Although many criticize Jacobs for not having a college degree and being self-taught, it was for this exact reason that she was able to accomplish as much as she did. Instead of learning “the ‘value’ of top-down planning and modernist mega-projects” in University, she learned by observing the city and the people that called that city home. Jacobs understood that the only way to better a city is to take into account both the social and economic needs of all its residents. Jane Jacobs believed that “big cities are natural generators of diversity and prolific incubators of new enterprises and ideas of all kind” (Jacob, 145). The intermingling of different people, professions, cultures, and cuisine is what allows a city to achieve its greatness.

It was this belief that led to her to advocate against the urban renewal programs and the works of Robert Moses. In the introduction to her book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, she criticizes urban developers of her time for focusing on fixing the issue automobile traffic, explaining that cities have more economic and social concerns that traffic, and if one is unable to recognize that than he will never be able to understand how the city itself works. Jacob continues to explain that city planning and the art of city design is a “pseudoscience” and those who abide by it “have yet to embark upon the adventure of probing the real world” (9). In other words, those that bulldoze the slums of the city and the dilapidated building are completely misunderstanding the complexity and greatness of a city. It isn’t enough for the inhabitants of a city to be diverse, but the buildings and infrastructure need to reflect that as well.

Jacobs believed that cities should “foster a mosaic of architectural styles and heights,” while allowing people from different ethnic, income, and racial backgrounds to live in close proximity. The streets should be filled with mix-sized buildings, little corner stores, and pocket parks for people to meet casually, rather than high-rise development, big commercial projects, and highways carved through neighborhoods. This is why Jacobs was among the most “articulate voices against ‘slum clearance.’”

On page nine, of her introduction to The Death and Life of Great American Cities, writes about the neighborhood of North End. Although, North End was in fact a great place with statistics confirming it was a safe and healthy place to live, it was still deemed as a slum. If one were to visit North End, one would be amazed by all of the buildings that had been rehabilitated and the life that was pouring from the buildings onto the streets. North End was revived, by the continuous retouches like neatly repointed brickwork, new blinds, freshly painted building, and a burst of music as a door was opened. And remarkably no bulldozer was necessary. Not only were the people who lived there happy, but also there were businesses such as upholstery making, metalworking, carpentry, and food processing. North End serves as an example to show the type of contribution that a neighborhood that is deemed to be a ‘slum’ can actually bring to a city.

It was through observation and mindfulness of the people and buildings that surrounded her that made Jane Jacob the influential urban developer and activist that she is known to be. Although she may have gone to jail a few times for protesting Moses and other like-minded urban planners, her efforts weren’t for nothing. It was because of her work that helped catalyze grassroots movement against urban renewal planning, in New York and around the entire country. Her belief that residential neighborhoods should be both lively and diversity filled allowed for cities to look the way they do to date. There is a current revival of many areas of American cities that were once deemed slums. These cities are filled with old buildings with a modern twist. Lofts are being converted into new residential areas, historic districts are being restored, and there is an overall residential real-estate boom in many cities around America.

 

Additional Works Used:

http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/146/janejacobslegacy.html

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/obit/2006/04/home_remedies.html