13 SUBCULTURE BOUNDARY
tween two subcultures, build meeting places, shared functions, touching each community.
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Natural boundaries can be things like the countryside (7), SACRED SITES (24), ACCESS TO WATER (25), QUIET BACKS (59), ACCESSIBLE CREEN (60), POOLS AND STREAMS (64), STILL WATER
(71). Artificial boundaries can include rinc roads (17), parallel ROADS (23), WORK COMMUNITIES (4 I ) , INDUSTRIAL RIBBONS (42), TEENAGE SOCIETY (84), SHIELDED PARKING (97). The interior organization of the subculture boundary should follow two broad principles. It should concentrate the various land uses to form functional clusters around activity—activity nodes (30), work community (41). And the boundary should be accessible to both the neighboring communities, so that it is a meeting ground for them—eccentric nucleus (28) . . .
I 4 IDENTIFIABLE NEIGHBORHOOD**
8o
. . . the mosaic of subcultures (8) and the community of 7000 (12) are made up of neighborhoods. This pattern defines the neighborhoods. It defines those small human groups which create the energy and character which can bring the larger community of 7000 (12) and the mosaic of subcultures (8) to life.
People need an identifiable spatial unit to belong to.
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| Today’s pattern of development destroys neighborhoods. |
They want to be able to identify the part of the city where they live as distinct from all others. Available evidence suggests, first, that the neighborhoods which people identify with have extremely small populations; second, that they are small in area; and third, that a major road through a neighborhood destroys it.
I. What is the right population for a neighborhood?
The neighborhood inhabitants should be able to look after their own interests by organizing themselves to bring pressure on city hall or local governments. This means the families in a neighborhood must be able to reach agreement on basic decisions about public services, community land, and so forth. Anthropological evidence suggests that a human group cannot coordinate itself to reach such decisions if its population is above 1500, and many people set the figure as low as 500. (See, for example, Anthony Wallace, Housing and Social Structure, Philadelphia Housing Au-
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| A famous neighborhood: the Vuggerei in Augsburg. |
thority, 1952, available from University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan, pp. 21-24-.) The experience of organizing community meetings at the local level suggests that 500 is the more realistic figure.
2. As far as the physical diameter is concerned, in Philadelphia, people who were asked which area they really knew usually limited themselves to a small area, seldom exceeding the two to three blocks around their own house. (Mary W. Herman, “Comparative Studies of Identification Areas in Philadelphia,” City of Philadelphia Community Renewal Program, Technical Report No. 9, April 1964.) One-quarter of the inhabitants of an area in Milwaukee considered a neighborhood to be an area no larger than a block (300 feet). One-half considered it to be no more than seven blocks. (Svend Riemer, “Villagers in Metropolis,” British Journal of Sociology, 2, No. I, March 1951, pp. 31—43.)
3. The first two features, by themselves, are not enough. A neighborhood can only have a strong identity if it is protected from heavy traffic. Donald Appleyard and Mark Lin tell have found that the heavier the traffic in an area, the less people think of it as home territory. Not only do residents view the streets with heavy traffic as less personal, but they feel the same about
14 IDENTIFIABLE NEIGHBORHOOD
the houses along the street. (“Environmental Quality of City Streets,” by Donald Appleyard and Mark Lintell, Center for Planning and Development Research, University of California, Berkeley, 1971.)
neighborhood with light traffic 2000 vehicles/day 200 vehicles/peak hour 15-20 mph Two-way
Residents speaking on "neighboring and visiting”
I feel, it’s home. There are warm people on this street. I don't feel alone.
Everbody knows each- other.
Definitely a friendly street.
Residents speaking on "home territory”
The street life doesn't intrude into the home . . . only happiness comes in from the street.
I feel my home extends to the whole block.
neighborhood with moderate traffic 6000 vehicles/day 550 vehicles/peak hour 25 mph Two-way
Residents speaking on “neighboring and visiting”
You see the neighbors but they aren't close friends.
Don't feel there is any community any more) but people say hello.
Residents speaking on “home territory”
It's a medium place—doesn't require any thought.
neighborhood witJi heavy traffic 16,000 vehicles/day 1900 vehicles/peak hour 35-40 mph One-way
Residents speaking on “neighboring and visiting”
It's not a friendly street—no one offers help.
People are afraid to go into the street because of the traffic.
Residents speaking on “home territory”
It is impersonal and public.
Noise from the street intrudes into my home.
How shall we define a major road? The Appleyard-Lintell study found that with more than 200 cars per hour, the quality of the neighborhood begins to deteriorate. On the streets with 550 cars per hour people visit their neighbors less and never gather in the street to meet and talk. Research by Colin Buchanan indicates that major roads become a barrier to free pedestrian movement when “most people (more than 50%) . . . have to adapt their movement to give way to vehicles.5’ This is based on “an average delay to all crossing pedestrians of 2 seconds ... as a very rough guide to the borderline between acceptable and unacceptable conditions,” which happens when the traffic reaches some 150 to 250 cars per hour. (Colin D. Buchanan, Traffic in Towns, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1963, p. 204.) Thus any street with greater than 200 cars per hour, at any time, will probably seem “major,” and start to destroy the neighborhood identity.
A final note on implementation. Several months ago the City of Berkeley began a transportation survey with the idea of deciding the location of all future major arteries within the city. Citizens were asked to make statements about areas which they wanted to protect from heavy traffic. This simple request has caused widespread grass roots political organizing to take place: at the time of this writing more than 30 small neighborhoods have identified themselves, simply in order to make sure that they succeed in keeping heavy traffic out. In short, the issue of traffic is so fundamental to the fact of neighborhoods, that neighborhoods emerge, and crystallize, as soon as people are asked to decide where they want nearby traffic to be. Perhaps this is a universal way of implementing this pattern in existing cities.