For what are streets made?
By John Bennett
January 15, 2008
Two comments in the Savannah Morning News’ Vox Populi section caught my eye this morning. The emphasis in each is mine.
“Close off the streets for the kids to play basketball? My neighborhood looks like a dump after these kids play. Their language from the youngest to the oldest comes from the dump as well. Streets were made for automobiles.”
And…
“Streets are for driving not playing basketball. If you want to play ball go to a playground or gym. It would be different if the kids would act like people did a few years ago and move out of the middle of the street, but they don’t, and mama and daddy won’t tell them to.”
Does this mean Gen. James Oglethorpe was thinking about cars when he designed a distinctive pattern of streets for Savannah in 1730? The man was a regular Nostradamus!
Having grown up in a football town, I have very little interest in basketball (Nor foul-mouthed kids, for that matter). However, I spent plenty of time in the street tossing Nerfs and Frisbees, riding bikes, constructing ramps to make said bikes airborne, launching model rockets and staging horrific accidents involving toy Jeeps filled with G.I. Joes. I suspect that plenty of Savannahians of a certain age have fond memories of using their city’s streets to play a unique game that many argue was invented here.
The fact is kids have been playing in the street since long before the first car was invented. As a result, many of Savannah’s streets were not “made for cars,” but for a full range of activities that enriched the community.
There are Savannah streets that have been given over entirely to cars and they have become, in almost every case, places that are embarrassments to the community. For a tour of one, click here.
Photo source: Street Play
Posted in Advocacy, Planning, Preservation, Recreation, Transportation
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January 15th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
AMEN!!! My online community, Playborhood.com, is devoted to supporting parents who want their kids to go outside and play. There are a lot of parents who are fed up with chauffering their kids around on an appointment calendar.
We’re absolutely going to get kids back outside playing in their neighborhoods again. Sorry, drivers!
January 15th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
As a kid we walked on the shoulder. If we played in the street, a car didn’t have to slow down. In my neighborhood they stand there until you get right up on them and you have to almost come to a stop. All the while they’re glaring at you. It was said recently there is no blight in Savannah. I live off of Derenne Ave and there is trash everywhere. All the wrappers and drink containers go on the ground as they walk between the store and their house. You’d think their parents would have taught them better. But as you see on their lawns there’s trash. I’m really getting disgusted and thinking of leaving the city.
January 17th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I agree with John that streets are NOT JUST for automobiles. I don’t mind detouring one short block or slowing down for kids who play basketball on my street. After all, when I encounter the basketball players, maybe I just enjoyed the privilege, not the right, of using my car to leave the mall at whatever time I wished and traveled 3 miles in about 7 minutes — how convenient, even if I must go an extra block or stop until other street users move aside. (The downside of such convenience, provided to many, many car users, unfortunately is ugly urban design, as John implied.) As for litter, it happens on my street too but it comes from cars as well as pedestrians. That part is indeed annoying.
January 19th, 2008 at 1:09 am
great site i love it