SKATE OR DIE
ok so here's the deal. i haven't updated in approximately forever, so i'm going to make up for it with the mother of all updates. we're talking potential record length. i'm psyched. so what's happening is, i'm going to post the entirety of a 25+ page paper that i wrote this past semester. the subject of the paper is, in broad terms, skateboarding and its relationship to the present day city-- the ways that these entities interact and affect each other, and what these interactions could mean for the city in the future. my reasons for doing such a completely buttfaced thing are thus:
1. i worked HARD on this paper nearly every day for an entire semester, from january to may. thus far, only two people have read it- my professors. perhaps it's a little narcissistic, but i would like people to read something i toiled so much to produce.
2. i'm proud of this paper. i'm more proud of this than anything else i have ever written, academically speaking. it's not perfect- far from it- but i think it's genuinely pretty good.
3. again, it's NOT perfect-- and that bothers me. there are lots of pieces missing, points of argument that need to developed more, etc. on the whole, i feel that the paper is too derivative of others' work, not thoroughly researched enough, and lacks too much important information to really stand on its own as a well-rounded academic and theoretical piece. i've hatched a plan to add to, revise, and truly COMPLETE the essay, which will probably require several more months of work sometime after i get home from europe in the winter, just for my own satisfaction. i want it to be GOOD-- the subject matter is absolutely important enough to me that to have a solid and useful finished product is worth all the effort and time. so if you actually take the time to read it (and please do), make some suggestions-- tell me what you think works, what doesn't, what does or doesn't make sense to you, what needs to be made more or less prominent-- just anything that might improve the paper's readability and effectiveness. even if its just an "i like it" or an "i hate it," supply some feedback, please.
4. i want to see if posting this even works... i'm interested to see if livejournal just shits its pants and runs away when it sees what i have in store for it. i've spared you both the Works Cited pages and the pictures to, hopefully, make things a little easier.
thanks. enjoy.
SKATE OR DIE
“The city offers you so many things. Street skating just keeps you
moving, and that’s the most important thing.”
-Ricky Oyola, Slap Magazine August 2003
The city is a special place; it is always in transition, always in a process of transformation into a new and potentially radically different entity. Since street skateboarding displaced vertical skateboarding as the dominant mode in the sport in the late 1980s, skateboarders have become one more force among many pulling the future of American cities in one direction or another. Considerable effects of the social force of skateboarding can already be seen in the United States, mostly in the form of attempts by city officials and building owners to control or manage the perceived threat of skateboarding, whether by design, containment, force, or otherwise. However, this paper will argue that, though city officials and landowners have largely tried to reject the presence of skateboarding thus far, skateboarding can yet have an influence on the direction the city takes in the future. The ideas exemplified by the alternative logic of skateboarding are integral to this influence, and may well become significant parts of the physical and ideological landscape of new, re-invented American cities. Among the suggestions skateboarding has for cities of the future are a balance between pleasure and work, an emphasis on space incorporating both inclusivity and multiple functions, and a greater degree of input from young people into the planning of public city spaces. Indeed, I will argue that the reformation of urban public space suggested by the practice of skateboarding is essential to preserving any semblance of true democracy in American cities.
To best understand the relationship between skateboarding and the city, it is important to first examine the ideology of the skateboarding subculture, and the patently unique perspective employed by skateboarders in viewing their surroundings. This examination must necessarily be historical in nature, as the origins of the ideological structures necessary to this discussion are rooted in the very early years of skateboarding’s presence in the public eye.
Origins
“Kids have always had an affinity for their own set of wheels.”
- Michael Brooke, The Concrete Wave
It is impossible to pinpoint where the first skateboards were made, and even the general time period in which they first appeared remains a question. Some accounts recall skateboard variations as early as the beginning of the 20th century, though these prototypes were “actually more like [scooters]” (Brooke 16). It was not until the mid-1950s that the phenomenon of skateboarding began to spread swiftly through the coastal cities of the western United States, especially California and Hawaii. Surfers in these areas made skateboards out of wood scraps and old roller skates in order to practice surfing maneuvers on dry land during flat spells at their local beaches. As one skateboarding historian has noted, “With arguably one less wave breaking every day and endless flows of streets and sidewalks, parking lots covering the landscape, skateboarding was a natural to gain a toehold as a favorite pastime pleasure” for young surfers (Ted 46). Indeed, the term “skateboarding” did not come into regular usage for several years; rather, this new activity was referred to as “sidewalk surfing” until the mid-1960s (Brooke 19).
In 1959, with the introduction of the first commercially sold skateboard, the “Official Skee-Skate” from Roller Derby which consisted of “stamped steel wheels and trucks riveted on a bullet shaped 19" x 4 ½" plywood skateboard” (Ted 46), skateboarding began to come into its own as a sport independent from surfing. Though for many years, even into the 1970s, skateboarding would be considered closely linked to surfing, in the early 1960s the popularity of skateboarding began to increase and spread to areas and individuals untouched by surfing subculture, as “these toy boards brought sidewalk surfing to the landlocked Midwest and subdivided communities of single-family dwellings spreading out between the coasts” (Ted 46). Indeed, skateboarding itself was transforming into a genuine fad in its own right, with skateboard companies “selling millions of units and sweeping the nation alongside youth crazes like the Hula Hoop” (Ted 46). This popularity led to the creation of the first professional skateboard company, Makaha, which was formed in 1963 by Larry Stevenson, an editor at Surf Guide Magazine. Sales skyrocketed, as “over 50 million skateboards were sold in a three-year period” (Brooke 21). Thus, skateboarding had entered the public eye in impressive proportions. Despite its ubiquitous presence in many areas of the United States, however, I do not believe that skateboarding had yet developed into the potentially subversive subculture it would later become. Importantly, skateboarding remained almost exclusively a suburban phenomenon; it had not yet gained popularity in cities, whose cultural centrality would be necessary to develop a widely subversive movement. For most people, skateboarding constituted either an occasional break from surfing or a mere passing fad; in either case it was often to be indulged in briefly and promptly left behind as the tides came in or popular culture moved on to another obsession.
Moreover, this first wave of skateboarding’s popularity was not able to sustain itself for long. The skateboard industry was plagued by inferior equipment. As Michael Brooke notes, “The manufacturers were so busy making boards that little had been done in the way of research and development. Beyond replacing the squeaky steel roller skate wheels with smoother-riding clay wheels and refining the trucks (the devices that hold the wheels), there were few technological advances” (21). This both “[impeded] the skater from any great progress” (Ted 46) and led to considerable concerns about safety; indeed, some municipalities “started to ban skateboards in response to health and safety concerns, and after a few fatal accidents, skateboarding was officially drummed out of existence” (Brooke 21). The new sport of skateboarding refused to die entirely, though; rather, “skateboarding shrunk back to the coasts in the late Sixties” (Ted 46). A few hardy skateboarders, heavily concentrated in suburban coastal areas, kept the sport alive through the lean years that followed.
In 1973, a new innovation allowed skateboarding to push to the forefront again: the urethane wheel. Though some “roller skate companies had experimented with a plastic and urethane skate wheel since the late Fifties” (Ted 46), they had not become popular, and remained untested on skateboards. However, in 1970, Frank Nasworthy, the man “generally given credit for his revelation in bringing urethane wheels down to a group of surf/skate rats on the beaches of San Diego” (Ted 46), began experimenting with different urethane wheel designs, eventually culminating in the commercial release of Nasworthy’s Cadillac Wheels in 1973. This single accomplishment was enough to jump-start the second wave of skateboarding’s popularity. The new urethane wheels were “magnificent compared to clay wheels” (Brooke 44), the resulting ride smoother, quieter, faster, and safer than anything previously attained on a skateboard. A few short years later, in 1975, the Novak, Haut, and Sherman (NHS)/ Santa Cruz-manufactured Road Rider wheel was the first to incorporate sealed precision bearings, a welcome change from the loose ball bearings previously used. The new bearings, based on vacuum cleaner parts, were faster, more efficient, and easier to use. With the potent combination of urethane wheels and precision bearings, skateboarders were rolling in ways they never had before.
