The Public Sphere: When the street becomes a shared home for us all

Source: The vision of children playing in the streets

"Old men and old women shall once again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with a staff in hand because of their great age. And the streets of the city shall be filled with boys and girls, playing in its streets."

(Zechariah 8:5)

Explanation: Children as a measure of a just society

The prophet sees the safety of the most vulnerable—the elderly and children—as the true measure of a robust public sphere. A healthy public space is a place where every person feels safe walking around without fear of violence or exclusion.

Perspective: The complex reality: Who still feels like a stranger on the street?

Very few streets in the world are safe in the way the prophet Zechariah describes. Many minorities feel threatened—strangers, gays and lesbians, people with disabilities—alongside traffic accidents, child abductions, and more. Sometimes it is people threatening others in the city square; sometimes it is the sheer inaccessibility of the public sphere, and we are still waiting for the prophecy to come true. Next year...

Going Deeper: Eyes on the street: Jane Jacobs's solution

In her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, activist and researcher Jane Jacobs argues that safety in the public sphere does not come from police officers, but from what she calls "eyes on the street." A vibrant, thriving public sphere is designed for mixed use (residential, commercial, and leisure), so there are always people naturally watching and looking out for one another, creating a communal safety net for children and women.

Culture: The Jerusalem that once was: A memory of the public sphere

The song "Ani Ve-Simon Ve-Moise HaKatan" (Me, Simon, and Little Moise) by Yossi Banai is a lament for the Jerusalem public sphere of days gone by. The movie theater, the neighborhood, and street games forged a shared identity that transcended poverty.