn't be surprised if your developed experience has given you more insight than papers. Given that, I'd love to hear more from you. What else have you noticed or learned about lighting in your professional experience? For example, I don't know what "high-quantity, low quality lighting" means!
Parks --> As I started looking into available evidence, that part of the article took life and now is a standalone (future) article. So yes, I agree there's much nuance needed there! Especially because crime is just one of many aspects that are relevant for parks.
The Batman pic is used ironically indeed. In fact, it's the fact that it's not a cul-de-sac that made it most relevant for me. Also, the scene is well-lit, but because it's a movie rather than a street. That said, hearing your description of what is good lighting is super interesting, so I'd love to hear more!
I've been subscribed for a year I love how you are able to dissect huge topics such as seaflooding as well as these tiny but important topics as urban design. I love your example of little kids free to roam around.
I want to provide a couple personal examples. I grew up in Downtown Vancouver, specifically in Yaletown. This is known as one of the urbanist haralded successes, supposedly inspired by Jane Jacobs, and it even has its own name, "Vancouverism".
For what its worth, the only great parts of Yaletown worth going to (in my opinion), is not the new parts with shiny towers and parks. The problem is that some of these areas are far away from any shops, and they're purely residential. The only saving grace is the old industrial part built 100 years ago now lined with restaurants, shops, tech companies and brick facade buildings (Mainland & Hamilton Streets).
Without these 2 blocks, all Yaletown would be would be some suburban towers along some tree lined streets and far away from any shops. In fact, there's a place across town with just this situation, called "Coal Harbour". It's mostly the same development pattern as Yaletown, but it didn't have any old industrial buildings, so today is 100% residential and only luxury condo towers. The local saying is that half of these condo towers in Coal Harbour are owned by the Chinese and are empty.
So even in the most supposedly "successful" urbanism of the last 30 years, the only part that makes it work is the part that was built over 100 years ago.
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My second point, is that we actually know how to build good "urbanism" today. They're called "malls". Most people drive long distances to go to these places, and they like to hang out inside them for hours. In reality, there is nothing really special about malls, other than that they are lined with storefronts, car free, and weather protected.
There is one exceptional urban place, not in my hometown, but nearby in Whistler. The car-free downtown mall is probably the most charming ski town in the world, and it's part of what makes it internationally famous. People travel from across the world to stay in Whistler, and pay upwards of $500 a night in the local hotels. I just wish we built more of these places.
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My question to you is as follows... Do you know any places around the world that are not small towns, where young kids are free to roam around without fear of being run over by cars, harassed by child protection services, or other safety issues (eg kidnapping in china)? I'm asking this question for myself. Thank you!
Thank you Jacob! I love these stories!
On Yaletown: Jane Jacobs would say this doesn't work because it doesn't have commercial areas at the ground level. It sounds like that's the big mistake there? Why isn't there?
Malls are interesting, because you're right that, inside, they're sometimes pleasurable. They do have many issues, like not being in open air or not having enough greenery. But more importantly, they're not viable in that they require residential areas to be separated, and since they attract so many people who can't live close by, by definition most of them require external residential areas, which means a suburban lifestyle, which doesn't make people happy because they spend 99% of their time outside of the pleasurable area...
Would you rather live in google street view or an HDR photo? tsk tsk Thomas.
Bias-inducing imagery aside, cool article. Eyes on the street & visibility seem like real useful concepts.
Although now that I say that, there are dark sides to environments with that kind of social power / control over behavior. I wouldn't want to live in Japan because of the overwhelming every day pressure to conform. But also Burning Man has eyes on the street but high non-conformity?
My uncle lived in Zurich for many years, noting the risk of neighbours reporting you for not mowing your lawn often enough.
"I wouldn't want to live in Japan because of the overwhelming every day pressure to conform"
I just returned from Tokyo after being away for a few years (I lived there for 2 years and have intermediate language ability). If conformity can be measured by what people wear, Tokyo is far more non-conformist than San Francisco. And the buildings are also far more non-conformist than SF - the zoning rules basically say that if the building meets safety standards and height/area rules, you can build a neon-pink copy of Neuschwanstein if you want to (also, almost everywhere allows small-scale retail or commercial, which is one reason there are so many small (and often quirky) shops.
