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I've been working on writing something related to this as I've watched the open/slow streets drum be beat by urban planners/advocates for the last several weeks... https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1264922138332540929
What I'd appreciate hearing from said urban planners/advocates is how and where they have incorporated these realities and concerns into their work around safe/open/slow streets and planning, more generally.
Because I'm not hearing anything about safe passages. I'm not hearing anything about working w/ gang interventionists. I'm not hearing anything about engaging local gang members about how to create safe play/bike/walk zones. [Alex Alonso's gangs map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1ul5yqMj7_JgM5xpfOn5gtlO-bTk&hl=en_US&usp=sharing]
![Because I'm not hearing anything about safe passages. I'm not hearing anything about working w/ gang interventionists. I'm not hearing anything about engaging local gang members about how to create safe play/bike/walk zones. [Alex Alonso's gangs map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1ul5yqMj7_JgM5xpfOn5gtlO-bTk&hl=en_US&usp=sharing]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EY32WmHU8AEvCFV.jpg "Because I'm not hearing anything about safe passages. I'm not hearing anything about working w/ gang interventionists. I'm not hearing anything about engaging local gang members about how to create safe play/bike/walk zones. [Alex Alonso's gangs map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1ul5yqMj7_JgM5xpfOn5gtlO-bTk&hl=en_US&usp=sharing]")
Last week, food trucks serving the community in the grocery store parking lot at Manchester and Western were sprayed with gunfire. There are kids running around that parking lot. There are families there. https://www.facebook.com/ktoefornia.jones/videos/10163517909385402/
Where in the plans for opening streets and reclaiming them for families - and especially for kids - is the matrix for how to navigate these realities embedded? What does it look like? How will it be implemented? https://la.streetsblog.org/2012/04/05/its-a-small-world-how-gang-activity-impacts-the-livability-of-streets/
Sherika Simms, featured here, watched her brother be gunned down in front of her back in the war between East Coast and Grape in 2008 that paralyzed much of the community. https://la.streetsblog.org/2013/11/06/death-and-all-his-friends-cast-long-shadows-when-they-make-regular-appearances-in-the-public-space/
While talking to her about the loss of her Grannie and other family and community members during this period, she pointed to a tattoo on her arm commemorating the loss of another young man from Jordan Downs that had been killed earlier this year.
That loss hasn't abated during this period. While out photographing some of the memorials to youth killed in recent drive-bys, I stumbled across one to the brother of an incredible young woman I know. They are devastated by his loss.
A young Boston transplant handing out Obama phones in Watts the other day told me about when he'd first arrived in L.A. in 2014. They didn't have the same permeation of gangs there so it had not occurred to him that he had unknowingly moved into Mad Swan Blood territory.
It's a territory I move through easily because I am an ambiguous brown female. He, a young Black man, walked out his front door and was immediately greeted with, "What up, Blood?" from his neighbor.
Suddenly he realized he couldn't just walk wherever he wanted - he could be mistaken for someone and killed. Watching a helicopter circle over his neighbor's house one night while LAPD had the neighbor up against the fence really brought that new reality home, he said.
Then he heard about the 100 days thing, he said, throwing his hands open. What was he even supposed to make of that. How does one protect oneself from that. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-100days100nights-gang-threats-of-violence-on-social-media-draw-fear-20150727-story.html
So I am asking those who have said, "can't we do both?" when I and others raise these concerns about how we're defining what constitutes a safe and open street...
Can you show me what your "both" looks like?
Can you show me what your "both" looks like?
It's a question I ask with some trepidation because of fears of seeing South Central or other communities reduced to the sum of the gang activity there. Which it is not.
But the gang activity does constitute a significant barrier to access to the public space in a number of neighborhoods, depending on who you are... so it has to be addressed in some way.
The flip side of that coin is the rich set of mutual aid networks and community intervention workers and regular people doing extraordinary things to lift up their neighbors and fill in all the gaps the city/state has refused to fill.
