Customer Reviews

Street Reclaiming

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Street Reclaiming inspires residents to make their streets a place for community to share and a place where drivers become guests. When people in our county brought in newspaper, radio, and television coverage to celebrate a week of "Pedestrian Zone" and "Walk Your Child to School" activities where several thousand rural, suburban and urban residents took part last Fall, we knew people were serious about making streets safer and more civil. This book enables people to leap frog to a whole new level of success. Share it with your neighbors and make your streets a place for meeting -- not dividing -- community.

Subtitled "Creating Liveable Streets and Vibrant Communities" this New Society Publishers book is an invitation to make things better better in urban environments. Author David Engwicht asks what it would be like if your street had 50 percent less traffic.

If just a handful of the ideas presented in Street Reclaiming could be implemented in large cities -- say Mexico City -- we would notice a radical change in behavior simply by applying the author's creative, inspiring and imaginative ideas.

Street Reclaiming is a clever, literate and beautiful primer on returning streets as the epicenter of community life instead of the noxious source of carbon dioxide and communal mistrust. The book provides design guidelines, a practical program "Six Weeks to Less Traffic" and a thoughtful essay on "taking stock on what has been stolen."

This is not a book about banishing cars. "The problem is not cars. The problem is too many cars going too fast," Engwicht explains.

He writes: "You want your street back. You want solutions. Not some pie-in-the-sky solutions but solutions that ordinary residents like you can implemente immediately."

Street Reclaiming delivers such alternatives. Kudos!

David Engwicht's Street Reclaiming is a marvelous book. I could barely put it down. David treats us to a fascinating survey of the losses we've endured as a result of rising vehicle traffic and describes simple, effective means of winning back the streets to create more livable communities. Well written, informative, and extremely inspiring, this book should be required reading for all city planners and citizens!

"Street Reclaiming" by David Engwicht is an outlandish yet brilliant idealistic view of how our streets should be. Well-written with sketches and illustrations throughout, its 206 pages detail ideas and plans of "creating livable streets and vibrant communities," a modern utopia with street murals, neighborhood get-togethers complete with lawn chairs and throw rugs--right on your local street. Engwicht views urban streets not as automobile thoroughfares, but as "outdoor living rooms."

The problems with the implications of such an idealistic society are numerous. First, traffic movement is proposed to be cut in half in favor of using streets as social meeting places. Next, block parties and events are encouraged to take the place of cars. It's like the author is trying to make a stitch in time by tying in lifestyles of a hundred years ago and supplanting them like a template over a modern infrastructure. He's cast a line back in time and is trying to pull a deeper-rooted social structure, like reeling in a big fish. "Look at what I've got!" he exclaims, full of cheer and joy that is almost enviable. He writes of how if children begin to play in the street more often, that drivers will get used to the idea, and use the streets less and less as thoroughfares. Really? Worksheets are provided to analyze individual trips, the amount of time taken and the number of stops. Unfortunately, the worksheets take time to fill out, and most drivers are too tired to do anything that seems like work--especially when it reminds them of driving. Engwich says that drivers are moving too fast, but that directly contradicts his outline of "cutting traffic in half." He's trying to appease the driver through somewhat childish visions of traffic slowdown--but what he really wants is traffic replacement by bicycles and walking. But there's really no place for the traffic to go--they have to drive home! And this is where the reasoning of "Street Reclaiming" becomes unreasonable.

Americans value driving a car above anything else, based on noticeable automobile proliferation. Engwicht somehow believes that drivers in the United States (the book was written in Australia) will actually surrender the power and control of their vehicles and magically redevelop a new social order towards peace and community involvement, with the street that you live on as focal point. Most Americans simply want their televisions, deluxe ice cream, to drive their cars and then go home to enjoy them indoors with complete privacy--the exact opposite of what the author imagines could actually happen in today's world. As preposterous as the book sounds, I somehow wish we COULD reduce traffic flow and increase a sense of community spirit in favor of what are fundamentally selfish attitudes. When egos overshadow social life, we can never achieve the neighborhood harmony for which Engwicht yearns. The ideas are noble, but after the "speech" and laudatory reviews are over, the people are simply not willing to actually do anything about it. The author asks the driver to give up his, the strongest addiction in the world.
Since the book was written in Australia where they have infinitely more sunny weather than say, Seattle, with only 60 or 70 sunny days a year where you can actually sit outdoors without either freezing or getting soaked, the principles of "Street Reclaiming" cannot take the place of a highly individualistic society as in the United States. The main reason is that drivers will simply not give up their cars in favor of anything that takes such a pleasure away. In a land where privacy rules over active community gatherings, the ideas of painted concrete, rugs and sofas lining residential streets are relegated only to dreams and the imagination. When automobile registrations are 950 per 1,000 citizens, a reversal of crowded, yet accustomed, modern social and infrastructure trends in today's world is highly improbable. In the next world, however, I am all for it--no joke intended.

Engwicht makes it clear from the beginning that he is not satisfied with mere "traffic calming" strategies, as useful as they may be to planners and designers. What he is aiming for instead is a complete revolution in the way we think about and use our streets. This book is far from simply a checklist for planners or designers; it is a call to arms for individual citizens (and perhaps more importantly, groups of citizens) to retake our streets and stake our claim as people who demand safe, pleasant, and enjoyable public outdoor spaces. And although I'd love to say that all the tips (and there are a lot of them) are practical and likely to succeed in the real world, some of the ideas are probably a bit too ambitious. But just because we might not achieve every single goal he suggests doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for at least some of them. Whether you're a designer, a planner, an architect, or just someone who wants to help create a better place for yourself and your fellow citizens, this is a very intriguing book that just might inspire you to take the first step toward a better world.

As a public sector highway/traffic engineer, I'm probably not part of the target audience for this book, likely considered the problem, not the answer. I read this book before anyone ever used the term "Context Sensitive Solutions" and found it to be worthwhile, even if I don't always agree with the author's points. What I liked is that the author places the responsibility for taking back the streets on the local land use control and planning personnel, working with the highway/traffic officials. It is a thought provoking, easy read.