Ha! Yes, fair, I should have made them more equal.
Indeed, I don't think eyes on the street is equal to conformity. BM is a good example. So was Jane Jacobs' NY.
Remember growing up in Mexico City, when I was probably not older than 8 or 9, my mother used to send me to pay her department store credit account to downtown. I never feared being attacked or anything. By 12, I used to ride my bike all over the city.
Crazy how much time has changed our cities
Probably a change that was not caused by urbanism there?
Multifactorial, I think. More importantly, the increase on population density and the closing of the neighborhood stores that could not compete with the big grocery store corporations, and a loss of community connection
Why would density be problematic here?
I will talk about the big grocery stores, you're right
Although I am not totally sure, I learned that increased population density (overcrowding) it is associated with increased violence and crime, particularly in places where the area of expansion is limited, as it would be the case of Mexico City and Manhattan.
By allowing a crazy population expansion, in Mexico City we have lost the community feeling of my childhood, where in the block we knew everyone, everybody's house was our house, and we knew by name our grocers (Don Paco, Don Fede, Don Manuel y los Ocampo) and even next door neighbors have become strangers.
I feel like it’s also old city building vs new city building. Everything that was built a long time ago is brick and stonework, which are beautiful buildings to put homes and shops in. Everything that was built more recently is metal with no shape, it’s whatever building materials are cheapest and the street level is barren and ugly with no character. It’s like IKEA built a city.
No one will build large stone or brick buildings anymore because it’s too expensive and requires too much labor, but the result is a place no one wants to live or work or dine or shop, we go to the older districts for that!
I’m loving this series Tomas!
Thank you!
Yes! Here I'm focusing on crime, but many more articles coming. What should be the height of buildings? The role of cars? Of freedom? Why are buildings so ugly?
BTW most housing in Spain is still built in brick!
The height of buildings vs the space between them is an important matter. New York has its towers but the footpaths and streets are relatively wide. London has narrow streets but the buildings are not that high. In each case the proportions work.
The worst combination is tall buildings and narrow streets. So claustrophobic. Unfortunately central Sydney has become like that. Some efforts have been made to "widen" streets for pedestrians by removing vehicular traffic. However there is a fussiness of creating specific uses for a lot of the public space and parkland. There is little unstructured open space where people can just walk, run, lie down, stare at the sky.
Very cool article Tomas. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
I'm glad also you talk about safety, an issue often viewed with contempt on the left but that is so central to people's well-being. I'm in Japan this month and the safety is amazingly liberating, it just completely changes the outlook on life that the world outside is not a hostile and dangerous place.
Urbanism helps but many neighbourhoods are pretty much like the infamous French "banlieues", but are still very safe. Major difference here is the poor are not desperate: unemployment is low, they can find a job, "low-skill" workers are treated politely by most and generally not disrespected by society, their kids can have decent education and health, and they can expect a good life - starting with a life expectancy that's close to the richest (the U.S. being the extreme case of the opposite).
Also, I think there may be a darker side to this safety. It's just observation and intuition, I'm not sure there are formal studies on this, but I think there is an emergent cooperation where police sort of outsources the policing of rowdy youth to organized crime (as in, very organized and hierarchical crime). Basically the Yakuza are left to kill each other freely, and (very effectively) scare rowdy youth in line, as long as they don't threaten (most) civilians. This sort of "cooperation" is almost palpable in keeping clients safe in the nightlife areas (or at least was, when I hung around there 30 years ago). Any drunk or brute causing trouble, and almost immediately some scary dudes come out of nowhere and disappear dragging the trouble maker away from view. Police will come too, within ten minutes, but by then business is already back to normal. Not sure that's a good thing. But it's effective for sure, at least in the short term.
Thank you! Love your perspective here on Japan.
