An excerpt from my Azure article re: the complexity of #streets:
Jane Jacobs talked about the ballet of the street. Lil Wayne exposed the mean side of the streets. Prince wanted to woo women in his daddy’s Thunderbird on Alphabet Street.
Jane Jacobs talked about the ballet of the street. Lil Wayne exposed the mean side of the streets. Prince wanted to woo women in his daddy’s Thunderbird on Alphabet Street.
Bruce Springsteen lamented young men scattered like leaves on street corners. And today, #feminists, #housing #justice activists, and climate crisis heroes use streets as sites for progressive protests.
Streets are at once referred to as “hot,” “mean” and “complete,” as economic engines and social. They are a locus for community, collective memory, democracy and joy. It is where the unexpected delights of public life unfold.
— a saxophone solo emanating from an outdoor restaurant patio or getting to know a neighbour better over lingering conversation. Streets are also markers of violent histories; many are named after colonizers who murdered and displaced Indigenous peoples and sanctioned the sale of
enslaved Black people for centuries. They are places where individuals from LGBTQ2S+ communities have been mercilessly beaten because of who they love, a risk that prevails in some cities.
They are places where women experience daily sexual harassment and where Indigenous women go missing at rates that constitute a national epidemic.
They are places where poor people are scorned for not having any bootstraps to pull up, where children are warned to come inside when lamppost lights come on and where disabled people and elders have been excluded due to inaccessible design.
Streets are the biggest placemaking paradox, at once sites of immeasurable joy and delight and unspeakable violation.
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