A Sense of Place
by Judy Wicks, Summer 2006
Legendary urban activist and writer Jane Jacobs passed away this spring at age 89. Her vision for vibrant city life, some of it written from her home above a candy store in New York City, has been an inspiration to me during the many years I have lived and worked above the White Dog Cafe at 3420 Sansom Street. Today, as we face the urgent challenges of fossil-fuel-induced climate change and a shrinking oil supply, Jacob’s vision for walkable communities and self-reliant local economies is more signifi cant than ever.
The first moment I walked onto the 3400 block of Sansom Street in 1972, I was enchanted. The narrow tree-lined street, with its row of charming Victorian brownstone houses, seemed a little oasis from the unfriendly institutional feeling surrounding it. Most of the old houses around the University of Pennsylvania had been torn down and replaced by modern high-rise dormitories, office buildings, and shopping strips. In contrast, the one-hundred-year-old houses on Sansom Street, which included a few small businesses on the first floors, were human scale – quaint, homey, and inviting. Later that year, when I moved into an apartment at 3420 Sansom, I learned the entire block was slated for demolition to clear land for a shopping mall. How could it be that the local businesses and residents would be forced out and the historic brownstones demolished to make way for chain stores and fast food restaurants? I eagerly joined the local community group and soon learned of Jane Jacobs, who had fought to save her beloved Greenwhich Village from demolition by developers. It was her work that provided the vision for saving and restoring our block where I have now lived for almost 35 years.
In her quintessential book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs wrote of the importance of mixed-use, where communities prospered from a diverse and lively mixture of residential and retail. She condemned the urban renewal movement following World War ll when whole neighborhoods were razed, destroying vibrant communities and thriving personalized local businesses to build highways and sterile high-rise buildings. Residents were encouraged to leave the city for the sprawling suburbs where housing developments and shopping malls destroyed rich farmlands for no more than what Jacobs professed was “cheap parking.” Commercial and residential uses were separated, and a lack of public transportation made cars necessary, replacing walkable urban neighborhoods where work, school, leisure and home life were integrated in complex, energetic and enjoyable communities.
Eventually, our community group won the fight to save Sansom Street, and I was given the great opportunity to purchase the house at 3420, where I opened the White Dog Cafe on the first floor in 1983. Jane Jacob’s vision of urban life became my own. I wanted to “live above the shop” in the oldfashioned way of doing business, and committed myself to our community’s plan to renovate the historic houses and develop a dynamic, mixed-use neighborhood with owner-occupied homes above unique shops and restaurants. Here I found my place in the world, where I committed my energy and creativity toward making the block a warm and lively community in which to live, work, raise my children, and have a lot of fun!
In her later work, Jacobs developed her ideas about local economies and the importance of producing goods with local resources and local labor for local consumption. Cheap oil, the lifeblood of corporate globalization, has made it possible for multinational corporations to ship products from distant places where labor and natural resources are easy to exploit. With local economies destroyed by cheap imports, people around the world have become dependent on large corporations to provide basic human needs of food, clothing, energy, and building materials shipped long distances.
Global transport is a leading contributor to global warming which threatens life on earth with severe climate change - droughts, fires, hurricanes, fl oods and even deep-freeze. There is also increasing awareness about Peak Oil, the point we have reached, or soon will, when the world’s oil supply declines, dramatically increasing prices for gasoline and oil by-products such as fertilizers and pesticides used for industrial agriculture. To meet these challenges, it is urgent that we reduce our reliance on oil – using bicycles and public transportation, or at least driving hybrid cars; buying locally grown food, organic when possible; patronizing locally owned stores and restaurants, especially those selling locally made and grown products; reducing energy use and switching to renewables such as solar and wind; and simply living with less.
Jane Jacobs wrote about the importance of “import replacement” – how cities prosper when they use their ingenuity to replace imported goods with those produced locally. The well-being of our region, perhaps our very survival, depends on heeding Jacob’s prophetic voice. But she leaves us with something else – that all this can be joyful. Cities with a diverse mix of people and activities, from local manufacturing to local arts, music and culture, are creative, exciting places to live and work. It is not the monoculture imposed by corporations, but our sense of place in our own unique
communities that brings true happiness.
To see Judy's past essays, visit our archive.
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