One of the commentators in the Townsend lecture, Greta Byrum, stated that “Friction makes the city a vibrant place”. In Portland, Maine, identities you wouldn’t see normally see walking around are expressed on the streets at First Friday. Space Gallery brings alternative arts events, bringing about friction against our identities with creation and conversation. Congress Square Park held public World Cup viewings as a Jamaican food stand operated in the background, and standing in the background there is man dressed in black and spikes, standing right next to a group of people with Bibles in their hands.

Another commentator asked the question, “What is a city?”.  The city is a conglomerate of people, and together it is a body — it has its heart, its extremities, its circulation systems. The buildings would be cold and the streets would be empty veins without human presence.

But anywhere you go there are fences in between groups of people. There is chain mail protecting “us” from “them”, which this erects invisible, yet stronger walls within their minds.  I was once at an urban farm collective called the Mitten in West Philadelphia for a basement concert. The inhabitants of this venue were out in their fenced yard-garden, grilling burgers for the musicians playing that night. The street entrance to the garden displayed a sign announcing garden hours open to all neighborhood children on certain evenings. As I sat in that yard, a group of black children stood on the other side of the fence, pining loudly for a hamburger (although they were probably grilling veggie burgers). They were ignored. I wondered what I would have done had I been the one grilling. One of the children dropped his hand sanitizer on the soil bed within the fence, and he cried out “My hand sanitizer!”. Someone picked it up and handed it through the fence. I was uncomfortable sitting there. What were they thinking of us in that space? How was I supposed to react? Was it ameliorated by the fact there was a sign on the gate?

What unnerves me about urban growth is the decay of human connectivity. I have felt mystified by Philadelphia and I have also felt disillusionment, for having left the city feeling empty-hearted. But I am not from the city. The connection I sought on my visits was satisfied when I conversed with strangers, where people are brought together by a common love for the music, when a man in Portland made hot chocolate on a camp stove for people passing by. Public space is meant to challenge that inevitable separation and disconnection. The Mitten was a welcoming space on a certain evening, and on another it was private. Space varies with time, but a public space like a park tends not to move. I’m interested in these spaces because I believe that nature is the most undiscriminating public space we have; it is only when the green is surrounded by condensed grey that we pay closer attention to who inhabits the park and what happens within those confines. Townsend brought up a point that especially resonated with me: that urban developments should focus on making us more human and should encourage social cohesion. I think this is one of the most central ideas for urban planners and citizens to keep in mind. Public spaces and what is organized within them have the power to dissolve the perception of “stranger” and make people more compassionate about their neighbors. After having visited Preble Street today, I think it is even more important for “positive friction” to be happening. It allows for people to understand each other, instead of feeling threatened by differences and individual struggles until they are overwhelmed into a cognizant ignorance.