Living in the city--and liking it--is a whole different mentality than living in and liking the suburbs. We see it daily at work, where a bunch of us (not just one or two) who choose to live in Chicago take the train out to our suburban campus to work. The campus is beautiful. Making use of space in the way our campus does isn't always possible in a city, where space is at a premium. (I should note, also, that our college has been here for 150 years--four years before the town that shares its name.) For me, living in the city makes sense. For true independence, I need to be able to get myself around because I can't see well enough to drive a car. The CTA makes that possible in ways other public transit systems don't. I lived in the Bloomington/Normal community in Central Illinois for four years, and while their bus system was adequate, it made it very difficult to get anywhere in the evenings or on Sundays. In the Chicagoland area, Pace runs suburban bus systems, and they do a fine job of it, as far as I can tell. The fact of the matter is, more people depend on public transportation in cities than in suburban areas. And, it's not just people like me or other people with disabilities. People happily live carless in Chicago or other major cities and do so by choice. Hell, even my girlfriend hates to drive. Her train ride might take longer than it would to drive, but she also doesn't have the stress of driving and parking.
This article came across the Chicago Tribune today, and it really irritates me. First, read the article:
Sidewalks crack suburb tranquillity [sic]
Residents throughout the area are concerned that their lifestyles will change if walks are added to their neighborhoods
By Courtney Flynn
Tribune staff reporter
May 9, 2007
In more than 30 years, Hubert Frank has never regretted that his Northbrook neighborhood doesn't have sidewalks.
If residents in one of the dozen homes on his block want to walk their dogs, they head for the street. To get to school, children board a bus in front of their houses. And if postal carriers need to drop off packages, they just might cut across the quarter-acre lawns lined with tulip beds and flowering trees.
Although sidewalks are fine with many communities, adding them to existing neighborhoods can create a firestorm.
In Western Springs, people have complained about the cost. In Mokena, residents in an older part of town opposed sidewalks because they would ruin the rural feel. And in Northbrook, more than 170 homeowners have signed petitions against having sidewalks poured on their blocks after the town budgeted $6 million to add them in targeted areas across the village.
Some say sidewalks could disturb trees and landscaping, and others fearwho might come sauntering through their neighborhoods.
Sidewalks, it seems, represent some of the things people move to more rural-feeling subdivisions to escape: Foot traffic. Noise. Concrete. Taxes.
"We came here for the green grass, we came here for the suburban environment and for the schools," Frank said. "I think we have a beautiful street, and sidewalks would take away that beauty."
The Northbrook Safety Commission is scheduled to hear residents' concerns at a meeting Wednesday. The commission will make recommendations to the Village Board, which on June 18 could consider their petitions against sidewalks on their blocks.
In many communities, sidewalks are enmeshed in everyday life, and people like them.
In Glenview, residents are so eager to see improvements to the community's system of sidewalks that they packed village-sponsored tours to look at existing sidewalks and help develop ways to become more pedestrian-friendly.
But when officials in Mokena considered adding sidewalks in an older part of town several years ago, residents living along streets with ditches and no curbs objected, said Village Administrator John Downs.
"Most people said, look, we like the rural feel, we've been here for many years, and they weren't in favor of changing the nature of their neighborhood," Downs said.
In Western Springs earlier this year, money was an issue. A group of residents who originally wanted sidewalks installed for safety reasons along part of Grand Avenue ended up petitioning against them after they found out the cost, said Erik Beck, the village's municipal services coordinator. The project died, he said.
The village would have required residents to pay for 70 percent of the installation, roughly $60 a month for five years, Beck said.
"It was like they were hungry and then saw the prices on the menu and backed out," Beck said.
In Northbrook, the residents protesting sidewalks said they could see the benefit of them in some parts of the village -- just not in their front yards.
"The thing that seems to bother most people in my area is that it's unnecessary and unwanted," said Stuart Schwartz, 58, who has lived in his Jeffrey Court home for more than 10 years. "To go digging up all this landscaping for no reason is just kind of silly."
But village officials said the sidewalks are needed for safety and so Northbrook can become more connected.
"You should have sidewalks everywhere in the village," said Village President Eugene Marks. "Sidewalks are a major issue. ... Now that we're finally doing it, people are saying no."
Generally, sidewalks are common in new subdivisions, said John Norquist, president of the Congress for the New Urbanism, a Chicago-based non-profit group that promotes walkable development. But they still are often left out of golf-course communities or developments with expansive lawns that strive for an "estate" feel, he said. And in some locations, they just might not be necessary at all.
"You obviously need a sidewalk on Michigan Avenue, you need one in Oak Park and in downtown Naperville," Norquist said. "But when you get out to places like McHenry County, it's remote and people are probably going to be driving just about everywhere."
Since the early 1990s, Northbrook has been building sidewalks in areas where there were none, first along major roads and later along residential streets within a half-mile of a school, said Chris Tomich, assistant village engineer. But the program has been dependent on the village's budget, he said.
In August, Northbrook officials earmarked about $6 million to help build sidewalks over three years, enabling the village to work more quickly through its to-do list, Tomich said.
