more on Don't act "suspicious" -- TSA testing SPOT "observation" program

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Tom Gray <tom_gray_grc () yahoo com>
Date: October 3, 2004 10:31:12 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net, tom_gray_grc () yahoo com
Subject: Re: [IP] Don't act "suspicious" -- TSA testing SPOT 
"observation" program

This may be of interest for your IP list.

This new security  system sounds very much like the
‘eyes on the street’ that Jane Jacobs, the leading
urban theorist’ says is an essential part of a
successful community. Jacobs identifies low population
densities and buildings divorced from the street as
reasons for urban decay. Miscreants realize that they
can get away from their crimes because no one is their
to see them do it.

In here seminal 1960s book, ‘The Death and Life of
Great American Cities’ Jacobs contrasts crime ridden
public housing projects with her life in Greenwich
Village. The eyes watching the street in Greenwich
Village created a livable community while the empty
spaces surrounding the then new housing projects cause
people to retreat into their apartments surrendering
their environment to crime. Jacobs supplied an
anecdotes of a man dragging a crying little girl down
her street in the village. She described how her the
residents including the neighborhood grocer came out
to the street to observe. It was found out that it was
 a father dealing with a willful child but if it had
been something else the neighborhood would have
intervened.

Bill Hillier, the architect form University College
London, has extended Jacobs work to create a
predictive mathematical model. (c.f. his book “Space
is the machine’) He sees Jacob’s ‘eyes on the street’
as an aspect of a more abstract concept that he calls
integration but the visibility that they both entail
amounts to the same thing. Hillier can predict the
burglary rate in an area from measurements of
integration which amounts to the visibility possible
on the street. He can predict the failure of proposed
housing developments from visibility and other
factors.

Jacob’s theories are the basis for modern urban
planning. She is one of the few true geniuses of the
twentieth century. She has identified visibility as an
essential element of and successful community.
Therefore I find it hard to fathom why an application
of the same concept to air travel is regarded as
anything but beneficial.  A grave danger of terrorism
is that it will do to the larger community what street
crime did to the unlamented urban housing projects of
the 40s, 50s and 60s. It could cause people to retreat
into safe, almost fortified places and retreat from
the community. It did not take a genius of Jacob’s
capability to see the despair that these projects
caused.

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