The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs

In our planning class, this book is always mentioned when urban renewal is discussed. It is cited as One of Those Significant Books, but teachers don’t really discuss its content. I got curious, so I borrowed it from the library. It is a surprisingly interesting read. The author’s narrative style is witty and engaging. Considering that the book was published in 1961, its ideas still make sense.

The book is an attack on the city planning principles prevalent at that time. Orthodox city planning theory then was heavily influenced by the ideas of Ebenezer Howard, Lewis Mumford, Catherine Bauer, Patrick Geddes, Clarence Stein, Le Corbusier. Howard’s concept of the Garden City (self-sufficient small towns with a limited population encircled with a greenbelt, with industries, schools, housing and commercial areas given their own planned preserves) was enthusiastically adopted. Le Corbusier’s Radiant City (composed mainly of skyscrapers and extensive parks at ground level) was ‘hailed deliriously by architects.’ Another line of planning principles centered around the City Beautiful movement, which espoused neoclassical grand civic centers and boulevards. The leading City Beautiful Planner was Daniel Burnham, whose influence extends to the Philippines where vestiges of his grand plan of Manila are still visible.

Jacobs’ main point is that these theories are irrelevant to the actual workings of cities. Their principles of sorting out and of bringing order by repression of all plans but the planners are abstract and simplistic, and not attune to the complicated workings of cities. Through observation, she presents principles on how cities work in real life. She writes about ‘common, ordinary things’ like what makes successful streets, parks and neighborhoods.

One of her most salient ideas is generating diversity in the neighborhood, in terms of uses and in the type of people which populate the area. “Mixed-use” is a term recently popularized, but Jane Jacobs, in the 1960’s, already recognized its significance. According to her, the main advantages of generating diversity are:

Safety – streets and parks become safe when there is a continuous stream of people using them at different times of the day. Continuous usage is possible only if there are different types of people with different schedules around the area – e.g. mothers can use a park in the morning, workers during lunchtime, children in the afternoon, dating couples during the night. Good lighting in itself is insufficient; defensibility of space is increased when there are eyes who can see the crime and prevent it from happening.

Good business – the continuous presence of different types of people in the streets, whether they are businessmen, tourists or students – increases the market of establishments which they can use in common like restaurants, theaters or shopping centers. A mixture of complementary uses can support each other.

Liveliness – ‘In cities, liveliness and variety attract more liveliness; deadness and monotony repel life.’ People want to go to places where something is happening. They want to watch and observe other people. They also want a variety of experiences. Businesses go where the people are. Liveliness is vital to the social and economic life of the city.

Jacobs observed places in which diversity flourished, and came up with the following conditions which, in combination, can generate exuberant diversity in a city’s streets:

The district and its internal parts must serve more than one primary function. These must insure the presence of people who go outdoors on different schedules and are in the place for different purposes, but who are able to use many facilities in common. She calls this the ‘time spread’ of people -- the streets should be occupied at different hours of the day.

Most blocks must be short, that is opportunities to turn corners must be frequent. Long blocks can isolate street neighborhoods, short ones can open them up and mingle the paths of people, permitting cross use. Intermingled paths can create more feasible spots for commerce, spreading them out and increasing distribution and convenience of their placement.

The district must mingle buildings that vary in age and condition, including a good proportion of old ones. If the city area only has new buildings, the enterprises that can exist there are automatically limited to those that can support the high costs of new construction, e.g. those that are high profit or well-subsidized. Small enterprises appreciated for their convenience and personal quality can only afford the rent of old buildings.

There must be a sufficiently dense concentration of people, for whatever purposes they may be there. This includes dense concentration in the case of people who are there because of residence. A larger concentration of people supports more facilities and specialties, and thus more vitality and diversity. High density should be distinguished from overcrowding. As Jacobs says, ‘tremendous numbers of people concentrate in city downtowns – if they did not, there would be no downtown to amount to anything.’

Diversity is important to the growth of the city, if not a necessary part of it.

Jacobs discusses the intricate workings of other aspects of the city, like slums, automobiles, visual order, financing and governance. In going through her ideas, it helps to keep in mind that she does not expect the reader to take her word for it: ‘I hope any reader of this book will constantly and skeptically test what I say against his own knowledge of cities and their behavior. If I have been inaccurate in observations or mistaken inferences and conclusions, I hope these faults will be quickly corrected. The point is, we need desperately to learn and to apply as much knowledge that is true and useful about cities as fast as possible.’ She said this in the 1960’s. It is the 21st century, and we still need to learn a lot more from our cities. The best lesson we can get from Jane Jacobs is that we should learn from the city itself -- before we impose our grand ideas, let us take time to stop, look and listen.

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FYI, Jane Jacobs is still alive and active...