As I read Michael Sorkin’s description of the democratized street experience in Manhattan, I could not help but think of my own block at home. I live right next to Hunter College, a major city university in Manhattan that enrolls around 23,000 full-time students and countless others  pursuing part-time or continuing education programs, and the presence of the college in urban space is undoubtedly a factor in the formation of infrastructure on my block.

Sorkin describes how “stasis is the enemy of a flowing system of perfect efficiency, it is indispensable to its functioning: flow needs nodes” [1]. 68th Street is a high-flow area, especially at rush hour, due to the number of schools and hospitals due east and west of the 6 train station at 68th and Lexington.  It does not, however, account for the many nodes of stasis and stagnation that occur on a daily basis, and interrupt flow significantly at rush hour. The de facto nodes that cease the flow of foot traffic on 68th include long lines at food carts (3), a bike rack (in constant flux), and a designated smoking area (on the sidewalk).

In some senses, the infrastructural architecture laid out by Hunter College accomplishes the conflict avoidance mentioned by Sorkin. Pedestrian overpasses, for example, allow Hunter students to move between campus buildings without creating traffic at crosswalks or interacting with vehicle traffic at all.

The student body of Hunter College accomplishes that which AbdouMaliq Simone describes in his concept of “people as infrastructure.” [2] The sidewalk infrastructure of my block is created by the daily practices and uses people find in that space, but it is also dictated by the planning decisions of the university. Due to a lack of garage space, for example, campus athletics and security vehicles take up most of the block’s parking spaces, day and night. Implementation of some open-source urban methods delineated by Alberto Corsín Jiménez would greatly benefit the efficiency and capability of the space surrounding Hunter College. Through recognizing the collective “right to infrastructure” in its abstract sense, developer feedback could greatly improve my block and several blocks in Portland. [3]

Speaking of Portland, though it may seem entirely unrelated to the heavy foot traffic of my block at home, it is clear that the small city has dealt with many similar concerns. The crosswalk addition in front of MECA, for example, was implemented eventually after the danger of students’ crossing Congress St. was made known to the city. This style of infrastructure change is indicative of a general trend in Portland’s urban feedback loop, which seems due for an upgrade. Improved bike lanes, sidewalk node management, and a more rigid enforcement against commercial vehicle parking would greatly benefit major thoroughfares like Congress and Commercial. Countless other ideas for Portland-specific urban improvement would undoubtedly come to light in a system of open-source infrastructure development.

 

[1] Sorkin, Michael. 2014 [1999]. “Traffic in Democracy.” In The People, Place and Space Reader, edited by Jen Jack Gieseking, et al, 413. New York: Routledge, 2014.

[2] Simone, AbdulMaliq. 2014 [2004]. “People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg.” In The People, Place and Space Reader, edited by Jen Jack Gieseking, et al, 241–46. New York: Routledge.

[3] Jiménez, Alberto Corsín. 2014. “The Right to Infrastructure: a Prototype for Open Source Urbanism.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32 (2): 342–62.