4 ms·

An Ad Hoc Affair: Jane Jacobs’s Clear-Eyed Vision of Humanity

40 points by tintinnabula 10y ago

Shalhoub 10y ago
In this article, the opening paragraph actually tells us why Jane Jacobs is culturally relevant. without all the irrelevant digressions. I mean what the heck does her boss being unable to attend a conference got to do with urban architectural planning. https://www.pps.org/reference/jjacobs-2/ https://www.pps.org/reference/jjacobs-2/
- crispinb 10y ago
  It's not an article about 'urban architectural planning'. It's about Jane Jacobs, a sui generis, unschooled, bottom-up thinker in a field then dominated by inhumane abstractions. That she appeared as a public intellectual somewhat accidentally seems like a fair introduction to that narrative.
- tbihl 10y ago
  It's long form writing, in this case taking the form of a narrative. It gives texture and context, which some people certainly appreciate. Having said that, it's also nice to have a summary version like the one you've offered, though I tend to go straight to Wikipedia if that's the mood I'm in.
  - Shalhoub 10y ago
    I do appreciate long form writing, but not when it's done badly, as in all the salient details are scattered about the page. That article would be good as part of a biography. Having never heard of Jane Jacob, I too had to consult wikipedia. They should do what Time Magazine does and have a separate info-box with a brief synopsis of the salient details.
    - mturmon 10y ago
      "They should do what Time Magazine does..." Sorry, but you have really made a blunder here. The magazine you're critiquing is the foremost American journal of left political thought. It has been publishing weekly since the Civil War. Its editors, writers, and readers expect to read difficult, complex pieces there. It wants nothing to do with Time, which, being an upstart Luce rag, is the opposite of it in so many ways. Anyway. Doubtless, Jacobs excites some contradictory impulses in the Nation readership. As a small article in another leftist journal (http://inthesetimes.com/article/2743/jane_jacobs_reconsidered http://inthesetimes.com/article/2743/jane_jacobs_reconsidere...) put it: "Jacobs’ iconoclastic ideas raised questions about her political beliefs. Her opposition to the Vietnam War and her role in organizing movements for urban social justice seem to mark her as a woman of the left. And yet, conservatives also embraced Jacobs’ wars with City Hall, joining her on the barricades to stop federal urban renewal policy. They found comfort in her cantankerous individualism and her attack on planners and government bureaucracy. Her economic ideas–which locate the roots of productivity in ingenuity rather than class struggle–attract libertarians." This is the reason a short article on Jacobs in this magazine, especially, makes no sense.
      - ghaff 10y ago
        That's a pretty good summary based on what I know of Jacobs. She has a lot of fans in the circles of city living advocates who are particularly opposed to car-centric cultures. On the other hand, I suspect that based on her record in NYC she'd be equally critical of those who would like nothing better than for the city (e.g. SF) to just bulldoze blocks of low rises and build, build, build.
        snrplfth 10y ago
        That's the trouble with a lot of people who think of themselves as Jacobs fans. They like the sorts of outcomes that she liked, but then they ignore almost the whole of her analysis and basically come up with ideas for Master-Planning the Jane Jacobs City.
        ghaff 10y ago
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  I voted you up at first because I, too, get really annoyed at "long form" magazine writing in which it seems the author is paid by the word and encouraged to wander all over the rhetorical landscape, only occasionally circling back to the supposed point of the article. But then I actually read the article... and, well, that's what the 'unvote' button is for, I guess.
tbihl 10y ago
Death and Life of Great American Cities is a book that everyone should relocate to the top of their reading lists, of they've not already tackled it. It's still perfectly applicable to every US town or city I've ever visited or lived in. The mistakes she laments are still being made. She mentions that what she writes about cities may not be applicable to smaller towns, but it mostly is (I believe she was just pointing out the limits of her own experiences.) There are many, many social issues worth reading about right now. This book is important not because its issue is more pressing, per se, but because its issues are so foundational to many others we struggle with in our cities and in the whole country.
- crispinb 10y ago
  Completely agree. Jane Jacobs the person is also worth examining as an exemplar for the 'public intellectual'. She wrote seminal books, but also got her hands dirty doing effective work with and for the communities she lived within.
- andy_wrote 10y ago
  I'm in the middle of Death and Life right now. I'm enjoying it for sure, and I find myself nodding my head at a lot of what she says, particularly stuff about border vacuums and mixed-usage areas, both of which have figured into my own past decisions about where to live. One thing I do find lacking is a discussion of assessing tradeoffs, particularly when her design principles bump up against natural pressures (i.e. driven by the market, not by fiat city planners). For example, she advocates a mix of new and old city buildings. Enforcing this may generate housing and office shortages, if a neighborhood becomes attractive at a rate exceeding that which we can maintain the desired old-new mix. How do we trade that off; at what price do we value incremental old-new mix? She does cover some of this in her chapter on self-destruction of diversity, but her solution of zoning for diversity was a little tautological for me, just stating that diversity should be enforced. What I'm interested in is how we weigh that against the lost utility of individuals and businesses who would prefer to move to the neighborhood in question. It's definitely a tough question! While I'd prefer some more head-on discussion of tradeoffs, I think (unfortunately, decades later) that there's still plenty of room for the ideas she advocates to be recognized at all.