Indeed, poverty is a big piece about crime. I talk about it in the premium article.
And you have an interesting thought on the emergence of organized crime when police is not available. I've been toying with the idea of writing about that. The thought needs more maturing...
Great article, and looking forward to more of the series! As a former New Yorker and current San Franciscan (who's current street is featured as a negative example here!), I yearn for more lively streets -- though nearby Spark Social is a wonderful example of newly-built good urbanism.
I can't help but see parallels with current issues surrounding global supply chains; 20th century economics tends to conveniently ignore the accumulative impact of tiny externalities over time. If something's slightly cheaper to buy from a chain store (e.g. "I can get this for $2.75 from Walgreens vs. $3.15 from the local bodega"), many folks go with the former. Over time this erodes the small-but real benefit of having businesses invested in the community. Similar with supply chains and economic resilience or over-reliance on a supplier... I feel that we often weigh the immediate and more measurable impact of 'economies of scale' disproportionately higher than the longer-term, less measurable impact of 'resilience'.
In the long run resilience tends to find its way into the equation (resulting in wonderful old cities), but when developers primary goal is to build-then-sell, there's absolutely no incentive to think about long term neighborhood health. I'm all for making it easier to build new and more housing, but aligning developer incentives for long-term neighborhood health (which, as this ought to create value for the community, should be possible to make economically enticing) would go a long way.
Spot on. Externalities unaccounted for is probably the biggest opportunity to create value in the world today!
Would you have ideas to bring back the value of proximity, other than better legislation that basically taxes distance? I think it would be so central to a better world.
Proximity can mean many things. If you mean walkable cities, the main problem is building height, which has been artificially kept low. The solution is to kill that limitation.
Yeah, let's keep it human-scale and geography-dependent though. In Singapore or Hong-Kong, where you basically have too much sun for most people year-round, as high as technology allows may be OK. New York at 40N, sky scrapers all around may still be OK much of the year, though perhaps many would like more light/sun in winter. In Paris, at 49N, I wouldn't like buildings to be taller than the Hausmanian 6 floor limit. Too much shade!
Nearness can be a false economy. I see delivery vans taking over our streets to deliver small items. More pollution as a result and the breakneck speed of delivery vehicles racing to meet unreasonable deadlines makes roads everywhere less safe.
Electric delivery is upon us. Plus there are other options, like delivery drop off points, which are acceptable in walkable cities
It will be a decade before existing trucks are replaced with electric. It won't change the behaviour of delivery drivers. I am more likely to be knocked down by a/n (electric) bike than any other vehicle since they cross parks and footpaths. Neighbourhoods have to be reconfigured for drop off points. The nearest suburban drop off location to me is about 2km away. I'm not going to walk that far to collect groceries or other items. As our population ages, that is even less likely.
Amazon has set unnecessarily high standards. I can't choose slower delivery or to group parcels before delivery any more. One day I had 3 separate deliveries for 3 books by one author from the same publisher! Insanity!
FWIW I see this in Europe work wonderfully, even without electric delivery.
• Delivery vans are cautious. You just need to create the physical environment for it. A stroad is terrible. A narrow street made for pedestrians is great.
• Why would you need to reconfigure neighborhoods for dropoff points?
• Dropoff points can easily be every 500m or so
• Air delivery!
The overarching point is: I have seen walkable areas with cars allowed only for local delivery and it can work really well
Thanks MW and Tomas for the interesting thread. Just wanted mention, MW, we probably talked of a different scale when I meant proximity. Mostly meant small neighbourhood shops you can walk to, instead of large malls you must drive to (less sustainable, ugly, no neighbourhood life).
Though I think the proximity concept in general must come back for supply chains in general, as we saw with covid for e.g. masks, long supply chains carry risk, and that cost is externalised in the current legislation. It also, of course, destroy local jobs. Not talking about autarky or full protectionism, but perhaps, reforming WTO to allow sufficient protectionism a 15-30% national/local producers for most goods, and self-sufficiency for certain key goods like food - sufficient national calorie production for the risks of supply chain disruption.
