[load]

Today’s walk was through an interesting neighborhood near the ballpark on Broadway. This was one of those walking experiences that I really enjoy just because of the variation of stimuli. Sure, this is a visual experience, with some amazing trees, like the ones at Twelfth and Broadway, plenty of colorful or otherwise visually interesting structures, but there also lots of sounds and smells. Some of these are some standards–the yapping dog, but also the crowing rooster. A fragrant tree but also flavored tobacco. I’ve heard people conflate “interesting” or even “vibrant” with “dangerous” when speaking about neighborhoods. The reaction has been to build safe, bland places. It’s hard to put a price on safety or vibrancy, but it’s also hard to imagine that at this moment, the tradeoffs involved in building safe places have been worth it.