Avery W’s Reviews > The Death and Life of Great American Cities > Status Update

Just got to Chapter 4: The Uses of Sidewalks: Assimilating Children. It is fascinating to look into how Jacobs compares kids playing in streets to those playing in parks. While urbanist thought (especially at the time) viewed kids playing in the street as a problem to be fixed — preferably placing them in parks for “cleaner” experience — we see that Jacobs’ “eyes on the street” point of view holds up well here. She posits that kids playing in the street enjoy a higher degree of safety from crime as a result of inadvertent adult supervision, while those in the park are shielded from surveillance and thus consequences. Housing projects at the time focused a lot on creating environments where everything was available (parks, walkways, etc) yet decades later these amenities are still among the most underused and dangerous despite their convenience. I think Jacobs hit the nail on the head here, which is that passive surveillance and fewer artificially contrived social spaces yield better, safer results for our youth.

The rate of transience in a neighbourhood is also an important factor in determining a street’s safety for children.