Depeche Thoreau

After reading the two different perspectives of urban space I questioned the time difference between the city of Thoreau’s lifetime compared to de Certeau’s. The Practice of Everyday Life was published in 1974, which on one hand could explain why the two authors viewed cities so differently. On the other hand, however, when I envision city living during the 1970’s it’s difficult to suppress the images of drastic urban decline complete with inner city modern ghettos isolated from public resources, vastly abandoned buildings awaiting bitter relief through arson, and the vacant unmanaged lots that are the modern day trademarks of environmental and social decay. This is the stuff that sent Thoreau forever walking west and so why aren’t the two chapters more similar?

Given the state of urban centers when de Certeau wrote this chapter, it impresses me that he manages to separate the physical space of the city from the “pollutions” brought in by man-made systems. The city itself is appreciated for the ideal concept it could be and defined based on human movement. I find de Certeau’s city refreshing for the possibility of resisting socio-political burdens through the mere act of allowing the city to exist as experience. Though Thoreau also uses his walking to resist the indoor-bound lifestyle he sees as embodied by the city, his criticisms existed at a time when choosing a life outside of the city wasn’t the luxury that it became with time: a major contemporary urban issue is that the choice to leave city residence has been unequally available across class and racial boundaries. I find his perspective not only slightly unrealistic for today, but also very critical in a non-constructive and judgmental way that ultimately came across as elitist.

The view of urban space presented by de Certeau appears more responsible than Thoreau’s condemnation. Thoreau completely abandons the urban space and argues for the reader to follow suit, but if everyone likewise vacated all urban spaces the result would certainly resemble the troubled inner cities that are the orphans of the mass exodus to suburbia that became predominant in the last half of the 20^th century. Talk about environmental irresponsibility! Those aiming for conservation of landscapes would be remiss to continually align themselves with motivations steeped purely in Thoreau-like avoidance. I’m especially fond of the de Certeau’s comparison of urban walking to speech and communication on page 98 where he illustrates his point with an image of Charlie Chaplin and cane. The notion that moving through the city affirms the city’s existence while simultaneously creating new ways for the city to exist provides such strong insistence for meaningful experience despite urban location. The passage also speaks clearly to the goal of conserving and restoring urban landscapes as we would like today, by going “beyond the limits that the determinants of the object set on its utilization.”

I’ve read Thoreau before and I just adored him (as well as Transcendentalism in general, for that matter) when I was teenager and initially forming my understanding of environmentalism. I lived in rural Ohio then and I can’t help but wonder how much of my new reaction to Thoreau is due to becoming a proud (and perhaps defensive) urban resident since! KIM