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Apr
26
Jane Jacobs
April 26, 2006 |
It is rare for a person to have the influence to change entire cities. Jane Jacobs who died yesterday did. Jacobs understood urban planning, design, economics and the nature of communities in a broad, wholistic way.
Jacobs was largely self educated which meant she seldom knew the “received wisdom” when she set out to write her books. Instead she went and looked at what worked and what did not.
To give a simple example, in the Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) she looked at the difference between vibrant parts of a city and its dead zones. While many commentators would cite income levels or on street parking or building height, Jacobs noticed that the length of the blocks themselves determined much of the activity on those blocks. Short blocks, with lots of corners and intersections created enough interest that people would flock to the street and the neighbourhood. Long blocks had exactly the opposite effect.
Jacobs had literally hundreds off these sorts of examples and insights. If you want to explain economies Jacobs thought you had to start at the level of what people actually did and how they acquired the knowledge to do more. If you want to understand why downtowns died you had to look at the effects of freeways and skyscrapers which were only occupied eight hours a day.
For Jacobs, the issues in urban planning or economic management were first and foremost questions about what actual people actually did. She had little time for theory or concepts of economic rationality and none at all for the conceits of planners.
Politically she always struck me as an agnostic. Some of her ideas - for example that freeways were a garrot at the neck of cities - were adopted by the center left; others, a belief in radical decentralization and an inherent scepticism about the ability of government to “get it right” are the staples of the libertarian right. Over the years I’ve found that in conversations with smart people on the left and the right her name often comes up. Not as an authority to buttress a particular argument; rather as a touchstone of rational, observational, political thinking.
Over the last half century her ideas have shaped urban planning models and developments. Places which work - and here I am thinking of Vancouver’s Granville Island and downtown in general, have implicitly adopted her short blocks, mixed use, people before cars, view of the world.
In the last few years Jacobs has been writing increasingly bleak books foreseeing enviornmental disaster and the destruction of the norms which allow professionals and an educated middle class to thrive. She may very well be right; but as more and more cities adopt Jacobs’ strategies there is every possibility that a marriage of the enviornment and what might be called a profoundly human life will emerge.
It was Canada’s great good fortune that Jacobs left the United States as her sons neared draft age during the Viet Nam war. As well as her tremendous body of work, Jacobs provided Canadians with a model of how an intellectual can work in public. Her influence and her ideas have been adopted in many of Canada’s cities. More importantly, her committment to examining how people actually go about their daily lives provides a model for people who want to think clearly about the issues which we grapple with in the 21st century.
Update: James Bow has an appreciation of Jane Jacobs at his site.
Update 2: The New York Times gives us a four web page appreciation of Jacobs which includes this quote from Robert Fulford:
Her complete dismissal of zoning in cities caused Robert Fulford, a columnist for The Financial Times of Canada, to observe in The New York Times Book Review that single-use zoning was the principal activity of city planners.
“It was as if she had somehow tried to persuade dentists that filling teeth did more harm than good,” he wrote.
the new york times
Update 3: Rational Reasons has an appreciation of Jacobs from a leftish position which is well worth reading. And Michael Stickings writes,
she was truly one of our greatest and most humane advocates for a fuller, richer existence amid the din of modern life.
the reaction
Update 4: And Andrew Spicer links to his own delightful description of an evening with the then 88 year old Jane Jacobs reading from The Dark Age Ahead:
Jacobs slammed New Urbanism, saying that it only produces more urban sprawl, but with porches.
This is as a result of the 3 rules of planners, that she says have come down as unsubstantiated dogma, contrary to the evidence of experience:
1. High ground coverages are bad
2. High densities are bad
3. The mingling of commercial or other work uses with residences is bad
andrew spicer
Mark at Section 15 writes:
Jane’s most influential book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is likely what launched me on my voyage to being a Green.
I first read it while in university back in 1987. Already interested in urban planning and design, the contents of that book knocked my brain out of first gear — heck, it broke my gear box –
section 15
Update 5: The folks in Jane Jacobs Toronto neighbourhood - the deepest Annex - have set up a blog and condolence book which you can find here: http://www.JaneJacobs.TYO.ca
Comments
4 Comments so far
A nice appreciation of one of the clearest thinkers I’ve ever read.
I’ve never been one to agree that the labels of left and right are outmoded. They seem to me still very useful. But I absolutely agree with what you say about Jacobs and the left/right. If anyone thought outside that spectrum and made it unimportant, she did.
Thanks for the link Jay. She was one of the greats and a real inspiration for me.
It is a testament that such diverse people as yourself, my self, Jay Jardine and Declan Dunne hold her in such high esteem.
I fear we will not see the likes of here for a while.
Hi Jay,
I live in Jane Jacobs’ neighbourhood, The Annex, and we’ve set up an online memorial weblog for her:
http://www.JaneJacobs.TYO.ca
You can leave online messages of condolence or you may share memories of Jane Jacobs in the comments there.
We also have a book which anyone can sign in person if they wish, the book will eventually be forwarded to her family.
Thanks for posting this on your blog.
“Not as an authority to buttress a particular argument; rather as a touchstone of rational, observational, political thinking.”
Not many higher compliments than that