Sidewalks-The Pedestrians

A soft, warm breeze brought the smell of rain and wet dirt through my open window. The wind carried summer and spring and winter and fall with it, filling my lungs with the purest air I'd ever breathed. The wind carried no pollution, no smoke, only pure, clean air, untainted by human influence. The breeze seemed to come up from the depths of the earth. Everything was silent, and beautiful. I imagined rolling fields of grass that went on for miles, and when I opened my eyes, I looked down at the black, oily concrete and saw grass, pushing its way through faster than I ever thought possible. The concrete shattered and crumbled to dust as the grass overcame the cement streets and sidewalks. In a matter of minutes, all of the streets were gone, replaced by vibrant green grass that looked soft to the

Paul Goldberger, an American architectural critic once quoted, “Urbanism works when it creates the journey as desirable as the destination.”

In “Walking and the Suburbanized Psyche,” the author, Rebecca Solnit, argues that the development of suburbanization has been the primary problem as to why our modern society continues to devalue the significance and impact of walking. Suburbanization hasn’t only changed the way we travel from one place to another, but it has also changed the way we communicate amongst each other and with ourselves. Walking is looked down upon and has been seen as a symbol of low status. This has led people to exterminate the use of walking in their daily lives. However, even if someone would like to walk to their destination they can’t due to the fact that places are shaping their roads to accommodate to the excess use of cars. I agree with Solnit that walking has a positive impact towards our bodies, our world, and our imagination.

“Where the Sidewalk ends” was written in 1974 by the American poet Shel Silverstein. He was born in 1930 and later died in 1999 (“Shel Silverstein”). Under his lifetime, he worked with numerous creative jobs such as songwriter, performer and as a playwright. However, what he became most famous for was as a poet and a cartoonist (“Shel Silverstein”). “Many of his poems are adapted from his song lyrics, and the influence of his song-writing background is apparent in the poems' meters and rhythms” (“Shel Silverstein Facts”). “Where the sidewalk ends” is not only a title of a poem, the same title is also used for one of Silverstein’s books, which included many of his poems and illustrations aimed at children. “Silverstein’s books, which he also

In the anecdote, “Walking and the Suburbanized Psyche”, by Rebecca Solnit, she implies, if walking continues to devalue, our society 's relationship between body, world, and imagination will be lost. I personally do not find walking to be a cultural activity or pleasure of getting around. Instead, walking is a hassle when the “American suburbs are built with a diffuseness that the unenhanced human body is inadequate to cope with”. Furthermore, instead of making us feel guilty or attempting to persuade us to travel on foot; we should acknowledge that we now perceive: value, time, space and our own bodies in a drastically different way than older times.

It found all the dirt and dust and grime on the sidewalk and lifted it up so that the dirt got into their noses, making it difficult to breathe; the dust got into their eyes and blinded them; and the grit stung their skins” (ll 21-25). Wind cannot discourage people or physically lift dirt up into people’s noses and eyes. The personification in this quote emphasizes the negative thoughts about 116th street and how it affects the people who live on this street which further develops a negative relationship between Lutie Johnson and the urban setting Petry uses selection of detail to establish the negative relationship between Lutie Johnson and the urban setting. For example in lines 50-55 it says, “she could see that it had been there for a long time because its original coat of white paint was streaked with rust where years of rain and snow had finally eaten the paint off down to the metal and the metal had slowly rusted, making a dark red stain like blood.” Petry uses selection of detail by the negative way she describes the streets and items on it. Petry uses words that have negative connotation, like “streaked,” “eaten,” and “blood,” to help emphasize the negative relationship between

Even though they share a lot of similarities, they still exist some differences. Such as,

The piece of literature I have chosen is The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury. It’s about a not so far dystopian future where nobody leaves their house and television is more important than human interaction. This story revealed to me that people will chose technology and the comfort of their home over human interaction. People lost their sense of interaction. It also revealed to me that in the natural world being the slightest different can cause suspicion and problems.

The beginning of David Serlin’s essay starts off with an abstract; Helen Keller is used as an example that is compared to the Flâneur, which is defined as “the celebrated street-walker who has been an icon of urban modernity since the 19th century” (193). Serlin makes it clear that his main argument will be to have those that are disabled to be included along with those who are abled. Serlin claims that the documentation of Keller’s life through photography has portrayed, or given the evidence, that she has become what society wanted her to be — a stereotypical women, and the distancing of herself from other disabled people to subject herself to what is considered normal. With this documentation Serlin questions his readers what it means to photograph Keller in such a way and how it affects those who comes upon the images. Serlin further argues that the images are to serve as a representation of disabled people and how it has become institutionalized. The point is how can we categorize the disabled body with Flâneur?

Cities are generators of economic life and source of changes in the world. Thereby, Jane Jacobs in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities puts into relief the role of cities on the social and economic levels, while denouncing the disastrous consequences of urban renewal programs. To that extent, in chapters 2 and 3, she discusses "The Uses of Sidewalks”, arguing that over all people need safety and trust in their city. Therefore, first she claims the necessity of keeping streets and sidewalks safe because they are the “vital organs” of cities (29). Secondly, she argues that the functioning of cities should be organized in order to foster human interaction in which “casual public

similar, yet at the same time there are a lot of major differences. The major similarity in

arguably the best poem of all time. In just three short but powerful stanzas, Silverstein is able to

The characteristics of each

In a book ‘The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety’, by Jane Jacobs, she abstract that ‘her basic notions of what makes a neighbourhood a community and what makes a city livable’ . She stated that ‘Great Cities are not like towns, only larger. They are not like suburbs, only denser’ . In her perspective of view, the great cities are differ from towns and suburbs in basic ways, they are full of stranger. Strangers are not only common in a public assembly, it even more common

Cities are places which have huge amount of gathering of people, collection of economic activities and complex infrastructure for people which all together are supported by transport systems.