16 Repairing blight

That which starts out as a problem of urban blight — a practical problem having to do with perceived crime, a perceived problem of a lack of development opportunity — actually becomes a great opportunity and the solution to a moral dilemma that has plagued American cities and cities in nearly all countries of the world during the last hundred years.
Consider what actions are typically taken to improve such a part of a city. Streets get widened and paved. Slums are torn down and replaced with new buildings. Gradually the city becomes more dense and cleaner. But what happens in the process? The individuality is taken away. The public space is destroyed.
Instead, I have shown how we might try a process which does the opposite. It creates small-scale life from the inside, instead of large-scale order imposed by development corporations from the outside.

And it creates economic opportunity and economic wealth. At present, there is a conspicuous absence of good, usable, positive space in the neighborhood gardens next to buildings. Like most American neighborhoods the houses are in the middle of lots; space is therefore wasted on side yards and front yards which contribute little, and have too little life of their own as outdoor spaces. To bring this aspect of the neighborhood to life, these gardens need, whenever possible, to be extended, re-platted, re-fenced, so that slowly, over time, the good ones are preserved, the negative ones are over-built or combined with others to form good ones.

Neighborhoods and cities can be restored to life in an infinite variety of ways if we can break free locally from the death grip of conventions and rules that block the smooth, natural, step-by-step processes by which a life-supporting structure of any environment comes into being. And that can be done.

#book/The Nature of Order/3 A Vision of a Living World/9 The reconstruction of an urban neighborhood#