Yes, Let’s Have a ‘Jane’s Walk’
29 November 2009
11 Comments
Reading the Digging Pitt blog recently, I want to second their call to have Pittsburgh (or any other Rust Belt city, for that matter) host a Jane’s Walk - a neighborhood walk in the spirit of urban thinker Jane Jacobs.
A number of other cities have done this and Pittsburgh - or Cleveland, Toledo, Buffalo, etc. - should all jump on the bandwagon.
Volunteer guides lead tours of various neighborhoods. From Digging Pitt, “Some tours focus on heritage sites, while others explore the nooks and crannies of the city. From great hangouts for kids to ethnic business and residential enclaves, the tours and their leaders are diverse like cities themselves.”
-KG
Hi, this is John.
I’m not an authority on this.
The central site for info to co-ordinate walks is http://www.janeswalk.net/ and the dates for 2010 walks are May, 1st and second.
Aside from that, each walk is put together by local people– and several cities have several, each looking at a separate neighborhood.
I would personaly like to host one with a few other people, partly cause I’m not from Pittsburgh and I’m pretty shy.
There’s already something like this: http://www.urbanhike.org. I highly recommend it (not affiliated with them), I’ve visited a lot of places that otherwise wouldn’t. Plus, each early fall they organize a scavenger hunt in a neighborhood, usually centered around finding landmarks (and with some nice prizes in the end).
While I’d endorse any opportunity to get together and walk, I think there’s something potentialy very important in really getting together and celebrating and studying places at ground level to see what is working or perhaps not working.
The point I think is to open debate and discussion. If one had the money, time etc… one could create little youtube films of each walk and then have some type of online forum people to talk about ground level street issues like density, zoning, traffic control, block size etc…
In a place like Pittsburgh it might be good to have a few walks which compare and contrast areas– say one walk on the South Side, and one looking at the damaging effects of breaking the street grid on the Lower Hill district or perhaps a historical walk through the North Side looking at it’s past as a highly successful independent city before it was “improved” urban planners.
Great to hear you are interested putting together a Jane’s Walk or two in Pittsburgh.
Please let us know how we can assist, as we are in the process of setting up our outreach and support for the 2010 walks (and rolls!) now.
Feel free to contact me directly at: stephen@janeswalkusa.org at anytime.
Update re: Stephen Goldsmith’s email address for Jane’s Walks: please send messages to stephen@centerforthelivingcity.org while we re-set our Jane’s Walk email addresses–sorry for any inconvenience.
I love this idea. Since a lot of us on the site are in Cleveland, any readers interested in coordinating one here?
I’d go on a Cleveland Jane’s Walk. What do you think would be the best neighborhoods for that?
I think a lot of places would work. There are so many examples in Cleveland (and most older cities) of places where walkability is great and many others where it’s horrible. You could make a tour of either, depending on your intent. It seems like the organization does focus on tours led by individuals who live in the neighborhood. I think you could put together some interesting and unpredictable tours in Upper University Circle / Lower East Cleveland / Little Italy, Buckeye, Asiatown (my neighborhood), downtown, Ohio City, Tremont, Duck Island, Detroit Shoreway, Old Brooklyn or Brooklyn Centre and maybe even a Kamm’s Korner or a Westown.
I have to admit to having never been to Cleveland partly because it doesn’t sound like a very “Jane Jacobs” type place and I like Jane don’t drive.
If I had to pick one walk, I think choosing an area with a variety of positive and negative issues might be best. For example, a functional or semi funtional neighborhood divided by a major highway or a functional street grid cut off by a senseless megablock office park or even a poorly thought out park.
Also from my general knowledge, the issue of minimal concentration and population density is a big issue like it is on Pittsburgh’s North Side and Hill District both of which have big troubles supporting a supermarket, shopping district or mass transit.(even though both once had thriving shopping areas)
Remember, some of Death & Life’s chapter titles.
The uses of sidewalks: safety
The uses of sidewalks: contact
The uses of neighborhood parks
The uses of city neighborhoods
The need for mixed primary uses
The need for small blocks
The need for aged buildings
The need for concentration
The curse of border vacuums
Gradual money and cataclysmic money
Erosion of cities or attrition of automobiles
Sadly, I think in both Pittsburgh and Cleveland the best plan might be to walk the streets with a really old person with a memory of their neighborhoods before they were “improved” by government highways and politically organized mega projects.
… and an opportunity for Paulo Friere style community exploration and activism … ?
Madison Trust for Historic Preservation started these with their first one on State St. which links the Capitol with the UW campus. They have proved very popular and are a force to get people to support preservation of buildings to keep our city looking unique. When this started a few years ago, I wrote about it and trashed a pub that had some great architecture but had let it all get run down. They were not happy with my comments but, within a year, they were rehabbing their building and getting mileage out of their Frank Lloyd Wright connection.
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