Focus on the User

                                                                      Focus on the User

·        Jacobs argues that “if a city’s streets look interesting, the city looks interesting; if they look dull, the city looks dull”, but my interpretation and opinion would change that statement to read, “if a city’s pedestrians/population/inhabitants are interested, the city looks interesting (thereby, the streets are interesting); if the pedestrians/population/inhabitants are dulled (uninterested), the city looks dull (thereby, the streets are dull).” Jacobs calls for a new urbanism, but to accomplish this, I believe we must analyze the people who use the city, not the fabric that makes the city, i.e., the sidewalks.

The description of safety regarding city sidewalks disregards why the sidewalks are safe or unsafe. Maybe digging deeper into the “why” would solve the number of “strangers” in cities, as described by Jacobs in “The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety”. This idea circles back to last week’s topic of developing a new way of designing the build environment to include the everyday. Would successful public spaces of the everyday lessen the number of “strangers”? There is also the problem of incorporating society issues within the built environment or solving them, then perhaps we can shift the focus from sidewalk safety to the user.