The industrious attitude that spawned these breakthroughs in skateboard technology, combined with a new desire to take skateboarding to previously unimaginable levels, soon brought the sport to unforeseen heights- literally. With the added traction and speed provided by urethane wheels and precision bearings, the skateboarders of the 1970s were able to perform seemingly gravity-defying tricks on vertical surfaces; as Brooke states, urethane wheels “allowed skaters to get the grip they needed to ride past the coping and push out into the air” (38). Also in this era, skateboarders began to gain a reputation as rebellious and anti-authoritarian, particularly as the most ambitious skaters at the time began using empty and abandoned swimming pools for their ground-breaking new maneuvers. This practice often set skateboarders at odds with landlords, homeowners, and police who worried that skateboarders would damage private property or violate trespassing laws. Though this era was also accompanied by a boom in skateparks constructed specifically for use by skateboarders, beginning with the Skateboard City park in Port Orange, California in 1976 (Brooke 64), many skaters continued to appropriate other spaces for their own use. Despite the increased atmosphere of legitimacy surrounding the new skateparks and the high-stakes competitions that took place inside them, skateboarders made use of not only pools, but also suburban schoolyards which sometimes contained smooth concrete embankments, circular drainage tunnels (commonly referred to as “fullpipes”) found in industrial areas and near large man-made bodies of water, and multi-level parking garages.
The most visible and influential skateboarders during this time were the Z-Boys, a motley bunch of surfers and skateboarders from Santa Monica, California, united under the banner of the Zephyr Skateboard company. Their aggressive and innovative style of skateboarding went against the common conventions of the era, which emphasized technicality and formulaic trick performance, with competitions judged similarly to figure skating. This approach was both shocking and invigorating to the skateboarding world; as the award-winning documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys posits, “the Z-Boys took skateboarding’s traditional upright approach and drove it straight into the ground” (Peralta), by incorporating a low, quick, surf-inspired style that blew away minds and their competitors at California contests. The Z-Boys, particularly such influential skaters as Stacy Peralta, Jay Adams, Tony Alva, and Jim Muir, were also unlikely pioneers of vertical (or “vert”) skateboarding who changed the face of their sport while never viewing themselves as pacesetters. For instance, Jay Adams “did the first inverts, nay-wheelers, lap over grinds, cess slides, and slashbacks without knowing or caring what they were called” (“Skateboarding: 1970" 38). The lasting influence of the Z-Boys cannot be understated. As Brooke posits, “Their intense, aggressive style paved the way for generations of skaters. It is this foundation that people are still riding on today” (57), as evidenced by street skating in cities, where the emphasis remains on speed, style, rawness, and inventiveness (“Street Life” 70). The influence of the Z-Boys was not limited to skate style, however. Skateboarders all over the world emulated their rebellious attitudes and disdain for commercialism, as exemplified by skaters such as Tony Alva, who has described skateboarding at the time as “right to the edge of being commercial, but not quite because the skaters were so hardcore it was hard for society to accept them” (Alva 79). The Z-Boys, and the later generations that adopted their attitudes, did not need any reason to skate, other than love for the sport (Peralta). This would prove to be a lasting tradition among skateboarders, even until the present day, when even professional skaters acknowledge that “skateboarding is all about being yourself, doing your own thing. It’s about having fun” (S. 158). Later, this orientation would promote street skateboarding anywhere the skater pleased; little else mattered but the feeling, the thrill of skating and progressing. Just as with the Z-Boys, even such powerful forces as the law and social disdain would not be enough to keep street skaters from practicing their chosen sport.
The combination of new and better equipment, the innovation of vertical skateboarding, and the aggressive orientation of the Z-Boys also gave birth to a new preoccupation with progress that began to surface among skateboarders at this time. Rodney Mullen, a premier skateboarder who began his career as a sponsored skater in 1977 (Brooke 109), compares this state of mind to that of a warring conqueror:
From what I understand, Alexander the Great died in Babylon of drunkenness and obesity shortly after his vanquishing days were over. The spoils of war apparently paled in comparison to the actual act of conquering. I’m no Alexander, but I can’t deny a little of that spirit. None of us can . . . What drove me all along was the happiness I got from the endless hours of pushing my own limits. (11)
Skateboarding, then, has continued to be based on the simple principles of fun and progression. Personal satisfaction is paramount, but there is also an emphasis placed on “a community of skaters . . . pushing each other to progress” (“5 Pros” 52). In other words, for the last two and a half decades, skateboarders have been continually trying to work together to make their tricks bigger, faster, smoother, more technical, and better as a general rule. Progress is of the essence, but the pursuit is not selfish- the community is as important as the individual. In this way skateboarding is an example of a subculture based in democratic forms.
Vertical skateboarding, performed in pools, bowls, and halfpipes, remained the focus of the skateboarding world throughout the 1970s and most of the 1980s, despite the end of skateboarding’s second wave of popularity around 1980. Again, skateboarding was damaged by safety concerns. In particular, “ insurance became so expensive that many [skatepark] owners closed their doors and the bulldozers were brought in” (Brooke 45). Though skateboarding was considered “dead” again, still “a hardcore contingent built their own backyard halfpipes and ramps and continued to develop the sport” (Brooke 45). The time was ripe for a new form of skateboarding to develop, one that was able to physically progress at the same rate that skater’s minds came up with new ideas, one that did not rely on spaces created specifically for skateboarding: street skating.
Into The Streets
“Two hundred years of American technology has unwittingly created a massive cement playground of immense potential. But it was the minds of 11 year olds that could see that potential.”
-Craig Stecyk
It has been said that “the demise of skateboarding” in the early 1980s “began in the parks it had been relegated to” (Ted 48). Many skateboarders were unable or unwilling to pay to “walk behind a fence, don the required helmet, elbow and knee pads, and wrist guards to skate on terrain that was sometimes so kinked and poorly designed as to be dangerous” (Ted 48). Consequently, they sought alternate locations to practice their sport. For many, the most attractive option was to return to “the abandoned hotel pool down the street” (Ted 48), which was free in terms of both money and rules, excepting the occasional run-in with law enforcement or land-owners. The act of skateboarding itself remained a source of unlimited potential. This mentality of adventure in the endless search for new terrain, accompanied by the traditional preoccupation with progress, eventually led skateboarders to “discover and exploit the best and most obvious terrain that was right under their boards the whole time- the street” (Ted 48). In the words of architect and theorist Iain Borden,
Around 1984, Los Angeles skaters began the first radical extensions of skateboarding onto the most quotidian and conventional elements of the urban landscape. Using as their basic move the ‘ollie,’ the impact-adhesion-ascension procedure by which the skater unweights the front of the skateboard to make it pop seemingly unaided into the air, they rode up onto the walls, steps, and street furniture of the Santa Monica strand and Venice boardwalk. (“Another Pavement”180)
As Borden indicates, the worlds of skateboarding and the city, previously separated by the physical limits of suburbia and the fences of skateparks, encountered each other head on for the first time during this era. In the United States, street skating easily eclipsed vertical skateboarding in popularity by the late 1980s, but the traditions of vert skating remained an important part of skateboarding culture. Not only did the skaters of this generation retain their predecessors rejection of authority and conventionality, as evidenced by the Thrasher Skateboard Magazine mantra of “Skate and Destroy,” but they “would bring vert moves from the park to try in the street” (Ted, 48), using what had been accomplished already to foster their own rapid progression. In the streets of American cities, skateboarders created and discovered new tricks and terrain every day.
