Rethinking the American Alley - Examples from Baltimore and L.A.

Andy Sywak — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:07:35 -0400

Dark, narrow and usually neglected, the alleyway is not one of the more beloved landscapes of the American city. Out of sight and mind, the "dark alley" is the unseemly home to noir nightmares and urban misdeeds in the popular imagination - the sort of place where Batman surprises his criminal victims.

And yet, planners across the nation are beginning to rethink the alley, re-imagining it as urban parkland. The LA Times ran a piece today about the attempts of academics and planners to recreate trash-and-graffiti strewn alleys as green space. The slide show from the article shows this better than the prose.

In Baltimore, where alleys and murder are more plentiful, gating alleys to decrease crime and increase public space has won public money. Groups like Community Greens are helping to lead the charge.

An interesting union of groups here: gardeners, academics and neighborhood activists.