Stepping Onto The Sidewalk

You never know the importance of a sidewalk until you need one.  To most residents, the sidewalk in front or on the side of their home is too often taken for granted.  It is overlooked for its value and the ways it may compliment a home.   

 

The main purpose of sidewalks is circulation.  They are intended and designed as an efficient way to get people around on foot.  A sidewalk helps define a neighborhood and gives it a presence that accentuates the homes and the community.  Sidewalks adorned with well-manicured lawns, scrubs and trees add significant beauty and long lasting value to that particular neighborhood.  However, sidewalks also play other important roles.  It gives the people in the neighborhood a place in which to gather; connection socially and interact with other neighbors.   Sidewalks are used in major cities as places for residents to gather as spectators to view the inauguration of a President, holiday parades, the return of veterans from Wars and to celebrate achievements in sports. 

 

Broader Appeal

In a number of major cities around the world; London, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Madrid, Jerusalem, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Rio De Janeiro, and Beijing, getting around by foot is the main means of transportation and the primary way to conduct business.   Additionally, in a number of these cities, cars, motorcycles and other forms of vehicles are prohibited in downtown areas.   From their perspective getting people out of their homes, walking, running, and socializing is a sure way to build and strengthen any community.      

 

Sidewalks in America were designed as a pedestrian pathway beside a road or street.  This allowed people to walk both ways on the same street at the same time with a measure of safety.  The benefits of sidewalks also provide a way for people without transportation to get around; it allowed children walk and play and the elderly to just get out and take a stroll.  Other benefits include protecting the environment, road traffic safety, health and wellness, social uses, parking bicycles, bus pick up points, sidewalk cafes, street markets, place for street musicians to preform, and parking.  Sidewalks come in all sizes, shapes, decorations and made of various construction materials including wood, concrete, asphalt, brick, stone, and rubber.  

An Urban Appeal

From a number of perspectives, the sidewalk is a concrete reason to get people out of their homes, go somewhere, do something and make life better.  These sidewalks can help people to take routes and pathways to other places of importance.  Any activity, the block club party, rubbish sale, community clean-up on the street is also a call for others to join in and become active in make the neighborhood better. 

   

June Jacobs, The Life and Earth of Great American Cities, says that “Streets in cities serve many purposes beside carrying vehicles, and city sidewalks – the pedestrian parts of the streets – serve many purposes beside carrying pedestrians.  Jacobs’s main assertion about sidewalks is that they are the one thing that makes a city safe or unsafe.  Neighborhoods with active sidewalk life are typically the safer neighborhoods, and those with nearly deserted sidewalks are the ones that are unsafe.   When the call goes out about “keeping the streets safe” is also means keeping the sidewalks safe as well

If only a sidewalk could talk, what would it say?