Becoming Local: A Long Walk

Company makes streets safer

A typically Australian experience this was! I officially felt like a local after this adventure. A friend and I attended a house party in Redfern. Having never ventured to Redfern yet, the two of us nervously stared at the GPS on my brand new iPhone. Thank god for that! We had no idea where we were walking in a completely unknown area of town on a chilly evening. We managed to find the party in a lovely Victorian terrace house. We proceeded to drink ourselves silly while making new friends and having a great time! When the party planned to head out to the clubs at 1am, we opted to catch one of the last buses home from the area. It was a bit of a walk down narrow streets lined with terrace houses in a dark, damp street. Another part of the Australian experience is having a kebab after a night out, so that is what we did. While enjoying our Australian kebab on the wrong side of the street, our LAST bus drives by! “Doh!” As Homer Simpson would say. Don’t you love those useless drunken moments!? Hahaha.

After losing all appetite for my Kebab the two of us set off on a hike to a main road to hopefully catch a bus from there. This is how students turn an easy cab ride home into a 2-hour. The theme of this story is the safety I felt, maybe it was a false sense of safety but it existed. Having traveled extensively, sometimes on my own, I am very aware of my surroundings. Even in a fog of red wine, that sense did not fail me. Nathalie and I walked 7 kms from Redfern to our place on Anzac Parade near UNSW. And all the while, we did not hesitate. We followed the main roads, and headed down Anzac Parade through Moore Park. I believe it was the traffic on these roads that made us feel safe. Now, if I was walking this route alone, I may not have felt as safe.

The long walk home

When chatting with other local friends, they say they’ve walked home to Randwick from the CBD, through Hyde Park late at night and rarely felt unsafe. What creates this sense of safety? The traffic noise, the late night bus traffic, street lighting? The lone person’s proximity to major thoroughfares? The spread of late night entertainment such as restaurants and pubs throughout every neighbourhood? What makes a park safe? I keep returning to the presence of visual lines, allowing you to see all around you. Clear visuals of your surroundings don’t make you feel as if someone is going to jump out at you or that an assailant could be lurking in a dark shadow.

Images:

http://blueberryfingerprints.blogspot.com.au/2011_05_01_archive.html

http://www.centennialparklands.com.au/connections/news/news_feeds_for_news_landing/all_news_items/tree_replacement_program_wednesday_13_march_2013