Sidewalk urbanism

In December, WalkBikeCT linked to a post from The Naked City about a simple shovel-ready project that could stimulate the economy from Wasilla to Washington, D.C.: sidewalks. That post reminded me of a chapter from Yale Professor Douglas Rae's book on New Haven's golden age of urbanism, City, on the city's long-serving Mayor Frank Rice. In 1910, Mayor Rice stated that his proudest accomplishment during his first year in office was "in the improvement of the city sidewalks."

The good labor begun on the walks has been continued, and as the perfection of that endeavor has been my particular hobby this year, I am pleased at the results obtained. (p. 84)

Here was a mayor who had no interest in the major urban renewal project of his time, the City Beautiful movement. He dismissed a plan by Cass Gilbert and Frederick Law Olmstead to make New Haven a Paris on the Q River. Mayor Rice recognized that the local government only needed to play a supporting role to the city's thriving "fabric of enterprise."

Unlike today, New Haven's turn-of-the-century economy needed no government stimulus. The mayor's sidewalk-level ambitions reflected his limited view of the government's role in the economy but also a prescient understanding of what the voters wanted. At a time when you had to walk through mud and manure to get anywhere, imagine how your life would have improved from something as basic as a paved sidewalk.

Although today's crisis certainly calls for government intervention, I think that our modern mayors ought to focus on quality of life issues first. Put sidewalks before civic centers. Build ramps and elevators so that everyone can access the city. Upgrade our parks and streetscapes and combat vacancies so that our cities are more pleasant places to walk and bike through.

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