As part of the village's code, people building homes are required to pay the full cost of a sidewalk in front of their house if they're on a main road or within a half-mile of a school, Tomich said. In neighborhoods that never had sidewalks, like many on the to-do list, residents would be asked to pay half the cost, roughly $2,000 for a 130-foot stretch, he said.
Many who signed the petitions said it was not the cost that concerned them, but rather that sidewalks are unnecessary and could harm trees and landscaping. Some of them live on cul-de-sacs or short streets without much traffic. In addition, they said, children take buses to school.
Frank, 68, who organized a petition for Whitehall Drive, said sidewalks could also pose a safety risk by welcoming strangers into the neighborhood.
"There's strange things happening in the world today, so why would we want to open up that possibility?" he said. "We are connected, we all know each other. The concern is, who knows what you'd be encouraging to come through."
Trustee A.C. Buehler said the village would try to avoid large trees if sidewalks were installed and cautioned that plantings close to the curb are likely in the village-owned right of way.
Tomich said the village would relocate shrubs, bushes or flower beds if they were in the way of a new sidewalk. Retaining walls would be restored, and sprinkler systems fixed.
"We're generally very, very accommodating to residents," he said.
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cflynn@tribune.com
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Let's start here:
If residents in one of the dozen homes on his block want to walk their dogs, they head for the street. To get to school, children board a bus in front of their houses. And if postal carriers need to drop off packages, they just might cut across the quarter-acre lawns lined with tulip beds and flowering trees.
My first question is: is it always safe to walk in the street? Who's going to win between me and a car? My money's on the car. As obsessed as these people are with their acreage, I'm amazed at how little they care about people, like the postal carriers, walking across their lawns. I'm also wondering: isn't it a tad wasteful of time, energy, and fuel to pick
each and every child up in front of his or her house? C'mon. No bus stops? None at all? With sidewalks, children could safely walk to bus stops. People could walk their dogs without worrying about traffic. And, what about all of the emissions produced in such an area, where the lack of sidewalks persuades people
not to walk places? (I liked that they made reference in the article to the Congress for the New Urbanism,
whose neighborhood initiative raises a good point about the greenhouse gases caused by so much driving, when people could walk or bike or share rides instead.)
As somebody interested in accessibility issues (personally), I see a sort of circular thing happening with regards to people with disabilities living in suburban areas. I know from experience it's harder to get around in the suburbs, and that makes me want to live in the city. But, why should I have to live in the city if I decided I want to live in the suburbs? It's easier to get around in the city. Shouldn't I be able to get around in the suburbs, too, though? Do they honestly expect people with wheelchairs to travel through the street? How else are they supposed to get around? Ooh...I know...they should move to the city! :P
Working in a suburb that does have sidewalks (for the most part), I can tell you that it sure isn't easy to get around the suburbs, even with sidewalks. No one shovels in winter. They don't think about anyone who might be walking; they all drive.
This also happens to be a suburb that is not well lit at night. Frankly, it's dark, and even if I could see better, I imagine it would still be too dark to read the numbers on the houses.
This town also has an unusual layout. Most of the streets curve, and it's difficult to find your way through here. You have to know the community well to be able to adequately navigate it. The town's website notes:
Present-day [town] is physically distinctive not only because of its picturesque street plan, but because of the early date when it was platted. Of the suburban communities in America that were planned in the nineteenth century, according to the picturesque principles worked out for English gardens and American rural cemeteries and parks, [town] is one of the very earliest, coming only five years after the first such town in America, Llewellyn Park, New Jersey, was founded in 1852. The [town] plan, platted in 1857, is notable because its architect, the landscape gardener Almerin Hotchkiss, went on to create such other important picturesque places in the Midwest such as Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis. The general concept reflected in the Hotchkiss plan is of the city in a park, with its streets laid out in an organic manner that takes into account such natural features as the ravines and lake bluffs, instead of forcing the street plan into a formal gridiron plan.
If you picture the winding paths through a cemetery, you'll have a good idea of what it's like to navigate this town.
The trouble with being familiar with and having clear paths and the level of darkness at night says something to those of us who walk back and forth from the train and campus:
this community doesn't want outsiders. That really could not have been made any clearer in the article, either:
Frank, 68, who organized a petition for Whitehall Drive, said sidewalks could also pose a safety risk by welcoming strangers into the neighborhood.
"There's strange things happening in the world today, so why would we want to open up that possibility?" he said. "We are connected, we all know each other. The concern is, who knows what you'd be encouraging to come through."
Because, obviously, asking "what you'd be encouraging to come through" (read: poor people of color who want to rob the
well-to-do suburbanites) to walk in the street instead of on a sidewalk is a good crime deterrent. I'm willing to cut this guy a
little slack for the generational racism, but c'mon, man, this is just an ignorant thing to say.
*sigh*
I'll be proud to raise my children in a diverse city, where they are encouraged to walk, bike, and use public transportation and to still have this regard for community that isn't exclusively suburban.
