Eyes on the Garage, Back to the Street

"Eyes on the street", is a phrase coined by the legendary urban sociologist, Jane Jacobs, in her landmark book: Death and Life of Great American Cities. This phrase is fundamental when planners think about public safety. It is the fundamental concept for CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design).

Jane Jacobs words: "There must be eyes on the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be oriented to the street. They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind. The sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce a sufficient number of people in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks."

Where do you suppose the designers of Whole Foods in downtown Sarasota came up with the idea that having blank walls (adorned by some artistically placed paint) on three sides of their building makes for good urban design? No windows, just walls. How did our Planning staff decide to agree with this? How did our CRA Advisory Board and Commissioners decide to give an incentive in terms of TIF dollars for this "walkable, street friendly" addition to downtown? Did they once again succumb to the developer’s pretty pictures that have no relationship to reality?

Maybe I am too cynical. I guess having the front entrance on an alley with a parking garage entrance across the alley makes up for poor design. This certainly put eyes on the parking garage. Maybe this is part of the new smart growth movement or our smart code? It certainly "smarts" when I think about this design.

I guess I need to keep searching urban design best practices for this principle: "eyes on the garage, back to the street". I just haven’t come across it yet.