Jane Jacobs: A Year Ago Today
It was a year ago today that the world lost one of the greatest urbanists, Jane Jacobs. She died just before her 90th birthday (May 4th). Jacobs was not a professional planner, most likely a good thing in my view. She authored the classic 1961 book, Death & Life of Great American Cities, as well as a number of other books on urban economics and planning. Again, not a planner by training but by instinct and observation. For much of her life she worked against the urban experiments being tested by the professional planners and traffic engineers.
Jacobs had her fair share of critics over the years, but I am not one of them. I’ve got all over her books neatly stacked on my desk as a reminder to reach each of the in order this summer. To me she is a hero, the lay person turned international urbanist. Click here to read my post from last year.
She’s a hero of mine as well. I would love to hear your thoughts on “The Economy of Cities” when you get around to it. I found her approach and ideas facinating.
Here’s a 2001 interview with her…..
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28053.html
I greatly admire her as well. Interestingly in the current issue of Dwell they attribute New Urbanism to Jacobs. I find it unlikely that she would have been a proponent of New Urbanism for obvious reasons. Does anyone know her position on the matter?
I once read an interview with her where she spoke about New Urbanism. She was critical of it, noting that New Urbanist projects are not in reality very diverse economically (favoring the upper-middle class though the rich) and often become more like resorts. I guess she felt their attempts and use of urban features like sidewalks and “main streets” wasn’t enough.
Your right Steve, I think her veiws on cataclysmic money could be applied as well.
Jane is another great example of how common sense, simple reasoning and a heart are all one needs to understand the powers of successful urban design and the dangers of omniscient city planners. She definitely understood how government too often stifles innovation and she favored organic growth as the preferred path to livable cities. She also appreciated the numerous similarities between economics and nature… definitely real.
Cataclysmic money would definitely apply to greenfield NU projects as well as areas like Wash Ave. downtown. She also stated directly that the views in Death and Life did not apply to suburbs or small towns, which seems to be at odds with a lot of NU developments. I think the fact that the New Urbanists have taken Jacobs’ book and tried to distill it to a simple design formula misses the point. Her book is as much about grass roots community building as it is about design.
I was able to find some quotes from Death and Life which I think are interesting when thinking about New Urbanism.
“The look of things and the way they work are inextricably bound together, and in no place more so than cities. But people who are interested only in how a city “ought†to look and uninterested in how it works are bound to be disappointed by this book. It is futile to plan a city’s appearance, or speculate on how to endow it with a pleasing appearance of order, without knowing what sort of innate, functioning order it has. To seek for the look of things as a primary purpose or as the main drama is apt to make nothing but trouble.â€
“As a sentimental concept, ‘neighborhood’ is harmful to city planning. It leads to attempts at warping city life into imitations of town or suburban life. Sentimentality plays with sweet intentions in place of good sense.â€
“…the conception of neighborhood in cities is meaningless – so long as we think of neighborhoods as being self-contained units to any significant degree, modeled upon town neighborhoods…the qualities of city neighborhoods cannot work at cross-purposes to thoroughgoing city mobility and fluidity of use, without economically weakening the city of which they are a part…but neighborhoods in cities do need to supply some means for civilized self-government. This is the problem.â€
“Neighborhoods in cities need not supply for their people an artificial town or village life, and to aim at this is both silly and destructive.â€
*Think Marsala’s market in New Town for this next one:
“This corner grocery gimmick is a thin, patronizing conception of city diversity, possibly suited to a village to the last century but hardly to a vital city district of today.â€
“The solution [to metropolitan growth] cannot lie in vain attempts to plan new, self-sufficient towns or little cities throughout metropolitan regions. Our metropolitan areas are already dotted with amorphous, disintegrated places that once were relatively self-sufficient and integrated little towns or cities. The day they are pulled into the intricate economy or a metropolitan area, with its multiplicity of choices in places to work, recreation and shopping, they being to lose their integrity, their relative completeness, socially, economically and culturally. We cannot have it both ways: our twentieth-century metropolitan economy combined with nineteenth-century, isolated town or little-city life.â€
Found a couple of typos in the quotes above:
…possibly suited to a village *of* the last century…
…places to work, recreation and shopping, they *begin* to lose their integrity…
don’t want to sell Mrs. Jacobs short 🙂
Steve – I think your responses to TM miss the mark. Jacobs observations from the ’60’s are (or should be) as relevent today as they were back then, or she wouldn’t be such an icon (and a hero to you). Much like good politicians, we may agree with much of what Jacobs says, but not all.
