4 ms·

I find that 95% of the material I read that touches on urban design takes a particular viewpoint: small-scale, accretive, "human", heterogeneous, walkable, urba

• theoh 9y ago
  > large-scale, top-down, "inhuman", car or transit-focused, urban spaces are bad You are combining a few different strands there. There are people who think brutalist megastructures are dehumanizing but who are generally pro-car. Likewise you shouldn't conflate car-friendly and transit-friendly approaches to planning: they are very different. Top-down planning is ever-present to varying degrees. Jacobs' nemesis Robert Moses wanted to do extremely serious surgery on Manhattan, with the assistance of the architect Paul Rudolph. Luckily it didn't happen, though other major projects went ahead. It was part of the whole post-war prioritization of the car (in Europe and America) which is now seen a mistake, and you will not find serious theorists defending it. You ask for a counterargument to Jacobs' ideas, but I think that invites a dualistic framing of the problems. See e.g. this article: https://archpaper.com/2016/05/best-use-abuse-criticize-jane-jacobs/ https://archpaper.com/2016/05/best-use-abuse-criticize-jane-... In terms of examples of successful modernist planning which are seen as a desirable model today, Neave Brown's Alexandra Road estate in London might be of interest. It's a megastructure, concrete, alongside a major railway line, with uncompromising modernist aesthetics. There is parkland, but not an ocean of space which isolates blocks from circulation routes. (This is a common criticism of the Zeilenbau/Corbusian approach to planning, which has to be weighed against the benefits of having greenery between blocks). It is an immense "gesture" of structure which follows the curve of the railway, but faces away from it to control noise levels. I'm mentioning all this because it is the particular architectural decisions and strategies that make the difference. It's not a result of picking one side or the other in the Moses/Jacobs debate. You could perhaps argue that it represents a third way, but there are many possibilities. If there is a meaningful countercurrent to Jacobs' ideas, it's the idea of pursuing architecture/planning itself rather than an ad-hoc folksy urbanism.
  • stickfigure 9y ago
    The Riverwalk in San Antonio is a decent example of successful modernist planning. It's a bit touristy, but in a way that I wouldn't mind seeing repeated in other urban centers.
• dredmorbius 9y ago
  I've got issues with a fair bit of his work, though there are parts which also seem fairly sound and insightful: Edward Glaeser (Harvard University, Manhattan Institute) is a University of Chicago-educated economist who's written (and spoken) extensively on cities. It's his Chicago and Libertarian leanings I disagree with most, but various other elements I find interesting. His The Triumph of the City lays out his model for what does and doesn't work. He both praises and criticises both Jacobs and the sterile-city auto-centric proponents, and with relatively strong basis in both cases. I'm also fairly partial these days to Vaclav Smil, whose metier is not cities and urbanity, but whose focus on energy and sustainability has an exceptionally strong intersection with the field.
• Arn_Thor 9y ago
  It is certainly the case that large public housing estates are being associated with poverty and crime. This is not necessarily due to the architecture—though there's plenty of bad architecture that makes people's lives more difficult and drab to go around. It is also the social policies and attitudes that came along with it. Compare for example the image of big, poverty-ridden Thatcherite public housing in the UK with similar-era public housing in Hong Kong. The utilitarian architecture is similar, and in some ways less aesthetically pleasing in Hong Kong (with external pipes for easier repair). There were cramped conditions and scarce amenities. The initial focus was to quickly settle a mass of people victims of a big fire in a squatter settlement. http://www.housingauthority.gov.hk/en/about-us/publications-and-statistics/housing-dimensions/article/20110902/fun-deck-public-housing-blocks-design-in-evolution.html http://www.housingauthority.gov.hk/en/about-us/publications-... But I think the difference is that the government in Hong Kong quickly listened to the wants and needs of the population, and designs very rapidly changed as more public housing was being built. The prevalent philosophy quickly became for the estates to be a self-contained community. So ground-level space was allocated to small businesses, and shared courtyards facilitated small scale enterprise. At the same time most of these these estates were quickly connected to the extensive rail network and thus to the rest of the city. The vast majority of inhabitants did not own a car, and did not need to. While Hong Kong was by no means crime-free, I think these inclusive policies that took into account the need for small scale enterprise, industry, connectivity, etc., managed to stave off many of the problems that emerged in similar public housing estates elsewhere. My point is that large-scale, top-down development on its own isn't bad if the project takes into account some of the lessons we've learned by, among other, Jane Jacobs. Le Corbusier and his type should not be seen as villains, they just suffered from some misconceptions. We don't have to make the same mistakes. So to frame it as an either/or issue is the wrong approach