Competition has many unique benefits, but when you get to a single global winner, it is not good.
I think we are realising that completely erasing the relevance of distance in supply chains, as allowed by technology now, was not without risks. Far must mean something again.
Hi Joannes. I did mean it may take 2km to walk to neighbourhood shops - that's the nature of sprawling suburbia. A mall might require a much longer walk or car journey. It's like living in a country town/village.
Firstly can I just say how enjoyable this was to read, but at the same time fascinating and thought provoking. I will definitely get around to subscribing as I could read articles like this all day long.
As for the topic in hand, I'm sure it suffers from the problem of both being potentially "solvable" given enough central planning and aligned objectives (see the theme park or university examples mentioned in the comments), we have unlimited 'data' at our fingertips and enough examples of towns and cities to surely be able to have AI/machine learning give us 'next block' suggestions/analysis for the optimal way to expand existing urban centres (given rarely in the West entire cities are built from scratch). Basically we should be able to know what cities need to move closer to being desirable to live in.
But also at the same time with so many competing interests, and the fact most of us live in free democracies that aren't centrally planned, beyond what local governments have the power to do, which typically doesn't go quite far enough to equate to the theme park/university situations, it's typically an organic method of growth that prevails, with an uneven spread of 'desirable' locations in towns perfectly shown in the example photos in the articles. We really try to plan cities but as the article demonstrates, far too many modern streets end up lifeless and soulless.
I have faith that we can continue to improve cities, but am resigned to the fact that with so many competing interests, change is hard to come by in most countries.
Super insightful!
On one side, yes, amazing idea: AI could probably do this well.
On the other, as you say, what is "this"? What to optimize for? How do we decide?
And how much of it should be optimizing for a mandated common good vs the happiness that comes from freedom?
All super good questions!
It’s worth digging into Jacobs eyes on the street a bit more by paraphrasing an example she uses in the book.
She gives an example neighbors and shopkeepers noticing a young girl playing on the street. A man unfamiliar to one observer comes up and instructs the girl to follow him home. She refuses and he somewhat roughly begins taking her home by the arm. The observer intervenes only to discover through the intercession of another neighbor that this person is the girl’s father and she is expected home for dinner. (Again, I’m paraphrasing because I don’t have it in front of me.)
Jacobs point is that random people, including those wealthy transients, don’t have enough knowledge of a neighborhood and their eyes on the street aren’t as useful in sudsing out potential transgressions, they might even falsely accuse people! It’s the locals with deep community knowledge who can make more informed judgements.
One could imagine, for example, an eye on the street calling the police whenever a black person came by under a misguided and racist view that black people don’t belong there and will do crimes. This is why there has been a recent backlash to the eyes on the street idea, equating it with broken windows policing and NIMBYesque ideas of preserving neighborhood character. To be clear, I think this is a misreading of Jacobs!
As TP says, it’s not just any eyes but a specific set of eyes informed with local knowledge. Otherwise it’s just “Karens”!
Indeed, a critical mass of habituals, including key nodes.
That anecdote stuck in my mind too
Interesting series, Tomas… looking forward to all your info.
If not now, I hope sometime you’ll look at co-housing communities. The idea of deliberate architecture for living, often centered around a public square (of some sort) intrigues me, especially as I get older.
Thanks!
What types of co-housing?
The whole co-housing concept, as it seems to be born and developing in Scandinavian countries primarily. I think the key thing is they are called deliberate communities.
Most of the co-housing groups I’ve read about, in the US and elsewhere, are small residential areas where the architecture is conducive to fostering a sense of face-to-face community, with vehicles stored around the perimeter and a shared, walkable courtyard or town commons surrounded by individual homes. Many homes have kitchen windows facing the common to encourage seeing what’s going on in the neighborhood, and most have a shared building for gathering including occasional meals or holiday celebrations. There’s often a guest room or two in the common building as well.
Generally these co-housing communities don’t have shops or retail, but they often have community gathering places like play yards or park benches outside, gardens and walking paths, and workshops or studios indoors that let residents share space and tools.