However, this migration of the skateboarding culture has also resulted in the city becoming the site of the sport’s greatest conflicts to date. Many inhabitants of the city, most importantly police, building owners, city planners and other officials, have proven to be less than receptive of skateboarding. To these individuals, skateboarding is perceived as a serious threat. Many building owners, city officials, and law enforcement officers justify opposition to skateboarding by citing “clearly identifiable problems such as damage to buildings, footpaths and facilities such as seating” (Freeman and Riordan 301). Still others feel that skateboarders are a menace to the safety of other pedestrians, or consider skateboarders as a group as “noisy, reckless, and anti-social” (Freeman and Riordan 301). Even former United States President George H. W. Bush has said about skateboarders, “Just thank God they don’t have guns” (“Censorship”). Though these fears are based primarily on stereotypes, hyperbole, and misinformation (for instance, the infamous scenario involving the speeding skateboarder knocking over the frail old woman is so unheard of in reality as to be almost laughable), they have eventually led to skateboarding bans and curfews in cities across the nation, including San Diego, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, Portland, and Savannah (“Censorship” ). Even smaller cities and towns have followed this lead and made skateboarding a criminal activity. To draw from my own experience, I was once “pulled over” while skateboarding by a zealous police officer in a squad car, and informed that even my small Maine hometown of about 25,000 people had adopted an ordinance banning skateboarding in the street. In many locations, including some shopping and corporate plazas, universities, and public and private schools, skateboarding is defined as trespassing, and skateboarders are thus subject to the control of police and security forces who frequently force them off the premises, and may even have the authority and legal backing to place them under arrest. It is now possible for individuals to face expensive tickets, fines, and even jail time simply for the act of skateboarding in the wrong place (“Censorship”). Even so, most skateboarders are unfazed by these potential consequences, and continue to skate in various urban environments, avoiding law enforcement and security guards by skating at night or on weekends.
The motivation behind these attempts to control skateboarding, when examined closely, is primarily economic in nature. Borden states, “skateboarders have encountered a politics of space similar to the experience of the homeless. Like the homeless, skateboarders occupy urban space without engaging in economic activity” (“Censorship”). This, not simply the potential damages or liability issues alone, is what results in urban managers’ desire to eliminate skateboarding from their properties. After all, any use of space by any individual could be construed as damaging or dangerous. The problem for property managers is that skateboarders are conceived of as an annoyance by the more economically viable majority. Several factors indicate to store owners, mall operators, and other business managers that skateboarders will not contribute to their financial gain. The relative youth of most skateboarders, the majority of whom are under 25 years of age (Nolan 313), is one important factor, as young people do not generally possess the same economic power as adults. Also, modern skateboarders continue to retain the disdain for commercialism of their predecessors. In most cases, the act of skateboarding is much more important while a skateboarder is engaged in skating than making a purchase is. This also harkens back to the emphasis placed on fun inherent in the act of skateboarding passed down through generations of skateboarders since the 1970s.
There have also been many attempts to control skateboarding outside of the realm of law enforcement, motivated by the same factors that have influenced legal actions against skateboarding. The negative stigma attached to skateboarders persists so strongly that even some “private citizens seem to delight in ‘confiscating’ skateboards- an action which is legally theft” (“Censorship”), because they deem skateboarders’ uses of space to be unsuitable or disruptive to business practices. A newer, much subtler method has building owners and managers adding “rough textured surfaces to discourage skaters, while more overt measures include spikes and bumps added to handrails, blocks of concrete placed at the foot of banks, chains across ditches and steps, and new, unridable surfaces such as gravel and sand” (“Censorship”) (see figs. I-IV for examples of these tactics). Indeed, a whole new industry has sprung up in response to landowners wishes for “a low cost and permanent solution to their skateboard problem” (www.skateabate.com), which also constitutes a perceived business problem, as discussed above. Thus, so-called “skatestoppers” have become an everyday reality for skateboarders to deal with. Companies such as Intellicept (makers of the original “Skatestopper”), Ravensforge Skateboard Solutions, and SkateAbate have become successful purveyors of skate-deterrent technology (Dougherty).
These companies purport to prevent the damages and liability issues that are thought to accompany skateboarders, but there are indications that the “problem” they are addressing is concerned much more with image. For instance, the Intellicept Skate Stoppers website characterizes skateboarding as “disruptive”and derides the tendency of skateboarders to leave behind “black stained, broken, and worn concrete (and you’re lucky if that is all)” (www.skatestoppers.com). There is also an apparent financial aspect to the “problem,” as the same website also states, “what is deemed by skaters . . . as ‘creative expression’ is costing you money” (www.skatestoppers.com). The expressed goals of skate-deterrent companies, then, are in concert with the goals of urban building owners, businesses, and law enforcement agents: stop skateboarding in spaces used primarily for economic matters, in order to preserve an atmosphere that is perceived as better for business, and to make more or lose less money. Interestingly, attempts at skate-deterrence are often considered unsuccessful by the skateboarding world. As skater Ocean Howell says in reference to the emerging “skate-stopping” businesses,
The first attempts were hilarious. What sort of meatball tries to wreck a nice slippery ledge by putting an even more slippery square bar on top of it? It was as though they’d never even watched anyone actually skateboard . . . The logic of skateboarding completely eluded them, and . . . continuously appeared to city planners as so much chaos. (“Future” 46)
Thus, skateboarders have benefitted from the building owners’ and planners’ misconceptions about their sport. Sometimes, attempts to thwart skateboarding actually result in obstacles that are better for skateboarders to use; following Howell’s example, a square metal bar placed horizontally over a ledge actually makes performing “grind” tricks on the ledge easier. Skateboarders have also been consistently able to circumvent attempts at “skate-stopping”, either by removal of the devices using hacksaws, or even power tools and generators (Dougherty), or simply by skating around the deterrents (see Figs. V-VI for examples of unsuccessful skate deterrent attempts) . For instance, in another article, Howell mentions part of a “skate-stopped” ledge “that goes over a flower bed, somewhere they figure skaters won’t go. That part of the ledge is unmolested. . . also, you can do manual tricks where you thread between the little bastards” (“Reason” 42). Thus, through their lack of understanding of the conventions of street skateboarding, would-be skate deterrents have frequently failed in their stated missions.
If anything, they have encouraged more creativity and progression in skateboarding tricks, which have been performed specifically to outmatch the “skate-stoppers.” As Howell says, “street skating has always thrived in places where designers attempt to control human behavior” (“Reason” 46). Indeed, skateboarding has always exhibited remarkable resiliency, and Borden posits that “being banned from the public domain becomes simply one more obstacle for skaters to overcome” (“Beneath the Pavement”), just as they have overcome economic boom and bust, social disdain, and the everyday objects of urban life which they conquer through their skating. Skaters feel this irrepressibility deeply; in the words of professional skateboarder Marc Johnson, “Street skateboarding will survive” (“Street Life” 91).
In direct response to the failures of law enforcement and skate-deterrents, attempts to stop skateboarding in certain locations have become considerably more drastic. Indeed, the perceived threat of skateboarding has caused significant alterations to the physical landscape of some major cities. For instance, in both San Francisco and Philadelphia, major urban plazas have been either completely torn down and redesigned (as with Justin Herman Plaza, or EMB, in San Francisco) or significantly altered (as with Love Park in Philadelphia) specifically to combat the skateboarding which had become “too popular to ignore”(DC Shoes “The Verdict”) in those locations.
