Barrier Streets and Community Streets

I’ve been thinking about the role of streets in defining neighborhoods. A lot of people define their neighborhood by the streets that create their boundaries. When I was living in Appleton, WI, my neighborhood was the square between Mason, Wisconsin, Richmond, and College Avenues. All of these streets have more traffic than the streets within the neighborhood (three of them with four lanes of traffic total). All of them have shopping that is car oriented. The neighborhood was very peaceful and nice when you stayed in it, but if you weren’t in a car, it was kind of a pain to leave it.

I also lived in a neighborhood in Portland that I always referred to as “Belmont” because that was the major street I was closest to. I considered my neighborhood to be Belmont and the area around it. Belmont used to have a streetcar running down it in the old days, and it much of it is still friendly to pedestrians and bikes. A lot of streets in Portland are like this. In fact, I’d say that most people there use the largest street as the name of their neighborhood.

I think this highlights the opportunity there for improving streets. We can see streets as car-only and create barriers between neighborhoods, or we can create more complete streets and use them to bring people together. If you get a street right, it can go on to become a reference point for the entire city and a source of pride for the immediate community.