Jane Jacobs

Writer & Urbanist

"The processes that occur in our cities are not arcane, capable of being understood only by experts. They can be understood by almost anybody. Many ordinary people already understand this; they simply have not considered that by understanding these ordinary arrangements of cause and effect, we can also direct them if we want to.“

Introduction

• Jane Jacobs (1916-2006), the radical urbanist was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She was interested in what people did for a living, in how they and everything else worked.

• Influences: Greenwich village,NY (which she made her home in 1934)

• During her first several years in the city she held a variety of jobs, working mainly as a stenographer and freelance writer, often writing about working districts in the city. These experiences, she claims, “…gave me more of a notion of what was going on in the city and what business was like, what work was like.”

• In 1952 Jacobs became an associate editor of Architectural Forum, allowing her to more closely observe the mechanisms of city planning and urban renewal.

Work Philosophy• Observational approach (which she practised daily as she carried on her everyday

life in Manhattan)

• She names three major targets of urban planning :• GARDEN CITY by Ebenezer Howard-garden suburbs• RADIANT CITY by Le Corbusier- modernist skylines• CITY BEAUTIFUL- monuments as foci

• What Jane proposes: to counter the theories of an ideal city ( Garden city, Radiant city) with the reality of the city

• “One principle emerges ubiquitously... This ubiquitous principle is the need of cities for a most intricate and close-grained diversity of uses that give each other constant mutual support, both economically and socially... Unsuccessful city areas are areas which lack this kind of intricate mutual support “

Radiant city Garden city

City beautiful

Work Philosophy Jane was skeptical of conventional planning beliefs -> noticed that the city rebuilding projects were neither safe, interesting nor alive -> gave a speech on this topic at Harvard in 1956 -> led to an article in Fortune magazine entitled "Downtown Is for People,” -> wrote the book The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

In 1962, Robert Moses’ planned to build a highway through Manhattan’s Washington Square Park and West Village-> Jane became the chairman of the Joint Committee to stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway-> was arrested during a demonstration in 1968-> campaign is often considered one of the turning points in the development of New York City.

Jane Jacobs meets Robert Moses

List of works• The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) • The Economy of Cities (1969)- economic growth of cities comes from urban import

replacement.(city begins to locally produce goods which it formerly imported)• The Question of Separatism: Quebec and the Struggle over Sovereignty (1980 Random

House and 2011 Baraka Books) • Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984)- challenges conventional theories of

economists, based on previous work The Economy of cities.• Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics

(1992) -theory about the morality of work- commercial moral syndrome A & guardian moral syndrome B.

• The Nature of Economies (2000) - shows similarities between an ecosystem and an economy- "development and co-development through differentiations and their combinations; expansion through diverse, multiple uses of energy; and self-maintenance through self-refueling"

• Dark Age Ahead (2004)- decay of North American civilisation comparable to that of the Roman empire. five pillars of our culture that we depend on to stand firm,” are the nuclear family (but also community), education, science, representational government, and corporate & professional accountability.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

• The uses of sidewalks :

1. Safety - “ To build city districts that are custom made for easy

crime is idiotic. Yet that is what we do.”- 1. Easy demarcation – public and private- 2. Eyes upon the street- 3. Users fairly continuous - effective eyes on street ;

induce people in buildings to watch in sufficient numbers

- Street/sidewalk peace – not maintained by police – “ kept primarily by an intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards among the people themselves, and enforced by the people themselves”

2. Contact- "A good city street neighborhood achieves a marvel of

balance between its people's determination to have essential privacy and their simultaneous wishes for differing degrees of contact, enjoyment or help from the people around. This balance is largely made up of small, sensitively managed details”

3. Assimilating children- "In real life, only from the ordinary adults of the city

sidewalk do children learn -- if they learn at all -- the first fundamental of successful city life: People must take a modicum of public responsibility for each other even if they have no ties to each other.”

• The uses of city neighborhoodsEffective planning : 1. Foster lively/interesting streets2. Fabric of district streets – continuous network3. Parks, squares, public buildings – part of this fabric4. Emphasize functional identity of areas - districts• The generators of diversityConditions 1. District – more than one/two primary functions2. Short blocks; frequent opportunities to turn corners3. Close-grained mingling of buildings that vary in age and

condition4. Sufficiently dense concentration of people (for any purpose)• Some myths about diversity- "Lack of wide ranges of concentrated diversity can put people

into automobiles for almost all their needs….. It becomes an intolerable condition, destructive of all other values and all other aspects of convenience, where populations are heavy or continuous.”

- Dense, diversified areas – people walk• Erosion of cities or attrition of automobiles- Erosion of cities by automobiles - Vehicular congestion street widening ”More and more land goes into parking, to accommodate the ever

increasing numbers of vehicles while they are idle.”- Positive feedback cause leads to effect which becomes cause

again- Attrition of automobiles – by making conditions less convenient

for cars- Attrition only realistic means by which public transport can be

stimulated

• References : Jacobs, Jane : The Life and Death of Great American Citieshttp://www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/EarthCFD/partners/writer-jacobs.htm

This PowerPoint presentation is merely a compilation of information obtained from the mentioned references and general internet search. It was done purely for academic purposes, with the intent of making study notes to study the life and beliefs of Jane Jacobs. This presentation is not meant for any sort of publishing or profit- oriented circulation.