The suburbs of the ’50’s and ’60’s were definitely not the “first wave of suburbs”. Rapid growth happened around here early in the 20th century – you just weren’t around to witness it. The result (U City loop, South City, etc.) may be more of an urban vision you can embrace now (with the patina of time and mature trees), but I’m sure they were viewed with the same range of suspicion, disgust, NIMBY and great-that’s-new viewpoints by the local residents and inner-city dwellers back then.
The biggest challenge for urban planners is justifying the concept that urbanity can be “managed”. Jane Jacobs’ questioning the results of grand plans is just as valid today as it was back then. It’s one thing to craft a “vision” for a block, neighborhhood, city or region. It’s a whole ‘nuther thing to make it all happen. Few cities or developers (short of Disney) have the resources to totally implement a complete vision in any one area. 99% of planning gets implemented a piece at a time, and bends, morphs and gets modified to fit the specific place and time. That’s what makes cities great (and many suburbs boring) – they’re not overly sanitized, they contain a lot of “mistakes” (of varying degrees) and they have a lot of little successes.
Great urban areas are a lot like pornography – we know what it is when we see it, but it’s really hard to specifically define “it”. And, people being people, vote with their pocketbooks and their feet. They also change their tastes over time. So, while the vision remains a moving target, areas that “work” become or stay popular (and pricey), while areas that don’t (or no longer) “work” fade away and (hopefully) get reinvented.
That said, urban planning still does play a role in offering options and forming a vision for a community to work towards. (As we all know, it’s scary to leave that “vision” in the hands of many elected officials!) But there remains a fine line between guidance and arrogance. Individuals can be notoriously cranky when they’re “told” to do something, anything, even if it’s “good” for them . . .
To the extent that NU towns are descendents of Howard’s “garden cities†of the early 20th century (I believe to a large extent they are), her critiques are directly applicable. The same challenges she mentions – the social, economic, and cultural integration of “new towns†into the larger metro area make it difficult for these New Urban developments to ever fulfill their promise as autonomous communities anything like the 19th century towns they are based on. As far as they’re just pretty to look at and give upper-middle class folks a place to walk to get their cappuccino, they’re probably less harmful than conventional suburban development; but as a solution to metropolitan growth, her critique of these kinds of planning schemes as unhelpful, sentimental imitations or small town or city life is likely relevant.
Likewise, you hear a lot of talk in planning/design circles these days about “urban villages†(present in the NU’s “transect†etc.). It’s worth wondering whether the village concept is applicable to city life or is just wishful thinking, and other transport/housing models are more appropriate.
Jane’s views IMO were fundamentally shaped by her experiences in fighting highway construction… particularly how it destroys neighborhoods and the quality of life. She clearly explained the inevitable fallout created by the conflicts between cars and people in urban environments. Every MoDOT designer should be required to read Death & Life. The New I64 designs will exacerbate historical conditions which disconnected urban spaces… definitely unnatural at best.
The central corridor of StL has great potential given the mix of public assets, homes, entertainment centers, universities, and businesses. Will our leaders embrace this mix, which JJ claimed was the key to vibrancy, or destroy it? The vast majority of design decisions so far favors cars over people and the public transportation system is designed to serve a small minority of the public. Do we even have a bike/pesedtrian paths along highway 40? Do we have a bike/pedestrian path built next to MetroLink routes?
She also believed that separation was a potential solution to the conflicts created between governmental units. I dare say that her limited experience in understanding the eventual fallout of this “solution” has been made apparent by our regional problems. Competitive communities throughout the StL region are robbing Peter to pay Paul.