Archive for April, 2006

Click to Listen to the Show (24 MB MP3)

The Death and Life of Jane Jacobs [eversion / Flickr]

Jane Jacobs’ 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities is widely acknowledged and accepted as the bible of post-war urbanism. A close observation of the day to day mechanisms of city life, of activity on the streets, and in the parks, and in the shops, it is a detailed assessment of what works and what doesn’t, of which factors lead to city success and which lead to failure. Jacobs understood that a city is like a story, with characters (who hang out on the street and watch out for the life of the place), and a plot that hinges on those characters, and she told the story of America’s cities in a way that has somehow, very powerfully, endured.

Her story of cities was a kind of 19th century romanticism, very much pre-industrial, where everyone walked everywhere, where the scale of the city was human, not automotive, and where the the urban ills of the 1960s (urban renewal, highways bulldozing through neighborhoods, segregation, racial tension, and white-flight to the suburbs) were somehow both omnipresent and mysteriously absent. A backdrop and catalyst for her observations.

At a time when Americans seem to be coming back to cities, investing in urban development, restoring “historic” buildings and city cores, people are rediscovering Jane Jacobs and holding up her vision of urban life as blueprint and mantra. You can see and hear her vision in the plans of the New Urbanists (who like to think of themselves as her heirs) and in every mixed-use development from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon.

So why is it that her ideas have endured so well? Or, conversely, why is it that they are so popular at this historical moment? What is it that’s happening in American cities now that makes Jane Jacobs relevant and worth talking about? Who’s carrying the torch for her today, preserving her ideas and ideals? And, might that somehow be a bad thing?

David Dixon

Head of Planning and Urban Design, Goody Clancy (architecture, planning, and preservation firm in Boston)

Neil Smith

Professor of anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center

Director, CUNY’s Center for Place, Culture, and Politics

Author, The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revenchist City

Elizabeth Moule

Architect and Partner, Moule & Polyzoides, Architects and Urbanists

Robert Fishman

Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan

Author, Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia

The blogs Curbed and Polis are sponsoring a Jane Jacobs contest – name The Most Jane Jacobs Block in New York City. According to Lisa from Polis, the idea is to celebrate the “‘street ballet’ of your favorite block,” keeping in mind Jane Jacobs’ neighborhood tenets…but with your own spin.

Thanks to Justin Martenstein for suggesting we do a Jane Jacobs show!