The main message of the Jane Jacobs reading was clear: “there must be eyes on the street.” She argued that for the streets (and by extension the city, neighborhood, or area represented by the streets) to be “safe,” there needed to be a presence there to deter crimes from occurring. She used the example of a man harassing a young girl to follow him, which quietly drew the attention of store owners and neighborhood residents. The young girl happened to be the man’s daughter, but had the situation been different, any malfeasance would have been thwarted. Yes- in the city, you are surrounded by strangers, however, these same strangers (given there are enough directly around you) offer protection. When an MTA bus has an on-board emergency, the driver can subtly push a button that displays the words “EMERGENCY – CALL POLICE” on the LED display on the front of the bus (where the bus number would be otherwise). This ingenious idea of calling for help without drawing attention is futile without “eyes upon the street,” and could not work within a rural environment The desire for a quiet suburbia doesn’t translate to safety, and neither do bright lights installed in dark areas. Jane Jacobs argues that the solution lies mainly in drawing people’s eyes towards the streets.

With that idea in mind, a few questions arose. “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” was published in 1962, and thus does not address the recent developments of our time. Had this book been rewritten today, I believe three developments would be discussed.

  • The first is the use of security cameras. Would putting security cameras at the end of every street produce the same effect as having people’s eyes on the street? I would agree that maybe response times would increase, but if someone was employed to watch a direct camera feeds, would it work? I just recently came across a headline that stated that security cameras don’t reduce crime- the just displace it away. I can’t find the link, so I can’t speak for its credibility, however it remains a topic to be discussed.
  • The second is what effect does leisure and entertainment have on our presence in the street? It seems like common pastimes like playing outside with friends have been gradually replaced by social media, video games, and endless entertainment within our pockets. I therefore suspect that our presence has greatly diminished.
  • The third is to what degree does online shopping take our eyes off the street? There are certainly fewer people on the street- those who prefer to order online while in bed rather that traveling to a store. Does this “domino effect” as brick-and-mortar businesses lose customers, close down, and take additional eyes off the street? Certainly they are sensitive to the loss of customers as demonstrated by the anecdote in the White reading, where a store owner was practically in tears at the sight of a returning customer who had moved three blocks away and was suspected of never retunring.