Neighbourhoods: Envisaging the 'sidewalk-free' neighbourhood

Monday, 16 September 2013

Envisaging the 'sidewalk-free' neighbourhood

We're accustomed to the implication that car-dominated layouts damage local social relations by discouraging walking; but here's an unusual take on neighbourhood characteristics... An interviewee (aged 69) in research carried out into place and social connectedness, mentioned that 'she preferred that there were no sidewalks where she lived, because it deterred people from walking around her neighborhood.'

One wonders whether a 'sidewalk-free' local environment might ever be seen pospectively as a desirable feature for someone wanting to relocate. Can you see the estate agents finding the right form of words?

But where would people put their cars, if there were no pavements?

16 Sep 2013 17:01:42 | Neighbourhood relations, Space and place

2 Comments

In our neighbourhood, the local council has sent round orders that we must all pave our sidewalks. Up to now, nobody used them. We all walk in the road, stand chatting on corners in the roadway, the dogs walk and run across the road, and the drivers (most of them) know that they can't go fast because there are always people about, small children riding their bikes or playing football on the road.
The numbers of drivers are increasing though, and so more of them divert from the main road through our neighbourhood, so it is getting more dangerous. However, if we all stop walking in the road, then it will make it ever easier for the traffic to go faster and faster past our houses. It'll take some time for this to happen though, because, luckily, the council has very few inspectors to enforce their regulation, and we are slow to change our habits here. The police don't have the authority to stop us walking in the road - their patrols come by, to deter burglaries and watch out for drug-sellers, etc. (we live in central Argentina - not in Buenos Aires).

Posted by: Joss | Tuesday, 17 September 2013 at 03:06

thanks for these insights Joss, hope you devise some way of limiting the rat-running because that is really hard to stop.
You remind me of this picture I took in north eastern Brasil a few years back - http://neighbourhoods.typepad.com/neighbourhoods/2004/10/street_life_bra.html.

Posted by: Kevin Harris | Tuesday, 17 September 2013 at 07:30

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