Scanning the Scene
Walking North Lincoln Ave. in the morning is a harsh contrast from taking a trip down the street at night. Exploring my favorite street in Lincoln Park during the morning hours was important in my ability to determine what makes the street so fantastic. Focusing on a specific block, I had the ability to relive previous nights in a more relaxed fashion.
What makes an urban space unwelcoming to walkers?
The media has a massive influence on the way we view certain places, inserting a stigma engraved in the DNA of that specific place. One example, seen in every movie as a place where robberies and kidnappings happen, are alleys. In the shade under the cover from building during the day, and hidden from street lights at night, alleys are inherently spooky if the stigma behind them was to be disregarded. “ Users of downtown knowvery well that downtown needs not fewer streets, but more, especially forpedestrians.” (Jacobs, 2). Jacobs recognizes that the walker would rather more streets. Keeping this in mind, a way to minimize the threat of walking an alley as a shortcut would be to mold it into a street. This can be done a plethora of ways, but I think the most efficient way would be to illuminate alleys in order to make them more friendly to a pedestrian traveling after nightfall. The more people that recognize the space as an acceptable and safe mean of travel, the safer it will become. Simply populating a formaly unpopulated space could be an easy fix to the danger dilemma.
