Passing For Knowledge

Revisiting the Grid

I have to admit a small love affair with geography. But in recent years, I’ve viewed the concept of geography in a more “micro” sense. Instead of looking at the Iberian Peninsula or the Caspian Sea, I’m finding the artificial geography within cities more interesting. There are numerous analogies to describe a city to make it seem like a form of wilderness. But the truth is, once streets are laid down, the land will never be the same again. We’ve paved asphalt over what was once wilderness.

But instead of looking for analogies to define city scenes in nature terms, maybe we should redefine (perhaps, pervert) our notion of geography to encompass the physical elements of our artificial environments. And once we do that, we can look at public space in a completely different light.

Often, I find myself wondering if this massive grid in New York City is meant to last. Not so much in Manhattan, which has plenty of traffic to justify a grid and likely always will. But more so in the outer boroughs. Does Brooklyn need so many asphalt throughways? I am able to pass by a plethora of residential streets that seem to have little use for the asphalt outside their windows. There are hardly any cars going through. The streets seem to exist only to serve the purpose of parking.

Think about how much surface area of the city is consumed by streets. It might be a little too early (perhaps, 30-50 years too early) to envision a city with half as many cars. But maybe in neighborhoods that are well-serviced by public transportation — via subway lines, bus lines, and the light rail/street cars which many desperately wish the city to build — we could start phasing out streets and replacing them with greenspace. Half as many cars could comfortably allow, in terms of both traffic flow and parking space allotment, one-third fewer streets (on a conservative estimate).

Obviously the logistics of deliveries, elderly care transport, and many other interests would need to be protected, and some form of a compromise would have to be reached before this could being to be implemented. Traffic would need to be rerouted, and the selection process for the conversion of streets might come down to an unavoidable arbitrariness or result from lopsided lobbying efforts. But that doesn’t make it worthless, or something which we should necessarily avoid.

Because, after all, think of the advantages. Instead of constantly finding ways to accommodate bikes on major throughways, where a fully-protected lane is too often unfeasible, we could open up our side streets to a world of safe and relaxing bike transport. With so much greenspace surrounding them, more people will decide to walk, blade, bike, and so on, to their destination. Those researching the link between the built environment and public health often point to the advantages of greenspace (or increased public space in general). If they’re right,which they almost certainly are, then with this model we could improve the health of our communities. At the same time, we could increase foot traffic in neighborhoods where businesses are struggling, or sustain it in places where small businesses are at a high risk for being overrun by a homogenizing wave of chain stores.

Perhaps this era of “pop-up parks” is having too much influence on me. But the more I look at the way we use space in this city, the more I see a sea of untapped potential. In the midst of all this waste and counter-productiveness, the beginnings of a long-term renaissance of public space could be lying in our streets — literally. And while we’ll never be able to bring New York City back to its natural state, we might echo in some ways the public space model of our city’s past, which wasn’t too divorced from it.