City Streets And Sidewalks Essay

In the excerpt of Jane Jacob’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities, she implies the importance of city streets and sidewalks. Although it is believed that police officers enforce the peace in a city, but in reality it is the people’s actions that keep the peace. A city that is classified as unsafe or with high crime rate will most likely not have people occupying the sidewalks at night, but a city with plenty of city street users have a safe reputation. When thousands of pedestrians walk through the city streets and they unknowingly become the primary surveillance when it comes to keeping the peace against trouble. Being a promoter for urban advancement, Jane Jacobs relied on big cities with a network of streets and sidewalks users
Depending if it’s a city or town, a community in a small town should be more open and involved with their community considering there are less strangers in the public. More community involvement and charity is given out to project on improving the wholeness of a community. This is mainly because the community is more aware of the social backgrounds that go on. More uncertainly equals more desolation in community-based involvement. Bigger cities on the other had have more streets and sidewalks to be filled, and where there is great diversity there comes more uncertainty. Urban populations are known to be filled with diversity, and according to Michael Jonas’ article, “The Downside of Diversity,” the Harvard political scientist, Robert Putnam, writes: …that those in more diverse communities tend to ‘distrust the neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to hurdle unhappily in front of the television” (Putnam