As I age, many aspects of this kind of living appeal to me: neighbors that I know being close but not too close, lovely outdoor areas I don’t have to maintain entirely by myself, the option to share some meals, living near people with values somewhat like mine. These places run on shared constitutions- that’s the tricky part, but there are a lot that are succeeding from what I read.
Some co-housing communities are all ages, and some are senior-oriented. Some are new construction and some are remodels… think converted shopping malls?
I’m actually interested in a co-HORSING community: a group of cottages with room for dogs and a community equestrian center to share with other aging horse ladies who want to continue our active, independent lifestyle in a small home, with friends nearby to keep an eye on each other and enjoy our hobby horses together.
Developers are always building to maximize profits and minimize costs. I believe there could be a niche for maximizing lifestyle and a sense of shared community with less concern about square footage costs and fashionable design trends.
An early and charming feel of co-housing that interests me are California bungalow courts, many still found in Pasadena and surrounding areas that were also called motor courts. The existing bungalow communities are now close to 100 years old and quite popular, it seems.
Bungalow courts:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bungalow_court
Co-housing in general:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohousing
Thanks Tomas!
I had no idea about any of this. I just read through your comment and the wikipedia links. This is fascinating! Thanks for sharing. Please, do keep sharing similar content with me. I might end up writing on it!
You're welcome Tomas. This safer-cities topic has sparked a lot of great conversation here. Clearly, we all seem to realize that better communities could exist, where we feel safer and more like we belong... but the barriers to creating those more charming neighborhoods are daunting! Great to have so many passionate voices chime in.
So I have written to you before about one topic that I think would fit great with your skills and the interests of your audience. I realize the whole world is your oyster here but... I'd sure like to learn more from the Uncharted Territories sphere about homelessness/unhoused populations... and I think it has a lot to do with this the city series!
Yes, I remember! Still not at the top of the list... But if I find interesting content on it I'll pay attention
Tomas, are you familiar with Christopher Alexander and A Pattern Language? He has it laid out in design principles starting w architecture.
I have read it!
I love that he has his 200+ rules
What I didn't like is that he explains them, but never proves them!
Thomas, if you haven’t already seen it, Strong Towns (https://www.strongtowns.org) has many good articles on improving city design, and the benefits of traditional, dense, smaller retail versus big box stores and drive-thru restaurants. I think you might find the deep dives on city revenue per block especially interesting!
Thanks for the shout-out J Black! I saw this after writing my long comment :)
I’m on the Board of Strong Towns, it’s neat to see our work cited more and more frequently!
I've seen a few blogs / newsletters like this, but I find that they focus a lot on news and not much on fundamental articles. But I'll ask Andrew since he's around :)
Sorry: Tomas (not Thomas)!
Oh that’s so cool, thank you for that reference!
Enjoyed reading this piece. Made for easy yet interesting reading.
I grew up in Tokyo in the 80s and 90s, and was *expected* to go out alone by the time I was in school. I suspect it's a bit imprecise to say "people know their neighbors, and they know these neighbors will have their children’s backs". It's more that the parents basically trust that there is such a network wherever the child could go, not that the parents themselves know the people involved. My parents (N=2, highly correlated) didn't know that many of the neighbors in our condo building, let alone people outside the building (I guess it's also possible I was oblivious as a child).
I also have to say that my instincts about what's safe and not safe were not really well-tuned by my childhood in Tokyo. It took me a while after I moved to the US to recognize the signs of unsafe places.
Thank you, this is a very interesting nuance.
How does this trust emerge? What causes it?
Good point about the instincts of safety! I'll think about that too
Yeah, great question. My understanding is that in terms of kids being out on the street, people were less paranoid in the past everywhere (because of higher fertility and child mortality?). So one guess is that Japan was able to maintain this norm because the crime rate never got too high? I'm not sure how well it was maintained throughout the modern history of Japan.
I have read that children are spending less time playing outdoors in Japan since I was a child—not sure how much of this is about safety concerns and how much is things like video games.