The Spovangelist

“In Death and Life Jacobs described in detail how powerful forces were hurting cities, both physically and metaphysically. She discussed the importance of neighborhoods, and what made one block friendly, but another deadly. She talked about the need for old buildings, and faulted restrictive zoning regulations as often harmful to a neighborhood’s vitality. She castigated the high-rise housing; the design, she wrote, was not only ugly, but wrecked a neighborhood’s soul.” – Alice Alexiou in Jane Jacobs: Urban Visionary

“Cities post the same kinds of problems as the life sciences. Like the sciences, they consist of many variables that are interrelated into an organic whole.”

“Planners and architects are apt to think in an orderly way, of stores as a straightforward matter of supplies and services. But stores in city neighborhoods are much more complicated creatures. Although they are mere holes in the wall, they help make an urban neighborhood a community.”

“The essence of these enterprises is that they have a place indisputably their own. Unless and until some solution for them can be found, the least we can do is to respect – in the deepest sense – strips of chaos that have a weird wisdom of their own not yet encompassed in our concept of urban order.”

In Post-World War II America the Federal Housing Act was passed to implement a sweeping program of “urban renewal” that resulted in razing entire city streets under the banner of slum eradication. Which neighborhoods received the “slum” designation, however, was highly politicized and driven by private real estate owner’s interest in getting Title I money to develop land they had been able to purchase at below market rates after the slum designation had been made. The term “land grab” applies here, and in the end the Act’s urban redevelopment programs actually destroyed more housing units than they built, artificially driving suburban migration. (Pun not intended.)

“[Kirk] was showing me a different way of looking at the city! The social aspect. It opened my eyes. I can remember the people in East Harlem hating a patch of green grass. I couldn’t understand why until one of them told me that their tobacco store had been torn down, the corner newsstand was gone, but someone had decided the people needed a patch of green grass and put it there.”

“Almost without exception the projects have one standard solution for every need: commerce, medicine, culture, government – whatever the activity, they take a part of the city’s life, abstract it from the hustle and bustle of downtown, and set it, like a self-sufficient island, in majestic isolation. The end result is to banish the street, the very life force of the city.”

Tags:   Breaking Boundaries · Community · Social Observations · Sustainable Development5 Comments