Without Neighborhoods, There Is No City

"My neighborhood changes by the hour or by neighbor… ." Fernando Cabrera, Musician

"The closest thing there is is the bakery… ." Jaime Roos, Musician 

What do we want from cities? Do we want them to have likes, followers, instagrammable spaces? Or do we want them to be safe, walkable, integrated, socially inclusive, dynamic, with public spaces, accessibility, and good governance? 

Proximity, balconies and windows that encourage a friendlier perception of the street. If someone walks alone, they are easily visible to neighbors; the "eyes on the street" that Jane Jacobs talked about. Deyan Sudjic, following the logic of neighborhoods and streets, says, "street names have been used to create a sense of identity and cohesion as well as exclusion; also streets have the ability to become brands: Savile Row stands for tailoring; Basin Street stands for jazz". 

And he differentiates between the creation of "trendy new districts like TriBeCa, SoHo with neighborhoods like Merchant's Quarter." The homogenization of cities that leads from a shopping mall to an outlet surely makes us lose something. At least storytelling and more than one tradition.

What Is Not In Cities That Is Always In Neighborhoods?

One arrives in a neighborhood and immediately begins to ask questions, to look, to feel, to perceive, to look for data, to give opinions, to move, to see the people. But the neighbo-rhood is not abstract: it is personal. One sees the neighborhood from one's own point of view, from one's own individual needs, hobbies, moods and tastes. You instinctively ask yourself what relationship you want to have with that city, but more so to live in that neighbo-rhood... where to walk, is there a sea or not, how to connect with that place, with something familiar — your human space.

And You Should Be Able To Answer The Basic Questions

Near home: Where can I have a coffee? Where to eat, a supermarket? Is there good public transport, is it easy to get around? Is there open Wi-Fi? Where is there a pub? Where is there a bookshop, a museum?

The people: Are they young or old? Are they diverse or homogeneous? What are their dynamics? What is the main activity? Is there work? Is there entertainment? Is there freedom?

The data: The scale, the population, the history, the degrees of poverty and wealth, the education.

Feelings: Perception of safety, rhythm, climate, smell and color, architecture, aesthetics, noise, public spaces, nature. 

How Long Would I Stay?

The neighborhood should provide the answer to this question. What it gives access to, who it connects with, what talent it attracts and retains, what personality it has. The neighborhoods of immigrants, of the Irish, of the Jews, of the Italians and the Chinese.

These are matters of degrees and emphasis and ways of seeing the world, not of visas, not of nationalities. People decide to go and live in cities where they feel that coexistence is possible, where it doesn't matter where they come from, because that city will be their second homeland and their neighborhood, their community.

Nobody asks the city if it is intelligent, the abstractions come later; the city must first contain these issues, the everyday ones. If not, it matters little if it is digital, if it is "fast," or if rubbish is collected by drones. The resident, the tourist, the people, must be given their place, their neighborhood, their language in the city, their sense of belonging. To stay, to be able to stay  as one wishes, with the options at hand, with the opportunities, with the rhythm of life that each person decides to lead. The city should not impose itself.

And in the end, one is more of the neighborhood than of the city. For some Mexicans, Santa Fe in Mexico City is like Mars, and for those from Santa Fe, those from Satelite are the same. What's more, sometimes the impassable border is a street, from one side of Insurgentes to  the other is another dimension.

The streets, tree-lined or not, the direction in which they go, the space that pedestrians and bicycles are gaining, the new intersections, and in another space of tension, the thresholds, the transition points between public and private space, the spaces of interaction, are other areas of negotiation. In the commercial sphere, the value chains, the contracts, the connectivity that makes the city tangible in networks of neighborhoods, invisible until something goes wrong.

As Antonio Muñoz Molina said of the footprint found by Robinson Crusoe: "The footprint is the sign that someone has been in a place, but is no longer there. Through the footprint, through the image of the footprint alone, you manage to portray presence." And presence is in the neighborhoods, on the thresholds of houses and in having the bakery at hand where everything changes by the hour and by the neighbor.