Even more disturbingly, in the minds of skateboarders, is that skate-proofing is now being worked into the actual design of new buildings, plazas, and other public and semi-public spaces. Howell gives the example of Philip Burton Federal Building in San Francisco, where designers placed a long metal bench, “with armrests every 18 inches,” at the foot of a concrete embankment. He says, “looking at how well placed that bench is, it’s clear that the designers had skating in mind. . . This bench is meticulously placed: you can’t slide it, and it makes a huge, smooth bank completely unskateable” (“Future” 47). Even the seemingly hapless skate-stopper companies have adjusted their approach, as they now offer devices that can be inserted into freshly poured concrete, instead of added on later. In short, those who wish to eliminate skateboarding from economically driven spaces are developing a better understanding of the sport, enabling more effective control strategies.
However, skateboarders are generally unconcerned about the prospect that their chosen sport could be driven from the urban realm. Professional skater Daewon Song states, “Street skating is here forever. Cars need streets to drive on, kids need school to go to, people need rails to hold on to and stairs to get up and down. Our terrain is always just around the corner, and that’s forever” (“Street Life” 91). In other words, since skateboarding utilizes the very fabric of the city in everyday practice, it cannot be eliminated from the city. All of the necessary components for street skateboarding exist indefinitely and ubiquitously. The resulting resiliency and visibility are precisely what have allowed skateboarding to become a potentially subversive activity. Borden claims that because cities offer so many possibilities to their inhabitants, and that as a result city dwellers are potentially more adaptive than suburbanites, “ we have no language of urban living, and instead are surrounded by an emptiness filled with signs” (“Another Pavement” 181). The power of skateboarding is that it can lend meaning to these empty signs. Through its resiliency, which results in repetition of similar actions frequently over time, and sheer numbers of participants (20-40 million worldwide [“A Performative Critique”]), the very visible sport of skateboarding is able to extend its interpretations of urban signs to other people in the city who do not skateboard.
The Poetics of Community
“This is the most overt political space produced by skateboarders, a pleasure ground carved out of the city as a kind of continuous reaffirmation of one of the central maxims of the 1968 Paris revolts: that au dessous les paves, la plage- beneath the pavement, lies the beach.”
-Iain Borden
One of the interpretations inscribed by skateboarders into the semiotic text of the city is an emphasis on public spaces that are inclusive to all of a city’s inhabitants, an idea that works against many current interpretations of the role of urban public space. Using the same example of the Philip Burton Federal Building, Howell offers a revealing look at the way city officials perceive skateboarding. The design that was eventually used was the winner of an international contest sponsored by the Government Services Administration entitled “The Poetics of Security,” which aimed to create a place that was safe from a multitude of security threats, such as terrorism (like the Oklahoma City bombing) and unwanted human elements, including the homeless, the unemployed, and skateboarders (“Future” 47). The inclusion of skateboarding as a threat worthy of consideration alongside terrorism is certainly disturbing in its implication that skateboarders are a serious danger to society at large. One of the judges for the Poetics of Security contest suggested that the designs “tell us something about who we are, where we are, and how our government appears to us” (“Future” 47). For skateboarders in this case, the government can only appear as an exclusionary institution, dedicated to categorizing and controlling them under the guises of “poetics” and “security.” Planners are forced to use subtle design methods to control “threats” such as skateboarding, because they don’t want their plazas and public spaces to “look ridiculous and violent by covering them in knobs and spikes” (“Future” 48), which would discourage other, more normalized and “legitimate” uses of those spaces. Yet, they also must provide a sense of safety and insulation from the perceived dangers of other city dwellers.
As fewer truly public spaces are built, and the concept of public space itself is shifting toward ideas of shopping malls and corporate plazas, these ideas are becoming increasingly more prevalent. As urban theorist Saskia Sassen observes, “Space in the city is inscribed with the dominant corporate culture” (191). This is true of urban public spaces more and more frequently, as “recent public-private partnerships in urban America have made possible . . . ‘shadow privatization’” (Lofland 211), a term which describes arrangements in which money, zoning favors, or physical spaces are exchanged between corporations and city governments on the condition that companies provide “‘sort of’ public” spaces (Lofland 211). For instance, a growing movement has established business improvement districts (BIDs) in cities across the United States. These are “associations of local business owners who have the legal right to tax themselves over and above city taxes in order to provide their own ‘improvements’” (Zukin 56). The end results of such arrangements are publically accessible spaces that are privately owned and operated. However, because BIDs and other private owners of public spaces are permitted to hire their own security (Zukin 56) to keep undesirable human elements out, the spaces are no longer truly public. Only a specifically defined portion of the city population is allowed to inhabit these locations- people who contribute to the economic activities surrounding them. Thus, many city residents are kept out of these spaces, because they use them in ways that are not normalized or economically productive. City dwellers rejected from privatized public spaces include the homeless, and of particular interest in this paper, skateboarders.
Skateboarding suggests an alternate route, however, encompassing inclusivity and a degree of pleasurability in city spaces, as opposed to exclusionary architecture and strictly economic functions. Through the consistent and repeated practice of skateboarding in exclusionary city spaces, performed by millions of skaters across the United States, skateboarders provide a constant reminder that urban public spaces can be constructed differently, both physically and ideologically. While Mike Davis posits that “ the universal consequence of the crusade to secure the city is the destruction of any truly democratic urban space” (155), Howell asks, instead of exclusivity and discrimination, instead of a “Poetics of Security,” “Why not a ‘Poetics of Community’ design concept?” (“Future” 47). Urban skateboarding inherently suggests a more democratic view of public space, in that it always interrogates and indicts the elite, corporate, and undemocratic powers that try to exercise control over them and the spaces they use. By refusing to participate in the economic activity of urban spaces, focusing instead on pleasure and interaction (both interpersonal and between people and physical spaces), skateboarding encourages an atmosphere of gratification through togetherness and inclusivity. Lofland argues that the “public realm is . . . an effective setting for the enactment of change or proposed change, for the enactment of social conflict” (236). The practice of skateboarding helps ensure that there remains public space to protest in and critique the contemporary status quo.
Part of this idea of a newly democratic concept of public space is the notion that the design of public space should itself be a more democratic process. In particular, since skateboarding is such a youth dominated sport, it encourages an increased role for youth in the urban planning process. Nolan argues that, presently, “the hegemonic authoring of the urban landscape excludes the views of young people from the planning process, alienating those who see the landscape differently from the middle-aged male ‘norm’” (314). This category certainly includes skateboarders, who “reimagine the urban landscape as a playground” (Nolan 315). While other groups of young people are affected by changes in public space, and others also question those changes, young skateboarders are particularly relevant because they visibly continue their activities, without regard to the rules and plans designed to keep them out of certain spaces. Just as they are a consistent reminder of the exclusivity of privatized public space, they are also a reminder of precisely who is being excluded- young people. The act of skateboarding, when attempts are made to repress and confine it, begs the same question posed by Freeman and Riordan, quoting Adams and Ingham: that is, “if ‘in a democratic society we have government by consensus, why not have planning by consensus? This would involve all those affected by environmental change, including young people’” (302). Thus, urban street skateboarding encourages a more democratic system of city planning, taking into account the needs of the entire populace, not only the adult, elite, and corporate sectors.
Conclusion
It would be extending the ideas contained in this paper too far to say that, without the continued practice of skateboarding in urban public spaces, true democracy will cease to exist in American cities. However, it is clear that the ideas suggested by urban skateboarding- that public space has become too privatized and repressive, that public space should be inclusive and multi-purpose, that young people warrant a greater role in urban planning, especially of public spaces- are indeed essential to renewing more democratic physical and ideological forms in the future of American cities. Perhaps the decades old skateboarding mantra of “Skate or die,’ as true and powerful as it may feel to many skaters, could be restated more accurately- Skate or cease to create change.
