What I would really like to title this, but seemed too large for the margins is “Week 3: Finally, a philosophy on city planning created by an actual resident of the city who recognized what made that city great rather than deconstructing everything wrong with it”
In high school I had the privilege of taking a class titled “History and Literature of NYC” which in the course of our examination of the complexity of New York City, briefly surveyed the major ideas of city planning in the twentieth century. My teacher, whose husband was an Architect, prefaced our study of twentieth century city planning with the influential groundwork of Le Corbusier’s philosophy, and later in our study of the Bohemian era introduced us to the thought provoking work of Jane Jacobs.
What I find immediately captivating about the story of Jane Jacobs is that here is somebody who was able to penetrate the otherwise exclusive practice of city planning. Sure, anyone could express their own beliefs on city planning, but to have gained such respect and recognition for her contributions without the formal training and career of an architect demands real commendation. In “The Life and Death of Great American Cities”, Jacobs sets forth an argument which flies in the face of previous essays such as Le Corbusier’s, and that is that a lot of what makes a modern city great, we already possess. A far cry from a “tabula rosa” approach, Jacobs sees what makes a city great, specifically New York, and addresses how those qualities should remain a part of city planning. One example of Jacob’s philosophy is how the irregularity of roadways actually adds to a cities liveliness, far from the gridiron approach of Modernist city planning of the day. Jacob’s belief was that in addition to breaking the monotony of predictable roadways which became in their excessive use an overwhelming, impersonal, and dysfunctional facet of New York–the major qualm she cited European’s with attributing to “the ugliness of American cities”–irregularity was synonymous with the one idea she held dearest of all: diversity. Jacobs believed that diversity (diversity in a cities people, building’s structures, and building’s functions), and to which school of thought I pledge my loyalty, is the invaluable glue which holds a city together and truly encapsulates its essence. For a variety of reasons (lack of formal architectural training, living in The Village in the 1950’s, her progressive views on slums as areas of valuable productivity) I attribute an image to Jane Jacobs not of a titan of architecture, but as a by-the-people-for-the-people woman who used her interest and knowledge in architecture theory in a sincere attempt to better the city she loved, and which ended up outsizing the legacy of others with far more training and industry experience. Jacobs’ legacy reminds us that city planning is about people afterall, not buildings.