JJ and DY

http://www.vestar.com/newsite/Assets/PropertyAssets/CerritosTC/Photos/p_97-046-02%20theater.jpg

Cerritos, a financially successful city, is a well-planned suburban city that is shaped in a horseshoe. This picture shows the Cerritos Town Center. With several chain-stores lined up in an organized manner, this commercial center is an ideal place to shop. The sidewalk is decorated with Palm Trees that are equidistant from each other. “A sidewalk by itself is nothing. It is an abstraction. It means something only in conjunction with the buildings and other uses that border it, or border other sidewalks very near it.” (p. 29) This sidewalk is surrounded by the street and parking space and the town center.

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 RM

Rani Mansuri, Laguna Hills

This picture represents one of the calm and peaceful and green neighborhood in Laguna Hills. This picture, rather than being of a typical busy street in an urban location, is of suburban living, with houses close to each other, neighbors who know each other and people who take evening walks with their mates. This image in a way, illustrates the idea that sidewalks and streets are important in life and how they affect human excitement and interaction. The boy is skateboarding down an empty road that runs right through the center of the block, where everyone can see him and he can see everyone. This also, as far-fetched as it sounds, can coincide with Jacobs' idea that strangers can meet and interact with one another. Jacob's says that she "wants to understand the kinds of activityand relationship that streets and sidewalks support...". If, in this picture, there were no sidewalks, or no street, kids and people wouldn't be able to enjoy the nature surrounding them. It sort of "assimilates children" to public and social life. But in a way, it also contradicts what Jacobs' proposes in that she wants to get kids "off the street" whereas this kid is using the street to meet a friend, or going for a fun ride, or just getting home.

JJ and ES

Evan Stanfield, Irvine Graffiti Tunnel

Jane Jacobs book is, as you know, about urban planning and the lack of feeling and emotion that modernistic city planning maintains today. Jane feels that this "rational" planning is only hindering the creativity seen in humans and rejects any sort of the individuality and creativity that human beings seem to love and thrive in. She doesn't like the separation of industry from suburban communities because it creates isolated, unnatural urban and communal spaces. Which is why i chose this picture...this is a hidden tunnel near UCI that is full or graffiti...its also know as the graffiti tunnel. This hidden tunnel shows the chaos and the hidden jems that can be found in a city that i feel has no culture or flavor.