Jane Jacobs, civil activist. Citizen Jane is a riveting documentary regarding how bottom up, grassroots approaching to city planning and development is absolutely essential to creating a healthy city in terms of both economic and social welfare. Two interesting Jacobs quotes I found were “A city cannot be a work of art.” As well as “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” This quote does a great job of representing the true essence of what Jacobs is hoping to accomplish, and as we read, cities in places such as China and India disregard the lower classes when planning and creating a city, thus leading to inefficiencies and various ailments in a city that could have been prevented if looked at from a grassroots approach. Jacobs, “a journalist with provincial origins, no formal training in city planning, and scarce institutional authority”, led an uprising of sorts over the top bottom versus bottom up approach; this battle was waged with Robert Moses, a New York City elite that oversaw the Urban renewal projects in New York City at the time, he was coined the “Master Builder.”
Comparing the main points of Citizen Jane and Jane Jacobs with ’The patterned language’, Jacobs quote “a city cannot be a work of art” resonates with me here, and essentially undermines the entire point that this “timeless way of building” that Alexander is attempting to argue. What is the purpose of 200 plus different patterns if the city itself cannot function as a healthy system? Jacobs would argue theres no real purpose of the patterns if the main building blocks are a functioning city are not met first. The documentary about Jacobs and the article from Alexander do a great job of further examining the dynamics behind the bottom up versus top down approach to city building, and through the readings you can see and feel the different attitudes between the elite and luxurious, and the grassroots, bottom up attitudes of people like Jacobs and others.
Jacobs, J. (1961). The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York City, New York: Random House.
Tyrnauer, M. (Producer), & Tyrnauer, M. (Producer). (2016). Citizen Jane: Battle for the City. Retrieved from http://hulu.com