The Lost Tradition

David Engwicht

A summary of chapter one of Street Reclaiming:Creating Livable Streets and Vibrant Communities.

Car traffic is more than just a nuisance. It erodes a valuable tradition that is thousands of years old. Rather than a nostalgic look back at the past, we examine this tradition for clues as to how we may build and rebuild the streets of today and tomorrow.

Street as home territory:

For centuries, people have felt that the street in front of their house was an important part of their 'home territory'. Home territory was a place where people 'came home' - a safe haven where their identity was reconfirmed. 'Home' was not just the dwelling in which they ate, slept and procreated. Home embraced the street and the entire city. In the map of their minds, the street was part of their home territory - their outdoor living room.

Traffic does more than just take over space physically. It psychologically invades the street, the sidewalk, our front yard, even the front rooms of our house. In the map of our mind, these spaces cease being part of our home territory.

Street as exchange space:

Cities are an invention to maximize exchange opportunities and minimize travel. These exchanges may be exchanges of goods, friendship, knowledge, culture, work, education or emotional and spiritual support. To facilitate these exchanges, cities are composed of two types of space: exchange space and movement space. The more space a city devotes to movement, the more the exchange space becomes diluted and scattered.

The more diluted and scattered the exchange opportunities, the more the city begins to lose the very thing that makes a city a city: a concentration of exchange opportunities.

One of the ways cities historically increased their efficiency as a mechanism for exchange was to use streets as dual space for both movement and exchange. While making journeys on foot or cycle, people would engage in a wide range of spontaneous social, cultural and economic exchanges.

This notion of streets not just being for movement but also for exchange was built into the very structure of older city streets-streets were a series of 'outdoor rooms' connected by 'corridors'.
Traffic has converted the dual function of streets into a singular function-a place for movement, thereby undermining the efficiency of the entire city as a mechanism for facilitating a great diversity of exchanges.

Streets as a place of spontaneous exchange:

There are two ways in which exchanges are transacted in the city: planned and spontaneous. The social, cultural and economic exchanges that take place in the street and public squares (the dual exchange/movement space) are largely spontaneous. Spontaneous exchanges play a crucial role in the social, cultural and economic life of cities. By increasing the diversity and density of exchange opportunities they feed the creative life of the city.

They also help develop a web of 'trust' at the neighborhood level; are essential to economic vitality; and are central to a robust and equitable democratic process. Traffic, by removing the dual function of streets, erodes the space in which spontaneous exchanges were once transacted.

Streets as a stimulus to creative wealth:

In evolution, the development of the city was a quantum leap forward for creativity. It increased diversity and provided the spontaneity or chaos necessary for this diversity to mix and form new relationships. The street was the mediator of this burgeoning creative life-the place where food, philosophy, practical products, art, wisdom, and fantasy mingled. There were no clear divides between these realms because each acted as a stimulus to the other. This creative life gave birth to a more civilized society and personal growth for the individual. Even economic growth was dependent on this creative wealth. By allowing traffic to take over streets, we have lost the street as a place of diverse and spontaneous exchange. This loss of stimuli to creativity affects the potential sustainability of our entire society.

Streets as children's play space:

For millennium the street was the premier playground for children. Supervision of this informal play was a community responsibility. Research indicates that stimuli helps build bigger and more intelligent brains. Backyards, parks or TV can never compete with the stimuli offered by the street. The street is where real life happens. Street play for children also provided an irreplaceable training ground for good citizenship - cooperating with others to create a place of shared meaning. When this spontaneous play is lost, it is often replaced with organized sporting events which emphasize competition and individual performance rather than cooperation. Unlike the rules of play in the street, the rules in organized sport are constructed by an unknown authority and enforced by another authority figure. This better prepares the child for totalitarian government rather than participation in the democratic processes of shared responsibility for society's corporate life.

Street play was the first step in children being able to gradually explore the territory around their home in ever increasing circles. This territory was gradually integrated into their 'home territory' and provided them with a growing sense of 'place', 'belonging' and 'identity'.

As adults we need to be exposed to children's play in the course of our everyday activities if we are to maintain our sense of wonder, curiosity, adventure and innocence - the qualities that make children inherently creative. The street was the meeting place between the creative world of the child and the rational world of the adult.

Streets as a place for 'street wisdom':

Wisdom is not knowledge. Wisdom is about the art of living. It is the art of navigating the dilemmas of life with more poise and grace. Wisdom is won through pain and experience. Traditionally, wisdom was more highly valued than knowledge and the place it was dispensed was in the street. This gave to the elderly, the eccentric, and those with different life experiences a vital role in community life-as the nurturers and mentors of the entire community. Their wisdom was seen as public property just as the street itself was public property.

Traffic has not only cut us off from this 'street wisdom', but also robbed those possessing wisdom from a productive role in community life.

Streets as a place for adult play:

The street was also the place for adult play-promenading, people watching, morality plays, festivals, etc. This adult play was seen as foundational to the creative life of the city and civilization. It was considered by many as more important than 'work'. Everything new must be first conceived in the imagination before it is given birth through work. For the adult, there can be no creation without returning to the world of the child, a world dominated by play and fantasy.

Play and fantasy are also essential to our spiritual and emotional wellbeing. Through play we construct our own identity, deal with our past and create our future. In the traditional street there was music, water, art, festivals, clowns, eccentrics, children, absurdity, lovers, and chaos. These feed the inherent creativity of the human brain.

Streets as places for economic activity:

The street was also used for economic activities, from street vendors to home deliveries. This helped create a vibrant local economy in which new businesses had a greater opportunity of succeeding. This resulted in a greater diversity of commercial products at a lower overall cost. Using the street as a place of commerce provided room for new enterprises to start up.

Traffic also dilutes the density of exchange opportunities and scatters them wider thereby reducing the efficiency with which they can be transacted.

Streets as the birthplace and sustainer of the democratic process:

Streets and public squares were the birthplace of democracy. The Greek word for city was 'civitas' meaning a collection of citizens. The city was a 'collective enterprise' and the street was the lifeblood of this collaborative effort. The street was the marketplace of ideas including political ideas.

In any society there are marginalized groups, people who are not at the center of action or 'well connected'. These people do not have access to the 'formal' channels to impact the way community life is managed. They rely almost exclusively on the spontaneous exchange-the informal street encounter-as their means of communicating their ideas, opinions and insights.

Traffic erodes the spontaneous exchange realm. Those who suffer most from this loss are those at the margin of the society because it removes their chief medium for meaningful participation in community life.

Streets, and the spontaneous encounter realm, are the cornerstones of Western democracy. Planned exchanges can be controlled. But the spontaneous realm is an open forum for debate, sharing of ideas and insights.

Reclaiming our streets

Excessive traffic, and the loss of our streets as outdoor living rooms, has resulted in the loss of many elements necessary for personal development and for the creation of a rich, diverse community life. Street reclaiming is therefore more than simply trying to reduce traffic levels or slow the traffic. It is a process of reclaiming our streets for life-enhancing activities.