Neighborhoods

In January 1992, The New York Times Sunday Magazine ran a piece by Columbia’s Nicholas Lemann, titled “The Myth of Community Development”.  It was then - timed to provoke critical thinking about the Clinton Administration’s vanilla urban policy of Empowerment Communities (EZ/EC) - a poignant evaluation of community development, and it asked hard questions.

Questions about the capacity of local organizations, the wisdom of economic development efforts in the hands of anemic CDCs.  Neither wholly right nor wrong, the piece put on the table a necessary skunk:  was it sensible to try to revitalize the inner city using the tools and thinking then at hand?

City streets need only few things to make them safe, according to the famous urbanist Jane Jacobs. She says safe streets need people walking around, places for them to go, things for them to do and other people for them to interact with. Simple as that. But Jane forgot one more thing: a sock full of quarters.

That's what some guy said to me late last night as I waited for my tacos at a typically busy taco truck. He was talking about our Los Angeles neighborhood, Echo Park, which was recently named by the American Planning Association as one of the "10 Great Neighborhoods of 2008". It's a nice honor for the 'hood -- and I think they're right -- but I'm with that random taco dude: don't tell my landlord.

Last year Project on Public Spaces and I published the Great Neighborhood Book, which offers hundreds of ideas from around the world about making community improvements on issues ranging from crime prevention to environmental restoration. Since then almost everyone I meet asks: What's your favorite neighborhood?

I should have an answer ready. But each time the question arises, my mind starts wandering through the great places I've explored through the years. Is it the Plateau neighborhood in Montreal, where I became infatuated with cities years ago as a college student? Maybe