Jane Jacob

DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN

CITIES

WHO WAS JANE JACOBS?

Jane Jacobs has no professional training as a city

planner.
She used her own observations about cities to
formulate her philosophy about them.
Even though some of her views go against the
standards of urban planning, her work is well
respected.
Jacobs was born in 1916 in the coal mining town of
Scranton, PA. She left Scranton for New York City.
During her first several years in the city, she held many
different types of jobs, and was even subject to periods
of unemployment.
Her first real writing position was at a metals trade
paper. While working there, she also held free-lance
writing positions at The New York Herald Tribune and
Vogue.
Jacobs based The Death and Life of Great American
Cities on her observations in the cities that she notes in

PURPOSE OF THE BOOK?

Jacobs saw the principles that underlie city planning as

erroneous and detrimental to cities.
Small businesses are ruined and families become
uprootedJacobs cites expressway construction as one
factor.
A banker may consider a particular area to be a slum;
however, it may actually be a thriving neighborhood.
Banks refuse to give out loans to such areas, so the
vibrancy of the neighborhood is a result of community
interaction.
Planners are more concerned with automobilesthey see
cars as both a cause of city decay and a needed
commodity. Jacobs see cars as a symptom of city
problems, not the source

INTENTIONS OF THE TEXT

Jacobs wants to introduce new principles in city

planning.
Part 1 examines city problems, using sidewalks and
parks as metaphors.
Part 2 studies the economics behind city problems.
Part 3 emphasizes decay along with regeneration
(Slumming and Unslumming a term Jacobs
invents).
Part 4 is where Jacobs makes suggestions for
change in existing cities and different planning for
new ones.
Jacobs looks to inner-cities for her main
observations.

VARIOUS THEMES IN THE TEXT

City Planning Errors

Successful Neighborhoods vs. Unsuccessful
Neighborhoods (We also have to look at Jacobs criteria
for success.)
Diversitya necessary component for successful cities,
but what does the term mean?
Change is necessaryplanners need to rethink their
definition of cities, look at what Jacobs sees as factors
that tell more about cities.
Slumming/Unslummingcity planners tore down slums,
including landmark buildings. They built housing projects
that made problems worse. Planners need to think about
a congenial area where people will want to stay, not be
forced to stay

SIDEWALKS: SAFETY

I.

II.

Three factors contribute to street

A clear line between public and
private space.
The eyes of the neighborhood
must be on the street/sidewalks
The sidewalks and streets must
be in constant use
Small business must flourish in
neighborhood as it attracts
people. More people means
more safety.
Streets need lights. Street need
intersections. This attracts
people and safety.

I.

II.
III.

Three ways to deal with city

safety: insecurity
Ignore the situation and allow it to
continue
Spend time in vehicles instead of
walking on sidewalks
Territory or Turf: developed by
gangs, the aim is to keep rival
gangs to enter their
neighborhood.
City planners use the concept to
tacitly enforce segregation and lack
of diversity.
Fear keeps people out of
neighborhood. Fear also keep
people leaving from the
neighborhood. The quality of
everyday life diminishes rapidly.

SIDEWALKS: CONTACT

Sidewalks are social. People meet on sidewalks.

Stores, movie theaters, restaurants increase positive
social contact.
Sidewalks create a public character. Think of T.nagar and
the diverse group of people who travel down the
sidewalks.
Trust is crucial for sidewalks to be safe places for contact.
Sidewalk travel ensures that people know each otherfrom shopping, from the bus stops, from windows.
Suspicion and fear of neighbors will make sidewalks
unsafe- compare the difference between old
neighborhoods and new high rise.
How can people in high rises get to know their neighbors?

SIDEWALKS : CHILDREN

The thought s always to get children off the streets

and into playground.
Yet children often stafer when playing on sidewalks
because adults are there.
Jacobs notes that most city planners are ment and
they dont think needs of woment or children. Both
have a far different replationship to sidewalks.
Children prefer sidewalks because they are more
intreseting.
Children can play jumping rope, chalk drawings,
hopscotch, races.
They by ice cream and candy near by.