1. i worked HARD on this paper nearly every day for an entire semester, from january to may. thus far, only two people have read it- my professors. perhaps it's a little narcissistic, but i would like people to read something i toiled so much to produce.
2. i'm proud of this paper. i'm more proud of this than anything else i have ever written, academically speaking. it's not perfect- far from it- but i think it's genuinely pretty good.
3. again, it's NOT perfect-- and that bothers me. there are lots of pieces missing, points of argument that need to developed more, etc. on the whole, i feel that the paper is too derivative of others' work, not thoroughly researched enough, and lacks too much important information to really stand on its own as a well-rounded academic and theoretical piece. i've hatched a plan to add to, revise, and truly COMPLETE the essay, which will probably require several more months of work sometime after i get home from europe in the winter, just for my own satisfaction. i want it to be GOOD-- the subject matter is absolutely important enough to me that to have a solid and useful finished product is worth all the effort and time. so if you actually take the time to read it (and please do), make some suggestions-- tell me what you think works, what doesn't, what does or doesn't make sense to you, what needs to be made more or less prominent-- just anything that might improve the paper's readability and effectiveness. even if its just an "i like it" or an "i hate it," supply some feedback, please.
4. i want to see if posting this even works... i'm interested to see if livejournal just shits its pants and runs away when it sees what i have in store for it. i've spared you both the Works Cited pages and the pictures to, hopefully, make things a little easier.
thanks. enjoy.
SKATE OR DIE
“The city offers you so many things. Street skating just keeps you
moving, and that’s the most important thing.”
-Ricky Oyola, Slap Magazine August 2003
The city is a special place; it is always in transition, always in a process of transformation into a new and potentially radically different entity. Since street skateboarding displaced vertical skateboarding as the dominant mode in the sport in the late 1980s, skateboarders have become one more force among many pulling the future of American cities in one direction or another. Considerable effects of the social force of skateboarding can already be seen in the United States, mostly in the form of attempts by city officials and building owners to control or manage the perceived threat of skateboarding, whether by design, containment, force, or otherwise. However, this paper will argue that, though city officials and landowners have largely tried to reject the presence of skateboarding thus far, skateboarding can yet have an influence on the direction the city takes in the future. The ideas exemplified by the alternative logic of skateboarding are integral to this influence, and may well become significant parts of the physical and ideological landscape of new, re-invented American cities. Among the suggestions skateboarding has for cities of the future are a balance between pleasure and work, an emphasis on space incorporating both inclusivity and multiple functions, and a greater degree of input from young people into the planning of public city spaces. Indeed, I will argue that the reformation of urban public space suggested by the practice of skateboarding is essential to preserving any semblance of true democracy in American cities.
To best understand the relationship between skateboarding and the city, it is important to first examine the ideology of the skateboarding subculture, and the patently unique perspective employed by skateboarders in viewing their surroundings. This examination must necessarily be historical in nature, as the origins of the ideological structures necessary to this discussion are rooted in the very early years of skateboarding’s presence in the public eye.
Origins
“Kids have always had an affinity for their own set of wheels.”
- Michael Brooke, The Concrete Wave
It is impossible to pinpoint where the first skateboards were made, and even the general time period in which they first appeared remains a question. Some accounts recall skateboard variations as early as the beginning of the 20th century, though these prototypes were “actually more like [scooters]” (Brooke 16). It was not until the mid-1950s that the phenomenon of skateboarding began to spread swiftly through the coastal cities of the western United States, especially California and Hawaii. Surfers in these areas made skateboards out of wood scraps and old roller skates in order to practice surfing maneuvers on dry land during flat spells at their local beaches. As one skateboarding historian has noted, “With arguably one less wave breaking every day and endless flows of streets and sidewalks, parking lots covering the landscape, skateboarding was a natural to gain a toehold as a favorite pastime pleasure” for young surfers (Ted 46). Indeed, the term “skateboarding” did not come into regular usage for several years; rather, this new activity was referred to as “sidewalk surfing” until the mid-1960s (Brooke 19).
In 1959, with the introduction of the first commercially sold skateboard, the “Official Skee-Skate” from Roller Derby which consisted of “stamped steel wheels and trucks riveted on a bullet shaped 19" x 4 ½" plywood skateboard” (Ted 46), skateboarding began to come into its own as a sport independent from surfing. Though for many years, even into the 1970s, skateboarding would be considered closely linked to surfing, in the early 1960s the popularity of skateboarding began to increase and spread to areas and individuals untouched by surfing subculture, as “these toy boards brought sidewalk surfing to the landlocked Midwest and subdivided communities of single-family dwellings spreading out between the coasts” (Ted 46). Indeed, skateboarding itself was transforming into a genuine fad in its own right, with skateboard companies “selling millions of units and sweeping the nation alongside youth crazes like the Hula Hoop” (Ted 46). This popularity led to the creation of the first professional skateboard company, Makaha, which was formed in 1963 by Larry Stevenson, an editor at Surf Guide Magazine. Sales skyrocketed, as “over 50 million skateboards were sold in a three-year period” (Brooke 21). Thus, skateboarding had entered the public eye in impressive proportions. Despite its ubiquitous presence in many areas of the United States, however, I do not believe that skateboarding had yet developed into the potentially subversive subculture it would later become. Importantly, skateboarding remained almost exclusively a suburban phenomenon; it had not yet gained popularity in cities, whose cultural centrality would be necessary to develop a widely subversive movement. For most people, skateboarding constituted either an occasional break from surfing or a mere passing fad; in either case it was often to be indulged in briefly and promptly left behind as the tides came in or popular culture moved on to another obsession.
Moreover, this first wave of skateboarding’s popularity was not able to sustain itself for long. The skateboard industry was plagued by inferior equipment. As Michael Brooke notes, “The manufacturers were so busy making boards that little had been done in the way of research and development. Beyond replacing the squeaky steel roller skate wheels with smoother-riding clay wheels and refining the trucks (the devices that hold the wheels), there were few technological advances” (21). This both “[impeded] the skater from any great progress” (Ted 46) and led to considerable concerns about safety; indeed, some municipalities “started to ban skateboards in response to health and safety concerns, and after a few fatal accidents, skateboarding was officially drummed out of existence” (Brooke 21). The new sport of skateboarding refused to die entirely, though; rather, “skateboarding shrunk back to the coasts in the late Sixties” (Ted 46). A few hardy skateboarders, heavily concentrated in suburban coastal areas, kept the sport alive through the lean years that followed.
In 1973, a new innovation allowed skateboarding to push to the forefront again: the urethane wheel. Though some “roller skate companies had experimented with a plastic and urethane skate wheel since the late Fifties” (Ted 46), they had not become popular, and remained untested on skateboards. However, in 1970, Frank Nasworthy, the man “generally given credit for his revelation in bringing urethane wheels down to a group of surf/skate rats on the beaches of San Diego” (Ted 46), began experimenting with different urethane wheel designs, eventually culminating in the commercial release of Nasworthy’s Cadillac Wheels in 1973. This single accomplishment was enough to jump-start the second wave of skateboarding’s popularity. The new urethane wheels were “magnificent compared to clay wheels” (Brooke 44), the resulting ride smoother, quieter, faster, and safer than anything previously attained on a skateboard. A few short years later, in 1975, the Novak, Haut, and Sherman (NHS)/ Santa Cruz-manufactured Road Rider wheel was the first to incorporate sealed precision bearings, a welcome change from the loose ball bearings previously used. The new bearings, based on vacuum cleaner parts, were faster, more efficient, and easier to use. With the potent combination of urethane wheels and precision bearings, skateboarders were rolling in ways they never had before.
