5 ms·

Jane Jacobs: The Champion of Little Plans

73 points by raleighm 8y ago

thomasfl 8y ago
It's fascinating how many problems urban development architecture can actually solve. When a citys population grows, the economy grows even faste. Drug and mental problems can be solved by giving people better housing conditions.
- YorkshireSeason 8y ago
  These are daring statements! In the light of the gigantic failure of 20th century early modernist architect's to solve many social problems, despite their loud claims to the contrary. What did early modernist architects give us? Brutalism, car-friendly and pedestrian-repelling architecture following the blueprint of Le Corbusier "Radiant City" [1] and the Athens Charter [2]. Some solution to social problems ... In the light of the extreme failure of most of 20th century's modernist architecture, the burden of proof is firmly in the architects & urban planner's court. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville_Radieuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville_Radieuse
  - tome 8y ago
    [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Charter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Charter
    - YorkshireSeason 8y ago
      Thanks.
  - jhbadger 8y ago
    That's exactly the sort of thing Jacobs was against, though. She believed a functioning city needed to have a mixture of uses -- not just residential or just commercial and that great cities had discovered that by accident. She was a proponent of "New Urbanism" which (at least in the US) is a popular trend -- new developments aren't just residential suburbs or shopping malls but often have things like apartment/condo buildings with stores and restaurants in the lower levels making pedestrianism a practical option.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      She generally favored cities developing somewhat organically (little plans as the headline says) and in keeping with the needs and wishes of the residents. Today I think you see a certain cherry-picking of Jacobs' beliefs going on. A lot of people latch onto her opposition to running a highway through Washington Square Park because they don't like car-centric culture. That's all well and good. But, as you suggest, she also tended to be against other types of large-scale urban planning. She probably would have been skeptical of the school of thought that the SF housing situation would be so much better if they'd just bulldoze the Mission and build residential towers.
gaius 8y ago
A slight tangent but Jane Jacobs book Systems Of Survival is excellent, thought-provoking and insightful https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_Survival https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_Survival
spodek 8y ago
For those who have read Death and Life of Great American Cities and The Power Broker, most of this article tells history you already know. After that part, it's about applying her principles to today's issues beyond cities to entrepreneurship versus large corporations and red tape and how to serve people and their lives. The article didn't apply her principles to the environment, where I find a relevant parallel: people in traffic jams felt, "if only this road had another lane, then I wouldn't have to endure this traffic jam" so we built more lanes and roads. After generations, people learned that empty roads helped only temporarily, eventually leading people to use them and create more traffic than before the expansion. The parallel is that people see pollution today and think, "if only a new technology reduced this pollution, I wouldn't have to breathe this polluted air / endure sea levels rising / etc" so we develop new technologies. We haven't yet learned the parallel with roads that more technologies help only temporarily, eventually leading people to use them and create more pollution. I've overstated things to simplify, but there are shades of gray. We need some roads, but more isn't necessarily better and short-term solutions often worsen the situation. Same with technology, as Jevon's paradox, among other effects, illustrates. In complex systems, if you don't address the leverage point of the beliefs and goals of the system, changing elements in it rarely changes the system, no matter how wonderful the new technology seems, be it LED lighting, nuclear power, carbon sequestration, space travel, and so on. In a system based on beliefs that we can expand out of any problem, they'll make the system expand faster. In a system designed to serve people, new technologies would help serve people better, but we don't live in such a system yet. We could use an environmental Jane Jacobs.
- cirgue 8y ago
  > We haven't yet learned the parallel with roads that more technologies help only temporarily, eventually leading people to use them and create more pollution. This is a false equivalency. Traffic is very much the limiting factor in the use of roads. Pollution is absolutely not the limiting factor in the use of technology. The volume of pollution produced does not expand to some magical limit in response to changes in process in the same way that traffic expands to fill roadways in response to road expansion.
  - 8y ago

73 points by raleighm 8y ago

It's fascinating how many problems urban development architecture can actually solve. When a citys population grows, the economy grows even faste. Drug and mental problems can be solved by giving people better housing conditions.

YorkshireSeason 8y ago
These are daring statements! In the light of the gigantic failure of 20th century early modernist architect's to solve many social problems, despite their loud claims to the contrary. What did early modernist architects give us? Brutalism, car-friendly and pedestrian-repelling architecture following the blueprint of Le Corbusier "Radiant City" [1] and the Athens Charter [2]. Some solution to social problems ... In the light of the extreme failure of most of 20th century's modernist architecture, the burden of proof is firmly in the architects & urban planner's court. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville_Radieuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville_Radieuse
- tome 8y ago
  [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Charter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Charter
  - YorkshireSeason 8y ago
    Thanks.
- jhbadger 8y ago
  That's exactly the sort of thing Jacobs was against, though. She believed a functioning city needed to have a mixture of uses -- not just residential or just commercial and that great cities had discovered that by accident. She was a proponent of "New Urbanism" which (at least in the US) is a popular trend -- new developments aren't just residential suburbs or shopping malls but often have things like apartment/condo buildings with stores and restaurants in the lower levels making pedestrianism a practical option.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    She generally favored cities developing somewhat organically (little plans as the headline says) and in keeping with the needs and wishes of the residents. Today I think you see a certain cherry-picking of Jacobs' beliefs going on. A lot of people latch onto her opposition to running a highway through Washington Square Park because they don't like car-centric culture. That's all well and good. But, as you suggest, she also tended to be against other types of large-scale urban planning. She probably would have been skeptical of the school of thought that the SF housing situation would be so much better if they'd just bulldoze the Mission and build residential towers.

gaius 8y ago

A slight tangent but Jane Jacobs book Systems Of Survival is excellent, thought-provoking and insightful https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_Survival https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_Survival

spodek 8y ago

For those who have read Death and Life of Great American Cities and The Power Broker, most of this article tells history you already know. After that part, it's about applying her principles to today's issues beyond cities to entrepreneurship versus large corporations and red tape and how to serve people and their lives. The article didn't apply her principles to the environment, where I find a relevant parallel: people in traffic jams felt, "if only this road had another lane, then I wouldn't have to endure this traffic jam" so we built more lanes and roads. After generations, people learned that empty roads helped only temporarily, eventually leading people to use them and create more traffic than before the expansion. The parallel is that people see pollution today and think, "if only a new technology reduced this pollution, I wouldn't have to breathe this polluted air / endure sea levels rising / etc" so we develop new technologies. We haven't yet learned the parallel with roads that more technologies help only temporarily, eventually leading people to use them and create more pollution. I've overstated things to simplify, but there are shades of gray. We need some roads, but more isn't necessarily better and short-term solutions often worsen the situation. Same with technology, as Jevon's paradox, among other effects, illustrates. In complex systems, if you don't address the leverage point of the beliefs and goals of the system, changing elements in it rarely changes the system, no matter how wonderful the new technology seems, be it LED lighting, nuclear power, carbon sequestration, space travel, and so on. In a system based on beliefs that we can expand out of any problem, they'll make the system expand faster. In a system designed to serve people, new technologies would help serve people better, but we don't live in such a system yet. We could use an environmental Jane Jacobs.

cirgue 8y ago
> We haven't yet learned the parallel with roads that more technologies help only temporarily, eventually leading people to use them and create more pollution. This is a false equivalency. Traffic is very much the limiting factor in the use of roads. Pollution is absolutely not the limiting factor in the use of technology. The volume of pollution produced does not expand to some magical limit in response to changes in process in the same way that traffic expands to fill roadways in response to road expansion.
- 8y ago