Jane Jacobs in “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” argues that the current state of cities is deplorable and that something needs to be done. Jacobs attributes this fault to urban planners who have ignored certain facts and realities of urban life, and were influenced by towns, suburbs, and dream cities instead of actual cities. Jacobs condemns urban planners for mistakenly believing that superficial makeovers are the cure for all the cities ailments.
Interestingly enough, Mumford, a Decentrist which Jacob condemns, also criticizes urban planners for not realizing that city problems can’t just be fixed by “merely building sanitary tenements or straightening out and widening irregular streets” (1937). However, while Jacobs and Mumford agree that there is a problem, they disagree on what to do about it. Mumford favors a “polynucleated city” in which there are groups of evenly spaced and sized communities with completely planned out resources and with limitations to size and density (1937). He claims his plan would strengthen cities, however, Jacobs seems to think it would undermine the economy of cities and kill them, and I agree. First, who decides who gets to live in these ‘new and improved’ cities and how would they decide that? What’s the criteria for who gets to live there? Where do they draw the lines? It seems to me that he’s pressing for gentrification and for marginalizing the poor. Also, how would he decide which businesses stay in his planned out resources? His rigid plan doesn’t appear to allow for economic growth and seems to favor monopolistic companies while kicking out smaller businesses. Additionally, today’s population is growing rapidly and half the world lives in cities (and the amount is expected to increase); how does he plan to accommodate the ever-growing population in his evenly dispersed and limited-in-size communities? Again I worry that this will only benefit the privileged, while the poor will suffer in increasingly cramped and impoverished areas.
On the other hand, Jacobs likes dense cities and sees the value in the orderly disorder, however, I believe that her vision isn’t safe from gentrification either. In fact, I believe that she’s part of the problem. I believe there are two steps to the gentrification process: the first step is when long-time residents and owners begin to change a neighborhood, and then newcomers come in and complete the transformation. For instance, when Jacobs first visited the North End it was overcrowded and poor, but the next time she came, she writes, it was completely changed and full of live and vibrancy due to the efforts of its residents. This is the first stage of gentrification in which the people living there try to better their situations, and Jacobs applauds this. She also writes, however, how the families in the tenements have “uncrowded themselves” by combining apartments into larger ones, but how exactly did they magically uncrowd themselves? Where did the previous tenants go? Here we see the beginnings of original residents being pushed out of their communities. Then, according to Dumanoski, young people began to move in and the North End became an interesting and desirable place to live, and suddenly rents were increasing, condominiums were being built, and, as Dumanoski writes, “there will be a push for ‘Italian culture,’ but it will be a plastic Italian culture” (1979). Indeed, today the North End is only about 3% Italian, while its history and symbols have been reduced to mere commodities to consume for entertainment (Seligson 2016). In the place of small mom-and-pop shops are pricey boutiques and bakeries that sell cannolis (Seligson 2016).
Jacobs writes that “the visitors sniff out where something vigorous exists already, and come to share it, thereby further supporting it,” but I disagree. These newcomers or “urban pioneers” (like Jacobs – a middle class out-of-towner who moved to Greenwich Village most probably for the low rents and it’s charming bohemian atmosphere) in their search for and appreciation of inner-city “authenticity” and “diversity” actually incorporate those very locations back into the middle class mainstream, leaving behind the original residents that made it so. Further, I don’t think Jacobs actually cares about diversity in terms of race. For instance, Halle points out that Jacobs praised Midtown for its diversity in terms of its “high rise office buildings, a thriving entertainment industry…and some tall residential buildings along with smaller structures too,” without even seemingly caring about the fact that all this contributed to gentrification in the area (2006). The revitalization of Times Square, for example, has homogenized the surrounding areas and pushed out lower-income residents. Also, it seems that she wasn’t too keen on integration (like Moses), since, according to Halle, she fought against having a high-rise public housing project in the Village, even though that would’ve definitely improved the area’s diversity (2006).
Which leads me to the question of can you improve an area without it leading to gentrification. Efforts have been made in Harlem, for example, to help its residents who lived there, but now Harlem, an area that has been redlined and discriminated against for years, has “urban pioneers,” trendy restaurants, high-end housing, and is no longer majority black (Roberts 2010). Similarly, great efforts were taken by residents in Brownsville to improve their neighborhood, however, now residents are trying to combat the second stage of gentrification that is occurring in surrounding neighborhoods such as Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Crown Heights (Pope-Sussman 2016). Also, the decades-long trend of poverty being higher in cities is now reversing; nowadays, suburban poverty levels are actually higher than urban levels as more and more of the urban poor are being pushed out of their neighborhoods (Edsall 2015). So do you think it’s possible to help a neighborhood in need without it leading to the exodus of those very residents? Because, from where I’m standing, I, unfortunately, don’t think it is.