The industrious attitude that spawned these breakthroughs in skateboard technology, combined with a new desire to take skateboarding to previously unimaginable levels, soon brought the sport to unforeseen heights- literally. With the added traction and speed provided by urethane wheels and precision bearings, the skateboarders of the 1970s were able to perform seemingly gravity-defying tricks on vertical surfaces; as Brooke states, urethane wheels “allowed skaters to get the grip they needed to ride past the coping and push out into the air” (38). Also in this era, skateboarders began to gain a reputation as rebellious and anti-authoritarian, particularly as the most ambitious skaters at the time began using empty and abandoned swimming pools for their ground-breaking new maneuvers. This practice often set skateboarders at odds with landlords, homeowners, and police who worried that skateboarders would damage private property or violate trespassing laws. Though this era was also accompanied by a boom in skateparks constructed specifically for use by skateboarders, beginning with the Skateboard City park in Port Orange, California in 1976 (Brooke 64), many skaters continued to appropriate other spaces for their own use. Despite the increased atmosphere of legitimacy surrounding the new skateparks and the high-stakes competitions that took place inside them, skateboarders made use of not only pools, but also suburban schoolyards which sometimes contained smooth concrete embankments, circular drainage tunnels (commonly referred to as “fullpipes”) found in industrial areas and near large man-made bodies of water, and multi-level parking garages.
The most visible and influential skateboarders during this time were the Z-Boys, a motley bunch of surfers and skateboarders from Santa Monica, California, united under the banner of the Zephyr Skateboard company. Their aggressive and innovative style of skateboarding went against the common conventions of the era, which emphasized technicality and formulaic trick performance, with competitions judged similarly to figure skating. This approach was both shocking and invigorating to the skateboarding world; as the award-winning documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys posits, “the Z-Boys took skateboarding’s traditional upright approach and drove it straight into the ground” (Peralta), by incorporating a low, quick, surf-inspired style that blew away minds and their competitors at California contests. The Z-Boys, particularly such influential skaters as Stacy Peralta, Jay Adams, Tony Alva, and Jim Muir, were also unlikely pioneers of vertical (or “vert”) skateboarding who changed the face of their sport while never viewing themselves as pacesetters. For instance, Jay Adams “did the first inverts, nay-wheelers, lap over grinds, cess slides, and slashbacks without knowing or caring what they were called” (“Skateboarding: 1970" 38). The lasting influence of the Z-Boys cannot be understated. As Brooke posits, “Their intense, aggressive style paved the way for generations of skaters. It is this foundation that people are still riding on today” (57), as evidenced by street skating in cities, where the emphasis remains on speed, style, rawness, and inventiveness (“Street Life” 70). The influence of the Z-Boys was not limited to skate style, however. Skateboarders all over the world emulated their rebellious attitudes and disdain for commercialism, as exemplified by skaters such as Tony Alva, who has described skateboarding at the time as “right to the edge of being commercial, but not quite because the skaters were so hardcore it was hard for society to accept them” (Alva 79). The Z-Boys, and the later generations that adopted their attitudes, did not need any reason to skate, other than love for the sport (Peralta). This would prove to be a lasting tradition among skateboarders, even until the present day, when even professional skaters acknowledge that “skateboarding is all about being yourself, doing your own thing. It’s about having fun” (S. 158). Later, this orientation would promote street skateboarding anywhere the skater pleased; little else mattered but the feeling, the thrill of skating and progressing. Just as with the Z-Boys, even such powerful forces as the law and social disdain would not be enough to keep street skaters from practicing their chosen sport.
The combination of new and better equipment, the innovation of vertical skateboarding, and the aggressive orientation of the Z-Boys also gave birth to a new preoccupation with progress that began to surface among skateboarders at this time. Rodney Mullen, a premier skateboarder who began his career as a sponsored skater in 1977 (Brooke 109), compares this state of mind to that of a warring conqueror:
From what I understand, Alexander the Great died in Babylon of drunkenness and obesity shortly after his vanquishing days were over. The spoils of war apparently paled in comparison to the actual act of conquering. I’m no Alexander, but I can’t deny a little of that spirit. None of us can . . . What drove me all along was the happiness I got from the endless hours of pushing my own limits. (11)
Skateboarding, then, has continued to be based on the simple principles of fun and progression. Personal satisfaction is paramount, but there is also an emphasis placed on “a community of skaters . . . pushing each other to progress” (“5 Pros” 52). In other words, for the last two and a half decades, skateboarders have been continually trying to work together to make their tricks bigger, faster, smoother, more technical, and better as a general rule. Progress is of the essence, but the pursuit is not selfish- the community is as important as the individual. In this way skateboarding is an example of a subculture based in democratic forms.
Vertical skateboarding, performed in pools, bowls, and halfpipes, remained the focus of the skateboarding world throughout the 1970s and most of the 1980s, despite the end of skateboarding’s second wave of popularity around 1980. Again, skateboarding was damaged by safety concerns. In particular, “ insurance became so expensive that many [skatepark] owners closed their doors and the bulldozers were brought in” (Brooke 45). Though skateboarding was considered “dead” again, still “a hardcore contingent built their own backyard halfpipes and ramps and continued to develop the sport” (Brooke 45). The time was ripe for a new form of skateboarding to develop, one that was able to physically progress at the same rate that skater’s minds came up with new ideas, one that did not rely on spaces created specifically for skateboarding: street skating.
Into The Streets
“Two hundred years of American technology has unwittingly created a massive cement playground of immense potential. But it was the minds of 11 year olds that could see that potential.”
-Craig Stecyk
It has been said that “the demise of skateboarding” in the early 1980s “began in the parks it had been relegated to” (Ted 48). Many skateboarders were unable or unwilling to pay to “walk behind a fence, don the required helmet, elbow and knee pads, and wrist guards to skate on terrain that was sometimes so kinked and poorly designed as to be dangerous” (Ted 48). Consequently, they sought alternate locations to practice their sport. For many, the most attractive option was to return to “the abandoned hotel pool down the street” (Ted 48), which was free in terms of both money and rules, excepting the occasional run-in with law enforcement or land-owners. The act of skateboarding itself remained a source of unlimited potential. This mentality of adventure in the endless search for new terrain, accompanied by the traditional preoccupation with progress, eventually led skateboarders to “discover and exploit the best and most obvious terrain that was right under their boards the whole time- the street” (Ted 48). In the words of architect and theorist Iain Borden,
Around 1984, Los Angeles skaters began the first radical extensions of skateboarding onto the most quotidian and conventional elements of the urban landscape. Using as their basic move the ‘ollie,’ the impact-adhesion-ascension procedure by which the skater unweights the front of the skateboard to make it pop seemingly unaided into the air, they rode up onto the walls, steps, and street furniture of the Santa Monica strand and Venice boardwalk. (“Another Pavement”180)
As Borden indicates, the worlds of skateboarding and the city, previously separated by the physical limits of suburbia and the fences of skateparks, encountered each other head on for the first time during this era. In the United States, street skating easily eclipsed vertical skateboarding in popularity by the late 1980s, but the traditions of vert skating remained an important part of skateboarding culture. Not only did the skaters of this generation retain their predecessors rejection of authority and conventionality, as evidenced by the Thrasher Skateboard Magazine mantra of “Skate and Destroy,” but they “would bring vert moves from the park to try in the street” (Ted, 48), using what had been accomplished already to foster their own rapid progression. In the streets of American cities, skateboarders created and discovered new tricks and terrain every day.
