Jane Jacobs and New Urbanism

Jane Jacob’s article Downtown is for People (1958) originally published in The Exploding Metropolis contains the seminal ideas of her influential work. The article gave Jacob’s her big break as a journalist and allowed her to expand her message into the famous book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Essentially it was a strong critique on the urban renewal projects of the 1950’s and challenged the fundamental theories and practices of the planning profession.

I found the ideas expressed in this article to be very refreshing after weeks of studying modernist planning theory. No doubt this is how many people felt and why her book garnered such immediate acclaim when it was first published in 1961. While I do agree to some degree with critic’s such as Lewis Mumford, who was appalled at Jacob’s savage denunciation of Ebenezer Howards Garden City Movement, it seems that many aspects of modernist thought did not give much consideration important things like the “pedestrian level”. I found the idea of the “two shift city” particularly interesting- a healthy and vibrant community must be active in the night as well as in the day.

Jacob’s ideas were very influential in planning and in particular on the development of New Urbanism, of which my last blog touched on briefly. For me the fact of Jacob’s influence is pertinent to the discussion concerning the validity of the field of planning. In a sense, Jacob’s was an anti-planner yet she contributed so significantly to the theory and practice of the profession. It is interesting to consider whether this detracts from the validity of her ideas or the validity of the planning profession in general.

Jane Jacobs (Source: http://bss.sfsu.edu/pamuk/urban/)