Our Personal Challenges Aren't Aided by the Built Environment

Many of the issues addressed by Bickford, and somehow forgotton amidst our discussions about gated communities and the suburbs, deal with personal psychological challenges. Interacting with strangers is NOT easy, truely helping the poor takes time and effort, and real genuine community is scarely existent at all. We are self-focused and fearful creatures.

"The public is a place of risk, uncertainty, incompleteness...But exposure also has another meaning, one that has come to be overwhelming-- vulnerability, exposure to hurt and danger, unsafe because not inside."

Pulling ourselves away from others out of fear is natural, but it doesn't cause growth. Many of the inventions of the past century have fueled our ability to be independent, and the architecture we have created is no exception. So if architecture and the built environment can encourage us to grow by learning to interact with and care for other individuals, it should. The question is how?

Bickford does a great job of calling to light our weaknesses architecturally and governmentally, ultimately resulting from personal challenges we are hardly aware of; and she even encourages dialogue and communication. But I have yet to see any concrete suggestions, case studies, or design strategies for those involved with the built environment.