However, this migration of the skateboarding culture has also resulted in the city becoming the site of the sport’s greatest conflicts to date. Many inhabitants of the city, most importantly police, building owners, city planners and other officials, have proven to be less than receptive of skateboarding. To these individuals, skateboarding is perceived as a serious threat. Many building owners, city officials, and law enforcement officers justify opposition to skateboarding by citing “clearly identifiable problems such as damage to buildings, footpaths and facilities such as seating” (Freeman and Riordan 301). Still others feel that skateboarders are a menace to the safety of other pedestrians, or consider skateboarders as a group as “noisy, reckless, and anti-social” (Freeman and Riordan 301). Even former United States President George H. W. Bush has said about skateboarders, “Just thank God they don’t have guns” (“Censorship”). Though these fears are based primarily on stereotypes, hyperbole, and misinformation (for instance, the infamous scenario involving the speeding skateboarder knocking over the frail old woman is so unheard of in reality as to be almost laughable), they have eventually led to skateboarding bans and curfews in cities across the nation, including San Diego, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, Portland, and Savannah (“Censorship” ). Even smaller cities and towns have followed this lead and made skateboarding a criminal activity. To draw from my own experience, I was once “pulled over” while skateboarding by a zealous police officer in a squad car, and informed that even my small Maine hometown of about 25,000 people had adopted an ordinance banning skateboarding in the street. In many locations, including some shopping and corporate plazas, universities, and public and private schools, skateboarding is defined as trespassing, and skateboarders are thus subject to the control of police and security forces who frequently force them off the premises, and may even have the authority and legal backing to place them under arrest. It is now possible for individuals to face expensive tickets, fines, and even jail time simply for the act of skateboarding in the wrong place (“Censorship”). Even so, most skateboarders are unfazed by these potential consequences, and continue to skate in various urban environments, avoiding law enforcement and security guards by skating at night or on weekends.
The motivation behind these attempts to control skateboarding, when examined closely, is primarily economic in nature. Borden states, “skateboarders have encountered a politics of space similar to the experience of the homeless. Like the homeless, skateboarders occupy urban space without engaging in economic activity” (“Censorship”). This, not simply the potential damages or liability issues alone, is what results in urban managers’ desire to eliminate skateboarding from their properties. After all, any use of space by any individual could be construed as damaging or dangerous. The problem for property managers is that skateboarders are conceived of as an annoyance by the more economically viable majority. Several factors indicate to store owners, mall operators, and other business managers that skateboarders will not contribute to their financial gain. The relative youth of most skateboarders, the majority of whom are under 25 years of age (Nolan 313), is one important factor, as young people do not generally possess the same economic power as adults. Also, modern skateboarders continue to retain the disdain for commercialism of their predecessors. In most cases, the act of skateboarding is much more important while a skateboarder is engaged in skating than making a purchase is. This also harkens back to the emphasis placed on fun inherent in the act of skateboarding passed down through generations of skateboarders since the 1970s.
There have also been many attempts to control skateboarding outside of the realm of law enforcement, motivated by the same factors that have influenced legal actions against skateboarding. The negative stigma attached to skateboarders persists so strongly that even some “private citizens seem to delight in ‘confiscating’ skateboards- an action which is legally theft” (“Censorship”), because they deem skateboarders’ uses of space to be unsuitable or disruptive to business practices. A newer, much subtler method has building owners and managers adding “rough textured surfaces to discourage skaters, while more overt measures include spikes and bumps added to handrails, blocks of concrete placed at the foot of banks, chains across ditches and steps, and new, unridable surfaces such as gravel and sand” (“Censorship”) (see figs. I-IV for examples of these tactics). Indeed, a whole new industry has sprung up in response to landowners wishes for “a low cost and permanent solution to their skateboard problem” (www.skateabate.com), which also constitutes a perceived business problem, as discussed above. Thus, so-called “skatestoppers” have become an everyday reality for skateboarders to deal with. Companies such as Intellicept (makers of the original “Skatestopper”), Ravensforge Skateboard Solutions, and SkateAbate have become successful purveyors of skate-deterrent technology (Dougherty).
These companies purport to prevent the damages and liability issues that are thought to accompany skateboarders, but there are indications that the “problem” they are addressing is concerned much more with image. For instance, the Intellicept Skate Stoppers website characterizes skateboarding as “disruptive”and derides the tendency of skateboarders to leave behind “black stained, broken, and worn concrete (and you’re lucky if that is all)” (www.skatestoppers.com). There is also an apparent financial aspect to the “problem,” as the same website also states, “what is deemed by skaters . . . as ‘creative expression’ is costing you money” (www.skatestoppers.com). The expressed goals of skate-deterrent companies, then, are in concert with the goals of urban building owners, businesses, and law enforcement agents: stop skateboarding in spaces used primarily for economic matters, in order to preserve an atmosphere that is perceived as better for business, and to make more or lose less money. Interestingly, attempts at skate-deterrence are often considered unsuccessful by the skateboarding world. As skater Ocean Howell says in reference to the emerging “skate-stopping” businesses,
The first attempts were hilarious. What sort of meatball tries to wreck a nice slippery ledge by putting an even more slippery square bar on top of it? It was as though they’d never even watched anyone actually skateboard . . . The logic of skateboarding completely eluded them, and . . . continuously appeared to city planners as so much chaos. (“Future” 46)
Thus, skateboarders have benefitted from the building owners’ and planners’ misconceptions about their sport. Sometimes, attempts to thwart skateboarding actually result in obstacles that are better for skateboarders to use; following Howell’s example, a square metal bar placed horizontally over a ledge actually makes performing “grind” tricks on the ledge easier. Skateboarders have also been consistently able to circumvent attempts at “skate-stopping”, either by removal of the devices using hacksaws, or even power tools and generators (Dougherty), or simply by skating around the deterrents (see Figs. V-VI for examples of unsuccessful skate deterrent attempts) . For instance, in another article, Howell mentions part of a “skate-stopped” ledge “that goes over a flower bed, somewhere they figure skaters won’t go. That part of the ledge is unmolested. . . also, you can do manual tricks where you thread between the little bastards” (“Reason” 42). Thus, through their lack of understanding of the conventions of street skateboarding, would-be skate deterrents have frequently failed in their stated missions.
If anything, they have encouraged more creativity and progression in skateboarding tricks, which have been performed specifically to outmatch the “skate-stoppers.” As Howell says, “street skating has always thrived in places where designers attempt to control human behavior” (“Reason” 46). Indeed, skateboarding has always exhibited remarkable resiliency, and Borden posits that “being banned from the public domain becomes simply one more obstacle for skaters to overcome” (“Beneath the Pavement”), just as they have overcome economic boom and bust, social disdain, and the everyday objects of urban life which they conquer through their skating. Skaters feel this irrepressibility deeply; in the words of professional skateboarder Marc Johnson, “Street skateboarding will survive” (“Street Life” 91).
In direct response to the failures of law enforcement and skate-deterrents, attempts to stop skateboarding in certain locations have become considerably more drastic. Indeed, the perceived threat of skateboarding has caused significant alterations to the physical landscape of some major cities. For instance, in both San Francisco and Philadelphia, major urban plazas have been either completely torn down and redesigned (as with Justin Herman Plaza, or EMB, in San Francisco) or significantly altered (as with Love Park in Philadelphia) specifically to combat the skateboarding which had become “too popular to ignore”(DC Shoes “The Verdict”) in those locations.
