The Code Of The Street And Decent And Street Families, By Elijah Anderson

Throughout the City Reader, numerous authors focus on cities and how they evolved, their social structure, their relationships with other cities, and even their impact on future cities. Elijah Anderson, in “The Code of The Street” and “Decent and Street Families,” specifically focuses policy issues within the inner city, and how the code of the street creates a relationship within the city. However, Jane Jacobs, in “The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety,” explains safety within a city from “eyes on the street” and how sidewalks are the beating heart of a city. Wilson and Kelling in Broken Windows, examines in great detail how one broken window, leads to more broken windows and shows the community does not care and will begin to decline. Lastly, Harvey,

“Decent families tend to accept mainstream values more fully than street families, and they attempt to instill them in their children” (p 135). Although, these decent families accept the middle-class values, they know the code cannot be ignored. The code cannot be ignored because ‘decent’ and ‘street’ systems of behavior coexist and constantly interact within the ghetto community. “Even children from supportive ‘decent families’ need to engage in “code switching” in order “to handle themselves in a street oriented environment.” The street oriented group are those who make up the criminal element. In their view, “policemen, public official, and corporate heads are unworthy of respect and hold little moral authority” (Simmel, p 134). The street family is more invested in the code than the decent family. In regards to the public’s view of the “street,” view them as lowlifes or overall bad people. These individuals and groups are labeled from the moment they are born and as hard as they try they are generally seen as incapable of being anything but a bad influence. According to Anderson, the interaction between street and decent must be known by all individuals in order to survive the inner

The city is a space of social existence, the development of modernity, and more than half of the world’s population live in cities (Kardaras). For these reasons, crowded neighborhood sidewalks were the safest place for children to play (Jacobs, p 149). Jacobs focuses on these importance of sidewalks and safety within the city. She discusses the basic outline for what makes a community and how to make the city livable. In regards to safety, particularly for women and children, safety comes from “eyes on the street,” coming from surveillance of those on the streets and those who owns shops that run along the streets. However, this kind of neighborhood surveillance has been destroyed by the building of skyscrapers downtown. Still, sidewalks are the safest part of the city. For this reason, “when people say that a city, or part of it, is dangerous or is a jungle what they mean primarily is that they do not feel safe on the sidewalks (Jacobs, p 150). An unconscious belief of sidewalks is that a crowded street is apt to be a safe street, while a deserted street is apt to be dangerous. However, in busy corporate buildings, the surrounding sidewalks are busy during the day, but may be empty by night. When this occurs, this is why Jacobs explains the importance of “eyes on the streets.” These eyes belong to those of natural proprietors of the street. These proprietors are shop keepers who are sprinkled along the