In Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs reveals her position and aim immediately in her introduction. She states bluntly, “This book is an attack on current city planning and rebuilding” (3). Throughout the chapter, Jacobs criticizes nearly all modern day styles of city planning. In fact, she mentions that city planning taught in schools in modern days ought to be called a pseudoscience. In other words, what is being taught in universities is fundamentally wrong, and only helps to solidify incorrect methods with each new generations of city planners (9). She proceeds to compare modern day city planning methods to the archaic medical practice of bloodletting, which for some time was considered medically sound. In fact, it was also a topic of study taught to many aspiring physicians. Those who disagreed with bloodletting were simply considered wrong (12-13).

So, considering that Jacobs is quite strongly opposing modern day city planning, what does she suggest? Jacobs offers a different approach to how modern urban areas ought to be created. There is not particularly a “right” or “wrong” way, rather Jacobs advocated that one must understand both the social and economic needs of the residents in the city. She believed one cannot plan a city if they do not intimately know it, as well as the culture of its inhabitants.

I happen to agree with Jacobs. To build a city preemptively on the premise that all humans want, or need the same thing mostly likely will lead to disaster. Jacobs provides several examples where the generalizing cities based on statistics and prior belief becomes a problem. Jacobs’s first example comes from her visit in the North End of Boston. This area was labeled as a slum based on the quantity of dwelling units to the net acre (10). However, examining more statistics showed that the North End also had low infant mortality rates, delinquency, rent, and more – yet North End was still labeled a slum (10). This led Jacobs to the conclusion that theories on what made a good city ultimately are useless. Her second example, which I found the most powerful, came from interviews in East Harlem. A large rectangular lawn was put in place, however, all the tenants came to hate it. One of the tenants said, “ ‘Nobody cared what we wanted when they built this place…But the big men come and look at the grass and say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful! Now the poor have everything!’ ” (15).

The story of the East Harlem residents resonated with me. If planners are putting in place features that the residents don’t want that is a true waste of space. Looking at a map and deciding an area needs more greenspace might not actually be a good idea considering the area couldn’t care less about such a feature. A city is not a mathematical equation where an algorithm can create a perfect fit each time. With varying neighborhoods comes different needs. Some people would interpret Jacobs’s work as opposition to all modern buildings and a cry to free the city in time. However I believe, David Halle’s Who Wears Jane Jacobs’s Mantle in Today’s New York City? offers a better view. Halle writes, “She believes that urban neighborhoods should have a good number of such buildings (referring to modern day buildings), along with a mixture of other types (e.g., older, smaller, and less expensive structures)” (2). This sentiment refers to Jacobs’s strong belief that cities should have diversity. In chapter 7 of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs writes of how the vast amount of skills pooled into a city is what makes it flourish. The high density of different people creates not only a variety of small stores, but also a huge pool of people that can support the small businesses. The diversity in culture, professions, and personalities intermingling was Jacob’s idea of a great city. Safety would come from what she called “eyes on the street” (Turner). To Jacob’s governmental agencies should not impose what they believed was a good city onto an area, but rather let the inhabitants shape where they lived.

Overall, I believe Jane Jacobs to be a magnificent activist. She did not have any formal education in city planning and made conclusions through her observations. One of Jacobs’s most famous actions was her fight against Robert Moses. Jacobs and protestors were able to rip Washington Square Park out of Moses’s grasps when he attempted to extend Fifth Avenue through the square. Jane Jacobs pressed for a sense of community in cities and hoped for cities that would be busy at all times of days. She did not want planners to impose what they believed the “ideal” structure of city onto the large urban areas. While I love Jacobs’s ideas, I continue to wonder if it’s really possible to “know” a city. Jacobs often talked about how diversity between the “old” and the “new” helps foster a successful environment. In a world where technology rapidly changes, thus making a community’s needs different, is there a way to reconcile the past and the future?

Additional Source:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/sep/12/jane-jacobs-new-york-history