Even more disturbingly, in the minds of skateboarders, is that skate-proofing is now being worked into the actual design of new buildings, plazas, and other public and semi-public spaces. Howell gives the example of Philip Burton Federal Building in San Francisco, where designers placed a long metal bench, “with armrests every 18 inches,” at the foot of a concrete embankment. He says, “looking at how well placed that bench is, it’s clear that the designers had skating in mind. . . This bench is meticulously placed: you can’t slide it, and it makes a huge, smooth bank completely unskateable” (“Future” 47). Even the seemingly hapless skate-stopper companies have adjusted their approach, as they now offer devices that can be inserted into freshly poured concrete, instead of added on later. In short, those who wish to eliminate skateboarding from economically driven spaces are developing a better understanding of the sport, enabling more effective control strategies.
However, skateboarders are generally unconcerned about the prospect that their chosen sport could be driven from the urban realm. Professional skater Daewon Song states, “Street skating is here forever. Cars need streets to drive on, kids need school to go to, people need rails to hold on to and stairs to get up and down. Our terrain is always just around the corner, and that’s forever” (“Street Life” 91). In other words, since skateboarding utilizes the very fabric of the city in everyday practice, it cannot be eliminated from the city. All of the necessary components for street skateboarding exist indefinitely and ubiquitously. The resulting resiliency and visibility are precisely what have allowed skateboarding to become a potentially subversive activity. Borden claims that because cities offer so many possibilities to their inhabitants, and that as a result city dwellers are potentially more adaptive than suburbanites, “ we have no language of urban living, and instead are surrounded by an emptiness filled with signs” (“Another Pavement” 181). The power of skateboarding is that it can lend meaning to these empty signs. Through its resiliency, which results in repetition of similar actions frequently over time, and sheer numbers of participants (20-40 million worldwide [“A Performative Critique”]), the very visible sport of skateboarding is able to extend its interpretations of urban signs to other people in the city who do not skateboard.
The Poetics of Community
“This is the most overt political space produced by skateboarders, a pleasure ground carved out of the city as a kind of continuous reaffirmation of one of the central maxims of the 1968 Paris revolts: that au dessous les paves, la plage- beneath the pavement, lies the beach.”
-Iain Borden
One of the interpretations inscribed by skateboarders into the semiotic text of the city is an emphasis on public spaces that are inclusive to all of a city’s inhabitants, an idea that works against many current interpretations of the role of urban public space. Using the same example of the Philip Burton Federal Building, Howell offers a revealing look at the way city officials perceive skateboarding. The design that was eventually used was the winner of an international contest sponsored by the Government Services Administration entitled “The Poetics of Security,” which aimed to create a place that was safe from a multitude of security threats, such as terrorism (like the Oklahoma City bombing) and unwanted human elements, including the homeless, the unemployed, and skateboarders (“Future” 47). The inclusion of skateboarding as a threat worthy of consideration alongside terrorism is certainly disturbing in its implication that skateboarders are a serious danger to society at large. One of the judges for the Poetics of Security contest suggested that the designs “tell us something about who we are, where we are, and how our government appears to us” (“Future” 47). For skateboarders in this case, the government can only appear as an exclusionary institution, dedicated to categorizing and controlling them under the guises of “poetics” and “security.” Planners are forced to use subtle design methods to control “threats” such as skateboarding, because they don’t want their plazas and public spaces to “look ridiculous and violent by covering them in knobs and spikes” (“Future” 48), which would discourage other, more normalized and “legitimate” uses of those spaces. Yet, they also must provide a sense of safety and insulation from the perceived dangers of other city dwellers.
As fewer truly public spaces are built, and the concept of public space itself is shifting toward ideas of shopping malls and corporate plazas, these ideas are becoming increasingly more prevalent. As urban theorist Saskia Sassen observes, “Space in the city is inscribed with the dominant corporate culture” (191). This is true of urban public spaces more and more frequently, as “recent public-private partnerships in urban America have made possible . . . ‘shadow privatization’” (Lofland 211), a term which describes arrangements in which money, zoning favors, or physical spaces are exchanged between corporations and city governments on the condition that companies provide “‘sort of’ public” spaces (Lofland 211). For instance, a growing movement has established business improvement districts (BIDs) in cities across the United States. These are “associations of local business owners who have the legal right to tax themselves over and above city taxes in order to provide their own ‘improvements’” (Zukin 56). The end results of such arrangements are publically accessible spaces that are privately owned and operated. However, because BIDs and other private owners of public spaces are permitted to hire their own security (Zukin 56) to keep undesirable human elements out, the spaces are no longer truly public. Only a specifically defined portion of the city population is allowed to inhabit these locations- people who contribute to the economic activities surrounding them. Thus, many city residents are kept out of these spaces, because they use them in ways that are not normalized or economically productive. City dwellers rejected from privatized public spaces include the homeless, and of particular interest in this paper, skateboarders.
Skateboarding suggests an alternate route, however, encompassing inclusivity and a degree of pleasurability in city spaces, as opposed to exclusionary architecture and strictly economic functions. Through the consistent and repeated practice of skateboarding in exclusionary city spaces, performed by millions of skaters across the United States, skateboarders provide a constant reminder that urban public spaces can be constructed differently, both physically and ideologically. While Mike Davis posits that “ the universal consequence of the crusade to secure the city is the destruction of any truly democratic urban space” (155), Howell asks, instead of exclusivity and discrimination, instead of a “Poetics of Security,” “Why not a ‘Poetics of Community’ design concept?” (“Future” 47). Urban skateboarding inherently suggests a more democratic view of public space, in that it always interrogates and indicts the elite, corporate, and undemocratic powers that try to exercise control over them and the spaces they use. By refusing to participate in the economic activity of urban spaces, focusing instead on pleasure and interaction (both interpersonal and between people and physical spaces), skateboarding encourages an atmosphere of gratification through togetherness and inclusivity. Lofland argues that the “public realm is . . . an effective setting for the enactment of change or proposed change, for the enactment of social conflict” (236). The practice of skateboarding helps ensure that there remains public space to protest in and critique the contemporary status quo.
Part of this idea of a newly democratic concept of public space is the notion that the design of public space should itself be a more democratic process. In particular, since skateboarding is such a youth dominated sport, it encourages an increased role for youth in the urban planning process. Nolan argues that, presently, “the hegemonic authoring of the urban landscape excludes the views of young people from the planning process, alienating those who see the landscape differently from the middle-aged male ‘norm’” (314). This category certainly includes skateboarders, who “reimagine the urban landscape as a playground” (Nolan 315). While other groups of young people are affected by changes in public space, and others also question those changes, young skateboarders are particularly relevant because they visibly continue their activities, without regard to the rules and plans designed to keep them out of certain spaces. Just as they are a consistent reminder of the exclusivity of privatized public space, they are also a reminder of precisely who is being excluded- young people. The act of skateboarding, when attempts are made to repress and confine it, begs the same question posed by Freeman and Riordan, quoting Adams and Ingham: that is, “if ‘in a democratic society we have government by consensus, why not have planning by consensus? This would involve all those affected by environmental change, including young people’” (302). Thus, urban street skateboarding encourages a more democratic system of city planning, taking into account the needs of the entire populace, not only the adult, elite, and corporate sectors.
Conclusion
It would be extending the ideas contained in this paper too far to say that, without the continued practice of skateboarding in urban public spaces, true democracy will cease to exist in American cities. However, it is clear that the ideas suggested by urban skateboarding- that public space has become too privatized and repressive, that public space should be inclusive and multi-purpose, that young people warrant a greater role in urban planning, especially of public spaces- are indeed essential to renewing more democratic physical and ideological forms in the future of American cities. Perhaps the decades old skateboarding mantra of “Skate or die,’ as true and powerful as it may feel to many skaters, could be restated more accurately- Skate or cease to create change.