40 points by tintinnabula 10y ago

In this article, the opening paragraph actually tells us why Jane Jacobs is culturally relevant. without all the irrelevant digressions. I mean what the heck does her boss being unable to attend a conference got to do with urban architectural planning. https://www.pps.org/reference/jjacobs-2/ https://www.pps.org/reference/jjacobs-2/

crispinb 10y ago
It's not an article about 'urban architectural planning'. It's about Jane Jacobs, a sui generis, unschooled, bottom-up thinker in a field then dominated by inhumane abstractions. That she appeared as a public intellectual somewhat accidentally seems like a fair introduction to that narrative.
tbihl 10y ago
It's long form writing, in this case taking the form of a narrative. It gives texture and context, which some people certainly appreciate. Having said that, it's also nice to have a summary version like the one you've offered, though I tend to go straight to Wikipedia if that's the mood I'm in.
- Shalhoub 10y ago
  I do appreciate long form writing, but not when it's done badly, as in all the salient details are scattered about the page. That article would be good as part of a biography. Having never heard of Jane Jacob, I too had to consult wikipedia. They should do what Time Magazine does and have a separate info-box with a brief synopsis of the salient details.
  - mturmon 10y ago
    "They should do what Time Magazine does..." Sorry, but you have really made a blunder here. The magazine you're critiquing is the foremost American journal of left political thought. It has been publishing weekly since the Civil War. Its editors, writers, and readers expect to read difficult, complex pieces there. It wants nothing to do with Time, which, being an upstart Luce rag, is the opposite of it in so many ways. Anyway. Doubtless, Jacobs excites some contradictory impulses in the Nation readership. As a small article in another leftist journal (http://inthesetimes.com/article/2743/jane_jacobs_reconsidered http://inthesetimes.com/article/2743/jane_jacobs_reconsidere...) put it: "Jacobs’ iconoclastic ideas raised questions about her political beliefs. Her opposition to the Vietnam War and her role in organizing movements for urban social justice seem to mark her as a woman of the left. And yet, conservatives also embraced Jacobs’ wars with City Hall, joining her on the barricades to stop federal urban renewal policy. They found comfort in her cantankerous individualism and her attack on planners and government bureaucracy. Her economic ideas–which locate the roots of productivity in ingenuity rather than class struggle–attract libertarians." This is the reason a short article on Jacobs in this magazine, especially, makes no sense.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      That's a pretty good summary based on what I know of Jacobs. She has a lot of fans in the circles of city living advocates who are particularly opposed to car-centric cultures. On the other hand, I suspect that based on her record in NYC she'd be equally critical of those who would like nothing better than for the city (e.g. SF) to just bulldoze blocks of low rises and build, build, build.
      - snrplfth 10y ago
        That's the trouble with a lot of people who think of themselves as Jacobs fans. They like the sorts of outcomes that she liked, but then they ignore almost the whole of her analysis and basically come up with ideas for Master-Planning the Jane Jacobs City.
        ghaff 10y ago
CamperBob2 10y ago
I voted you up at first because I, too, get really annoyed at "long form" magazine writing in which it seems the author is paid by the word and encouraged to wander all over the rhetorical landscape, only occasionally circling back to the supposed point of the article. But then I actually read the article... and, well, that's what the 'unvote' button is for, I guess.

tbihl 10y ago

Death and Life of Great American Cities is a book that everyone should relocate to the top of their reading lists, of they've not already tackled it. It's still perfectly applicable to every US town or city I've ever visited or lived in. The mistakes she laments are still being made. She mentions that what she writes about cities may not be applicable to smaller towns, but it mostly is (I believe she was just pointing out the limits of her own experiences.) There are many, many social issues worth reading about right now. This book is important not because its issue is more pressing, per se, but because its issues are so foundational to many others we struggle with in our cities and in the whole country.

crispinb 10y ago
Completely agree. Jane Jacobs the person is also worth examining as an exemplar for the 'public intellectual'. She wrote seminal books, but also got her hands dirty doing effective work with and for the communities she lived within.
andy_wrote 10y ago
I'm in the middle of Death and Life right now. I'm enjoying it for sure, and I find myself nodding my head at a lot of what she says, particularly stuff about border vacuums and mixed-usage areas, both of which have figured into my own past decisions about where to live. One thing I do find lacking is a discussion of assessing tradeoffs, particularly when her design principles bump up against natural pressures (i.e. driven by the market, not by fiat city planners). For example, she advocates a mix of new and old city buildings. Enforcing this may generate housing and office shortages, if a neighborhood becomes attractive at a rate exceeding that which we can maintain the desired old-new mix. How do we trade that off; at what price do we value incremental old-new mix? She does cover some of this in her chapter on self-destruction of diversity, but her solution of zoning for diversity was a little tautological for me, just stating that diversity should be enforced. What I'm interested in is how we weigh that against the lost utility of individuals and businesses who would prefer to move to the neighborhood in question. It's definitely a tough question! While I'd prefer some more head-on discussion of tradeoffs, I think (unfortunately, decades later) that there's still plenty of room for the ideas she advocates to be recognized at all.