Readings:
Halle, D. (2006). Who wears Jane Jacobs’s mantle in today’s New York City? City and Community, 5(3), 237-241.
Jacobs, J. (1961). Introduction. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities (pp. 2-25). New York: Vintage Books.
Jacobs, J. (1961). The generators of diversity. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities (pp. 143-151). New York: Vintage Books.
Additional Works Used:
Dumanoski, D. (1979) Boston’s Italian North End. American Preservation Magazine. Retrieved March 3, 2017, from http://northendwaterfront.com/2017/01/revisiting-north-end-gentrification-1979-american-preservation-magazine/
Edsall, T. B. (2015) The Gentrification Effect. The New York Times. Retrieved March 03, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/25/opinion/the-gentrification-effect.html
Mumford, L. (1937) What is a city? Architectural Record, pp. 92-96. Retrieved March 3, 2017, from https://deensharp.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/mumford-what-is-a-city_.pdf
Pope-Sussman, R. (2016) ‘Best of Brownsville’ street kiosk triggers local gentrification fears. Retrieved March 03, 2017, from http://gothamist.com/2016/09/16/brownsville_gentrification_fear.php
Roberts, S. (2010) No longer majority black, Harlem is in transition. The New York Times. Retrieved March 03, 2017, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/nyregion/06harlem.html
Seligson, S. (2016, July 12). Is the North End Still Italian? Retrieved March 03, 2017, from https://www.bu.edu/today/2016/north-end-boston/
I am extremely intrigued by your blog post as many of the ideas you brought up have never crossed my mind before. Living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, my whole life, a neighborhood undergoing gentrification and grand changes right under my nose, this blog post hit close to home. Greenpoint, and the surrounding areas, especially Williamsburg, used to be “unwanted” and extremely dangerous places. However, inner Greenpoint was made up of a majority Polish community. Undergoing transformations, “makeovers”, to make the areas safer and more appealing to new residents worked. Unfortunately, in the process, the tight-knit Polish community that made Greenpoint, Greenpoint, started to crumble. Some people moved out because they were unhappy with certain changes that in actuality did more harm than good, but others were driven out by the radical increase in housing prices.
I used to just accept this is a regular part of change in my neighborhood. Looking at the bigger picture, I know this isn’t specific to Greenpoint. The goal, or at least what was told to us, was to improve the neighborhood for its people. And although it did do that in many aspects, including safety and diversity, it drove out many of the original residents who created that neighborhood. What we have now is not a better Greenpoint, it’s a new Greenpoint. And that’s unfortunate.
Reading about Jane Jacobs, I did not get the same impression that she was part of the gentrification problem. I genuinely felt as if she wanted to promote diversity for the betterment of the city as a whole. But I can see where you are coming from and I am now under the impression that her plans and ideas had good intentions but perhaps they did not foresee the negative effects.
Hi Dahliah,
I’ve really enjoyed reading your post and seeing your take on both Jacobs’ and Mumfords’ views. I applaud your objectivity when exploring the outcomes and possibilities of both sides. I can honestly say that I had not thought about these types of outcomes before reading these pieces and your post about whether or not gentrification is inexorable. I personally feel that living deep on Long Island, I do not see as much gentrification occurring as a city dweller would, however, maybe I just don’t realize it. I never knew how much of a problem gentrification was until I read more about how prevalent it is in New York City. However, now that I know it exists and is quite common, I feel that it is almost inevitable, regardless of what changes are made to the city.
As for your question, I personally do not think that gentrification is avoidable when attempting to majorly improve areas like North End or Harlem. I feel that whenever something “nice and new” comes along, those who occupy what is now “old and worn out” will always flock to the new and improved places, while pushing the current residents out. In my opinion, unless there are new means of improvement presented in urban planning, this same cycle will be ceaseless. When people see something new, they want it. As long as there is inequality amongst races and ethnicities, creating large disparities between social classes, I feel that there will never be improvement without gentrification.