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“A city street equipped to handle strangers, and to make a safety asset, in itself, out of the presence of strangers, as the streets of successful city neighborhoods always do, must have three main qualities:
First, there must be a clear demarcation between what is public space and what is private space. Public and private spaces cannot ooze into each other as they do typically in suburban settings or in projects.
Second, there must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be oriented to the street. They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind.
And third, the sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce the people in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks in sufficient numbers. Nobody enjoys sitting on a stoop or looking out a window at an empty street. Almost nobody does such a thing. Large numbers of people entertain themselves, off and on, by watching street activity.”
―Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
This is exactly why (unless your looking for serenity) that people do not sit in thier backyards, but rather the front of the house/apartment.
Hanging out in front of your building I get. It's the people that congregate in front of the corner store that bother me. If you're not in front of your place I assume you must be up to no good AND you're blocking my way.
I moved out of areas like that continually for years..the problem is that those areas are also not serene at night.there's always noise.never wanted to live in an apartment complex or building where people stay awake all hours,talking outside like it's 12pm..it's called ghetto..i prefer to live where it's a more normal environment ,where most people sleep at night and aren't making any noticeable noise until daylight.Areas that are the noisy and populated on the grounds both night AND day are called ghettos..l learned ,however ,that people that are used to living like that accept that kind of lifestyle as being normal and sometimes I mee others who consider he overall 'norm and they verbally bash areas that are totally quiet all night.i've lived in a number of complexes where I've been asked by disgrundled neighbors if it's "always this quiet (or dead) this time of night"..each time I was asked it was after midnight..and the neighbor pointed out that it was too quiet.theres' too many like this living in apartments now days.it's people like this that need to rent or buy a house.apartments are built too close together for the kind of neighbor who's upset over the fact that it's totally quiet after 10pm.in fact they're the ones you'll see roaming the property or using their car as stereo entertainment after 10pm.
I too don't like people hanging out in front of the building. To me, that is one of the epitomes of ratchet and ghetto. The city could make hundreds of millions, if they started ticketing people who do it. That's what designated areas are for, to hang out.
I too don't like people hanging out in front of the building. To me, that is one of the epitomes of ratchet and ghetto. The city could make hundreds of millions, if they started ticketing people who do it. That's what designated areas are for, to hang out.
Totally agree. Ghettoness and rachetness at its finest. Can't have safe and quiet neighborhoods without ghetto people messing it up. SMH! See why I despise ghetto people so much and favor of Gentrification?
Gentrification would clean up all that hanging out and riff-raff people complain about. To be opposed to gentrification is to be FOR ghettoness. No two ways about it. The positives outweigh the negatives. Just saying.
Totally agree. Ghettoness and rachetness at its finest. Can't have safe and quiet neighborhoods without ghetto people messing it up. SMH! See why I despise ghetto people so much and favor of Gentrification?
Gentrification would clean up all that hanging out and riff-raff people complain about. To be opposed to gentrification is to be FOR ghettoness. No two ways about it. The positives outweigh the negatives. Just saying.
Add my vote to the the "ghetto" and "rachet" tally.
To my mind nothing says "lower income" area than persons hanging around in front of a building. Stopping in front on your way in or out to exchange a few words with someone is one thing, but to be out there chatting, drinking, having long (and often loud) conversations as if the area were your living room is just low behavior. Why not go all the way as they did back in the day and bring a cooler, portable TV and some snacks.
Now that many young persons moving into the City do not get landline telephones and rely upon their smartphones you have persons standing in front of buildings all hours having long conversations. Worse they usually speak in that loud cell phone voice and bring ciggies and beverages with them as if they were in their own homes. One understands signals aren't always so great indoors but if you really need to have long conversations go find a park bench or someplace else.
We always hung out outside the building. Apartments were really small where I grew up, so there was no way to hang out with all the neighbors in someone's apartment, so we'd bundle up, go outside and have a long smoke or play catch, whatever. We lived on a fairly quiet street, don't know if that changes things. Certain nationality groups would hang out other places-the Portuguese had a dessert cafe they hung out at, the Irish guys always went to this pub, and we (lower middle class Jewish kids) and the black kids (usually poorer than us and on section 8) usually hung out together outside of the building, in the street. Cold or hot.
Admittedly, it was better in the summer. Somebody would bring out a boombox and we'd listen to the Mets game. Ahh, the good ol days.
What's a non child?
and for the record, wherever there's a hood, people will do that. I live in a gated complex and sometimes in the summer people bring their portable fold-up chairs outside and have a drink because they don't feel like being cooped up indoors.
You live in far rock right? What gated complex is this?
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