Jonah Pruitt 1

Jonah Pruitt
Envisioning City
Picture Assignment
06/22/2016
Photos from City: A Guidebook for the Urban Age
Cities can be grueling places. News, documentaries, and especially
fiction relay the brutal and unforgiving landscapes of the urban world.
Violence, corruption, fear, and pain are all themes that inundate the
conversation about humanitys cities. As a society, seeing and recognizing
the problems with cities is vital to being empathetic to urban dwellers and to
help with the problems they face. However, there is a completely different
side to cities that often goes unseen. This side, the happy and beautiful
moments, accounts every bit as much as the harshness of the darker side of
urbanity. Sunsets over the skyline, the Sunday markets, and the energy of
the people can all be part of the optimism that permeates cities. From P. D.
Smiths book, City: A guidebook for the Urban Age, two images in particular
highlight the positivity in the city world. One image is of a group of boys
skateboarding in Chicago in 1965, the other is a photo of three gang
members in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The subjects of these photos may be
widely different; a common statement about belonging and community can
be said about both.
Miles and miles of concrete form the mesh on which cities are built. To
many, this almost never-ending stretch of tarmac can be seen as dismal, but

Jonah Pruitt 2
to skateboarders, the pavement is freedom. With wheels underfoot, kids
have been taking to the streets on skateboards since the early 1950s (Smith
274.) Creating a new dynamic of youths movement in and around cities, the
skateboard began to be regarded as a subversive act (Smith 274.) An
entire culture sprung up around skateboarding, bent on sticking it to the
man and expressing movement and artistic prowess through an entirely
new medium (Owen 2). Massive industries and international competitions
and professional skateboarders arrived on the American scene by the 1960s,
just ten years after its introduction (Owen 1). Representing millions of dollars
and leading to the creation of brands like Vans and Hurley, skateboarding
transitioned from an act of entertainment and protest to a corporate force
(Owen 2). In all, there is now a world wide community of amateurs and
professionals that all have roots in a sport that sprang from a new type of
interaction with cities.
The other picture is of three gang members in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
Gangs are a highly politicized topic for cities across the world. Since the
beginning of gang culture, organized crime and mass violence is inevitably
associated with gangs. Much like skateboarding, gangs are a direct product
of cities and city culture. Often, people turn to gangs for protection, income,
and a sense of community in poorer neighborhoods. A certain level of us
versus them mentality is ingrained in gangster culture. With over 788,00
gang members in the United States alone, gangs are a massive global force
that can have high personal consequences (Smith 226). An article from

Jonah Pruitt 3
Englands The Mirror gave an account of a fourteen-year-old gangster from
Nottingham. Your gang and your brothers come first, plain and simple, he
said. The teen in the article provided anecdotes about shootings, mass drug
dealing, and vicious turf wars (Parry 1). Danger and violence are part of the
gangster lifestyle; Smiths photo, however, captures something more than a
group of criminals. Despite their hardened and defamed exterior, gangs are
still made of people. A smile can be seen on the middle members face and a
certain air of confidence can be detected from the picture. The humanizing
quality of this selection reveals Smiths intent to allow for more than just one
view of gang culture to be seen. To him, gangs are a byproduct of peoples
desire to be part of a group and community, especially in cities. This is a
deft example of how Smith attempts to alter the readers perceptions of all
city dwellers as well as gangsters. Gangster Culture, like Skater Culture
has become a mainstay in common culture. Rap, the musical genre of the
gangsters of urban world, has developed to be colossal industry. The worlds
most talked-about and richest celebrities, such as Kanye West and Jay-Z, are
rappers.
The true commonality between skaters and gangsters is the fact that
much of their persona has been internalized in pop culture. Through years of
commercialization, the idea of the gangster and skater drive massive
industries that are usually directed at adolescent males. The fact that both
of these counter-culture, anti-authority movements are neutered and
harnessed to make millions of dollars every year is especially ironic. Despite

Jonah Pruitt 4
this corporate presence, there are incredible skaters and rappers that strive
to represent the problems and desires of the urban environment. Vince
Staples, a rapper and gang member from North Beach California, said in an
interview with Fader Magazine: I just rap what I see, I dont want to fix it all,
I just want to show what I see (Kamier). The spirit of rapping and
skateboarding are closely tied in that both harness the sociological, physical,
and economic qualities or cities and respond in the best ways they know
how. Whether this is skating in a no skate zone, writing lyrics that
document the struggle of daily life, or fighting for survival in the urban jungle
with a crew, gangs and skaters show that city life is difficult, beautiful, but
most importantly: incredibly human.

Bibliography:
Owen, Tony. "The Evolution Of Skateboarding A History From Sidewalk
Surfing To Superstardom." The Evolution Of Skateboarding.
Skateboarding Magazine, 5 Mar. 2013. Web. 26 June 2016.
Parry, Tom. "Children in Peril: The Gang Culture Turning Boys to Lives of
Crime - Mirror Online." Mirror. Mirror, 20 May 2012. Web. 26 June 2016.
Smith, Peter D. City: A Guidebook for the Urban Age. New York: Bloomsbury,
2012. Print.
"Vince Staples Explains His 5 Most Controversial Opinions." Interview by
RAWIYA KAMEIR. Fader. Fader, 20 June 2016. Web. 26 June 2016.