“We’re Not Going to Retreat from our Public Spaces"

A (proposed! heh) manifesto for the current moment

I borrowed the above headline from a local news article. It struck me as a profound response of the problems we’re currently facing in “cities,” or public life.

It’s a quote from Lakewood City Councilperson Tom Bullock. He was interviewed in an article by Channel 19 in Cleveland making an announcement that safety fixes are coming to a local intersection. Earlier that week a father and his two young children were struck by a driver there while on their bike. It was the second such incident at the same intersection recently: A local resident who was known as veteran news reporter was struck and killed at the spot just weeks before.

Now, obviously it would be better if cities were proactive rather than reactive about these safety improvements. But regardless, I think Lakewood’s response here is the correct one. And Bullock’s remark does a good job summarizing what is at stake here.

This isn’t just a problem in Lakewood obviously. Since the pandemic, American social life has been undergoing a maliase. Some of the old norms around public comportment — some good ones, like not smoking on traincars — seem to have gotten lost. And it’s had a serious impact on the quality and vitality of public spaces, from transit stations to parks, to roads. Which in turn has weighed on the health of major cities.

One way this anti-social wave is manifesting itself is a surge in reckless driving and speeding. But it also applies to other widely discussed trends like increased annoying or even violent behavior on public transit systems.

The initial reaction on the part of a lot of “urbanist” types was to hand-wave away this kind of thing, even though a lot of “normal” people are really bothered by it. I think that was a big mistake. People don’t feel comfortable being out in public spaces, and they are retreating into homes and online worlds. This in itself undermines public spaces, which have fewer “eyes on the street,” and are less welcoming, less regulated, less “safe” feeling as a result.

If we’re not careful, we’re going to enter a “doom loop”-like cycle where our already (sort of pitiful) public realm becomes even more jaundiced, with widespread social effects — from increased isolation and loneliness to breakdowns in Democratic ideals around cooperation and tolerance for differences etc. This cycle will be hard to reverse.

Those of us who work in/care about public spaces and urban affairs need to be full-throated right now that aren’t going to quietly cede our civic spaces to reckless drivers, or other forms of “disorder,” or benign neglect.

Fortunately, it seems like we’re finally starting to take this a little more seriously. In Lakewood, residents are upset and the government is being responsive: they have a plan to do something to solve the problem at this specific location, proposed changes to the intersection design and signaling to slow driver’s speeds and promote orderly controlled driving.

We also need government to prove right now — especially in “blue cities” — that it has an effective answer to public problems. Ideally, our public spaces should feel controlled enough that venturing outside, riding a bike, taking a walk, doesn’t just feel not scary — it should built trust, build people’s sense of security and well being.

Fortunately, like in Lakewood, we’re starting to see some progress. In Cleveland recently, for example, local judges handed down severe penalties on a small group of young men that were terrorizing neighborhoods with dangerous “street takeovers” — some of which involved relatively complex pyrotechnic displays held without permission in the middle of important intersections at random times.

Police departments, as The Atlantic reported recently, are stepping up as well. Specifically in D.C., local law enforcement has developed a sophisticated (and effective) response to the spike in car thefts (which had enormous safety repercussions as well as pretty severe cascading effects on victims and their sense of security.) Cleveland police are following a similar playbook, my City Councilperson reports.

A year or two ago, a lot of government officials were looking past reckless driving, hiding behind excuses about “equity.” Unlike Republicans, I don’t dismiss the need to be concerned about those things, especially following the protests around police brutality we saw in 2020. However, I do believe, allowing our public realm to descend into chaos, or be degraded, hurts low-income people more than the wealthy (who can afford private alternatives) and so is regressive, and undermines equity in itself.

What we need from leaders is real leadership. This involves honestly assessing tradeoffs, and backing reforms that are effective rather than falling back on symbolic gestures or waving their hands impotently.

Just two years ago, there was a complete mayhem on the streets and blue cities were particularly lawless. Reports were as many as one-in-five drivers in New York and DC were using fake tags. Henry Grabar at Slate reported the “old system” of traffic enforcement was breaking down.

DC is one city I criticized in the past for excuse-making and taking a hands-off approach. At the time, the city was letting drivers with literally hundreds of speeding tickets — recorded through camera enforcement — continue driving, often with fatal outcomes.

But in a welcome sign of progress, since that time DC changed its laws to start adding “points” to the licenses of drivers that are caught speeding by cameras, essentially adding “teeth” to this enforcement program. In other welcome news, the city has also started booting and cars of the most egregious repeat offenders.

This enforcement method is especially welcome because it reduces the need for potentially explosive police stops. It is positive to see these kind of problem drivers being handled in a way that draws important lessons from the BLM protest movement as well. Another thing DC city has begun doing is allowing judges to require repeat reckless speeders to have their cars outfitted with speed limiting devises (also called Intelligent Speed Assistance), reducing the need for repeated enforcement while protecting the public from the worst-of-the-worst offenders.

Those of us on the “left” and those of us invested in public spaces and the health of cities need to be bold like this and put forward defensible policy ideas that distinguish us from the “opposition.” The value of public spaces and public investments — and the need to protect them from urgent threats at this moment, and restore them and invest in them — can offer a contrast to the current leadership and administration. But only if we can show these places have real value and we have the tools and leadership to manage them well.