NEIGHBORHOOD PARKS

It takes a wide functional

mixture of needs to populate
and enliven a neighborhood
park through the day.
The main problem of
neighborhood park planning
boils down to the problem of
nurturing diversified
neighborhoods capable of
using and supporting parks.
Hence dullness is the result.
Cetrain qualities in design
can apparently make a
difference too.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

Four elements of design :

Intricacy : variety of reasons
for which people come to the
park
Centering: A climax, pausing
point, crossroad.
Sun: Shaded to be sure in
summer.
Enclosure : Location.

CITY NEIGHBORHOODS

I.

II.

III.

City neighborhoods as mundane

organs of self-government: in
broadest sense meaning both the
informal and formal selfmanagement of society.
Three kinds of city neighborhoods:
The city as whole: From which
most money flows, where most
administrative and policy
decisions
Street neighborhoods:
overlapping interweaving turning
the corners.
Districts of large. Subcity size.
Districts: meditate between the
indispensable. But inherently
politically powerless, street
neighborhoods and the inherently
powerful city as whole.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

Cities should aim for:

To foster lively and interesting
streets.
To make these streets as a
network as possible
throughout the district.
To use parks and squares and
public building as part of this
street fabric and knit together
the fabrics complexity and
multiple use.
To emphasize the functional
identity of areas large enough
to work as district.

TO GENERATE DIVERSITY IN CITYS STREET AND DISTRICTS

I.

II.
III.
IV.

The district and indeed as many of its internal parts as

possible, must serve more than one primary function;
preferably more than two. These must insure the
presence of people who go outdoors on different
schedules and are in the place for different purposes,
but who are able to use many facilities in common
Most blocks must be short; that is, the streets
opportunities to turn corners more frequently.
Have mingled buildings that vary by age and condition,
including good proportion of old ones.
There must be sufficiently dense concentration of
people, for whatever purposes they may be there.
Includes people who are there for residence as well.

CITY CONCENTRATION: THE OPPOSITE OF SPRAWL

Population density can guarantee successful cities. Why?

Destiny doesn't mean overcrowding
High concentration mans visitors as well as residents.
It isn't about color or ethnicity alone. It involves economic class,
the intentions of each individual for visiting or living in a specific
area
Slums often have low population density as people with means
get out. Those who remain may not have much choice as they
may be too poor to move. If they are elder; they may be on a
limited income.
Concentration is necessary for diversity.

All of this depend on the neighborhood-what works for one wont

work for another.

SOME MYTHS ABOUT CITY DIVERSITY

Myth 1 : diversity is ugly

Myth 2: diversity causes traffic
congestion.
Myth 3: diversity invites ruinous
uses. It allows for permissive
policies.
Fact: uses are not absolute.
Planners believe bars,
manufacturing, theatres, clinics
and small business can be
harmful- preferring big corporate
lots to ensure order. However,
choice means growth and with
growth comes protection on the
part of the community.

Fact:Anything done badly can be

ugly. Sameness seems orderly
but betrays a deep disorder, as it
doesnt allow for change or
expression.
Fact: Traffic causes congestion,
not diversity. lack of wide ranges
of concetrated diversit can put
into automobile for almost all their
needs

SLUMMING AND UNSLUMMING

Slumming
Unslumming
Slums are vicious circle; slum
An area can unslum if the following
areas are both perpetrators and
take place:
victims.
1.
The population that remains take
Urban renewal programs generally
an interest in improving the area.
fail to stop slums.
2.
Sidewalks become safe and
People move in and out too
uninteresting
quickly: slums have low population. 3. A decline in overcoming among
Stagnation and dullness are the
certain low rent buildings.
first symptoms of slumming.
4.
Diversity is key to unslumming;
Ethnicity Is seen as a cause, but
business growth, variety of
that is a smokescreen. Relocation
economic class and professionsand tearing down buildings is a
more families with children who
slum shift.
take interest in the school and
The term perpetual slum ,is a
parks.
place with no economic and or

The area needs to be seen as

social improvement- it can also be
useful to city growth, instead of a
an area that worsens with time.
scene of urban blight,

EXAMPLE OF UNSLUMMING.