Jill Roberts has a powerful vision for rebuilding an ailing neighborhood in North Philly that punctures conventional pieties about urban renewal. It is a place where security trumps the usual amenities that city-dwellers crave. In Roberts' renovated neighborhood, trees are a curse and walls a blessing.

And it could actually succeed where so many have failed.

When Roberts' unconventional plans for the area around the 1800 block of North 24th Street were unveiled recently, it raised some eyebrows and hackles in the architectural community. "You can be a la-dee-dah fancy architectural firm, and design all you want," Roberts responded, "but this is what works here."

Roberts' plans, part of a design contest sponsored by the Community Design Collaborative, were developed pro bono by Becker Winston Architects. (The sketches are available at www.beckerwinston.com/projecthome.pdf.)

For architect Brian Szymanik of Becker Winston, Roberts' vision was an eye-opener. "Take out the trees," she told the architect, "so we can keep the bums who hang in the shadows from doing drugs and turning tricks." When Szymanik pleaded for more open space, Roberts brushed him back. "You want open space, then go to Fairmount Park," she said. Breaking still more conventional wisdom, streets will be widened to accommodate more cars, and a high brick wall wraps around all the houses.

Roberts knows firsthand what violent neighborhoods need; she rehabs houses for Sister Mary Scullion's Project H.O.M.E. Her office is in the ramshackle former rectory of St. Elizabeth's Church, which gave this neighborhood its name but has since been demolished by the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

Roberts' proposed project is surrounded by a desolate landscape of failed projects. It is a history of good intentions gone bad. Inspired by suburban tract design, rows of little cinderblock houses, each with its own little back yard, now look like sharecropper shacks circling a trash heap. "You have projects here with beautiful back yards and side yards," says Roberts, "but everyone's sitting in the front." Because if you can't watch over an open space, it's dangerous.

The current site of Roberts' neighborhood is a scary place to walk, even at noon. Trash pours out of empty houses, from vacant lots, from glass-strewn back alleys where dealers toss their drugs whenever the police sweep through.

Cheaply made, the tiny two-story homes were inadequate a century ago, when they teemed with families of factory workers. Now, like much of North Philly, half of the area's population has fled since 1950. Roberts says there's no reason to recreate those overcrowded slums now.

As we walk up the streets, passersby mostly keep their heads down, looking up only as Roberts calls their names.

The proposed plans encourage neighbors to keep looking up, and keep looking out for their neighbors. It capitalizes on some of the more durable (and lovable) elements of urban culture: stoop-sitting and snooping.

The current 200 or so properties would be repackaged as 100 doubled-sized homes that would span former alleys from street to street. The fronts of houses would alternate with backs, kitchens with living rooms, so there would be eyes constantly monitoring two streets, not just one.

The streetscape would have a familiar urban look and rhythm. Punctuated by front and backdoor stoops, the brick wall would have scores of little peek-a-boo windows, through which neighbors could chat, check out the street and literally watch each others' backs.

There would still be a few tall trees, but they'd be set in islands and lit from beneath to avoid casting shadows where people can hide.

"I've had to change my own thinking about the ideal urban design," says Roberts, who grew up in Center City. "I can't believe I'm advocating for a wall. I can't believe that I'm advocating for more parking, and that ten trees is, well, enough."

A pie-in-the-sky project never to be built? "Well, let's say it's more substantial than pie—call it a torte," says Roberts. To go forward would mean acquiring scores of tiny properties and relocating almost everyone. It is an expensive and difficult prospect, which one of the Community Design Collaborative jurors called "staggering."

Roberts disagrees. "Look at what they did in Jefferson Square [in Southwest Philadelphia]. They acquired houses and relocated people there. So why is it 'staggering' to relocate people in North Philly?"

With few trees and limited open space, this is housing that's appropriate for a tough place. Roberts' vision (and Becker Winston's design) answers the violence with an elegance that builds community, humanizing a hostile landscape. As another juror put it, this is a place where she herself would live. Where anyone would.

Roberts ought to have the chance to try.