My Neighborhood: "Where the Sidewalk Ends"

Have you ever noticed how superior humans consider themselves when comparing modern life to the past? Sure, modern life offers many great options such as life-saving medical procedures, electricity, and the flush toilet. But where did this snobbery come from? Why do we tend to think ourselves so much better than the poor shmuck who had to go through life without a battery-charged, cracker-sized telephone?

Case in point: sidewalks!

When I was little we lived in a central Italian city called Perugia. The modern city still centered around the ancient part of the city, which had been built centuries before, featuring huge cobblestone streets, ancient stone building still in use as homes or shops, and flight after flight of time-worn steps around this city built on a hill. The modern blended with the ancient creating an incongruent but charming place which still bustled with the business of daily life as it had for centuries.

When modern life and ancient combine they do not always mesh perfectly. This was most apparent to my pre-school awareness when a modern city bus would rumble down the narrow cobblestone streets. The streets, of course, had no sidewalks and were not built to accommodate something as un-heard of in medieval times as a city bus. At best, the largest vehicle which would have needed to traverse those narrow by-ways would have been some sort of cart pulled by a horse or donkey or, perhaps, even a goat or two; nothing as mammoth as a large diesel contraption would have entered into the planners’ mind.

But, here we were in the 20th century, walking a street from the 12th, with a huge monster bus barreling down on us with barely enough room for a simple horse cart and no sidewalk for the pedestrian’s safety. When this happened it was necessary to plaster yourself into a doorway in order to allow the vehicle to pass by safely. As a little child this was both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. Would we find a doorway in time? Would we all fit in it? My heart would be racing, my skin tingling with excitement and fear! I am happy to report, we always made it safely into a doorway, no family members were lost in a tragic accident, no one was pulverized between modern metal and ancient stone and, to my knowledge, no other Perugians were lost either and life, there, now continues happily well into the 21st century. Such quirks are just to be expected when blending lifestyles from such different centuries!

As fun of a memory as this is, of course, it’s nice to now live in a city where modern city planners had enough foresight to accommodate the needs of pedestrians and motorist alike; nice wide streets, safe sidewalks, stoplights and stop signs, or…not! The other day, I had a distinct flashback to the streets of Perugia as I, unwittingly, took life in limb and tried to walk our dog to the dog park not more than a half mile from our home.

We happen to have moved into one of the local neighborhoods with NO sidewalks; none, no where; not in front of the houses, not on the streets into the neighborhood, not on the main way to the bus lines…simply no sidewalks! This is a modern neighborhood! It was built well after the advent of the motor car, city buses were well used at the time my house was designed, and children often rode bicycles. But still, Buddy and I were forced to hop into the brambles and ivy each time a car zoomed by. This was not an easy feat with a dog weighing over 85 pounds! There was no room for us on the street, and there was really no room for us off the street, there were slopes and hills on either side of the road with barely enough room to stand sideways, ankle deep in foliage, and allow the vehicles room to pass. For nearly a quarter of a mile we progressed precariously along until we reached the “safety” of a parking lot and could get off the street! What in heaven’s name possessed people to design such a neighborhood?

I believe it boiled down to this. In the mid 60’s the American family had progressed to the point that it became a status symbol to live in a neighborhood with no sidewalks! Why? I think it symbolized wealth and a “coming into the world” that a family no longer had to walk anywhere. Father could drive to work. Mother had a second car with which to drive the children to and fro and on her various errands and shopping trips. Children would be driven to the park instead of riding their bike. Without a sidewalk, they had a much larger and greener lawn in front of their home which Father would diligently mow and water every Saturday morning, a whole 5 feet wider than the old homes across the river! Wow, what progress, I say ironically!

Now, two generations later, my children cannot ride their bikes in their neighborhood, I will no longer walk the dog to the dog park, I will never walk with my little ones to the bus stop to ride into downtown. It has boiled down to being a prisoner in my car merely for personal safety. There are no ancient doorways to duck into when a vehicles rumbles by, we can only step into our neighbor’s green grass or hope for enough room to hop into the ivy and wait! I do hope that in our next neighborhood that we will be spared from all this modern “progress”. I don’t like living “where the sidewalk ends”.