Can we really vs RoMo and JJ?

There are different ways of directing a play, and two of the well known methods offer completely different approaches. One is that the director would design a tableau, a gallery of sculptures made of living people, and assign the movements to the actors, requesting a mental justification for the gestures. The other is that the director let the actors roam and explore the world created by the play and move into the position that is correct according to the character and the situation. Such is the point of disagreement I spot between Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs.

It is not the best analogy, but it shows that Moses and Jacobs should not be compared as if they are the polar opposites. The two struggled to make their city better, and the slight difference in the definition of “better” caused the disagreements. If Robert Moses designed this Macaulay blog, he would not have put the picture in the welcoming page, but have well organized links and tabs which would divide the blog posts by date, author and topic. Jacobs, on the other hand, would focus on what is friendly for the users, such as easier access to dashboard or thumbnails to go with recent posts. This is not to say that one is better than the other, but to say that the two are doing the same thing, in different ways.

Important point: Designing a city is not directing a play and it is not designing a blog post. The consequence of the difference is that we do not have much resource to experiment with the lives of actual humans living in a real city. In theory, we need little bit of both Moses and Jacobs. There must be times when we must fulfill the physical needs, such as renewing the infrastructures. Yet, a city designer is not the owner of the city and must keep in mind the intentions behind each renovation. I throw a question at the syllabus: Can we really debate about RoMo vs JJ?