JJ and CS

Christina Sarkiss, Porter Ranch

This picture was taken from my bedroom window. It was a Saturday morning in spring and it NEVER snows where I live so I took the picture on the mountain area surrounding the area at my house. This just shows a peaceful area, where one can look upon and get a feeling of relaxation. The place where i live is all on mountains and they are continuously building into the mountains to create more and more homes and shopping centers. It sort of shifts the idea of having a peaceful area to enjoy to a busy place full of people living there and going from one place to another. At first, Porter Ranch was known as a quite little place with a few houses and now has boomed to become a place to shop or possibly move to. What was intended to be a quiet place of living is now just a place to try to sell whatever land you can so more things can be built.

JJ and JS

Jill Sorathia, neighborhood sidewalk

"A city sidewalk by itself is nothing. It is an abstraction." This photo is a neighborhood sidewalk. How is it any different than a city sidewalk? There is interaction within strangers in a city sidewalk, but in a neighborhood sidewalk, this concrete still forms relationships among the people who live around you.

JJ and AB

Asad Bedran, Echo Park Graffiti

The attached photo depicts a graffiti covered wall at Echo Park in Los Angeles, California. Jane Jacobs dislikes parks and loved sidewalks, as Professor Lupton highlighted in lecture, the reasons regard social interaction. In this photograph Echo Park, once a beautiful park designed for social activity, has been enclosed by commercial communities in responce to an expanding Downtown Los Angeles. The park is a popular hangout spot for local gangs and that discourages public interaction. So this supports her dislike of parks with comparison to the more publicly used sidewalks/ city streets. A nice comparison would be to look at a photo of a sidewalk in Downtown on a work day or Hollywood on a weekend.

JJ and AH

Amanda Hanna, Palos Verdes coast

This extraordinary photo is taken from my house. It is almost impossible for me to really say what kind of area I live in considering that it is neither rural nor urban. It is in a quiet area surrounded by the ocean, it is so peaceful that a resort is being built down the street form my house. I believe Jane Jacobs touches on the topic of there being a monopolistic shopping center. I think this applies to my area perfectly considering that it is almost deserted and there is only one mall, a couple gas stations, and two major grocery stores within ten miles. Though it is beautiful, Palos Verdes is a place where one cannot really live as a teenager considering its solidarity from everything around it. I feel it is more appropriate for those who are retired or are looking for a vacation.