Tuesday, January 4, 2011

City Streets and Sidewalks

My urban planning courses instilled in me that the only way to develop an understanding of neighborhoods is to walk them. Early in my collegiate career, I ran off the treadmill and took to the city streets. Running in New York can be trying, what with the looming threat of bicycle messengers and taxicabs, but remains a valuable educational experience. One Sunday last spring, I was attempting to study in my dorm room and was overcome by the need to tear myself away from my textbooks and get outside. I laced up my sneakers and left the door. I ran west through Chinatown and TriBeCa, up the West Side Highway to the mid-50s, turned around and followed the waterfront all the way down to Battery Park, around the bend, and back up the east side and then over to Central Park (after which I was spent and admittedly took the subway home).

As I ran along the New York streets, I arrived at the idea that this system of pavement forces residents and visitors alike to mingle. I ran through over a dozen distinct neighborhoods, but none offered a homogenous crowd walking down its streets. The teeming population of the city doesn’t allow for rigid boundaries between neighborhoods. While infrastructure offers organization of the island, commerce and culture depend upon the permeability of its boundaries. There is a constant flux of arrivals and departures from the city, be they by land, sea, or air. Infrastructure – mass transit, the streets themselves—squashes inhabitants from a multitude of social, economic, and ethnic backgrounds into a cramped subway car and forces their awareness of each other. Not only do New Yorkers depend on the city’s infrastructure for the services it provides, but it also plays a role in the evolution of the city’s diverse yet interconnected culture. 

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