
An Ad Hoc Affair: Jane Jacobs’s Clear-Eyed Vision of Humanity - tintinnabula
https://www.thenation.com/article/jane-jacobss-radical-vision-of-humanity/
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tbihl
Death and Life of Great American Cities is a book that everyone should
relocate to the top of their reading lists, of they've not already tackled it.
It's still perfectly applicable to every US town or city I've ever visited or
lived in. The mistakes she laments are still being made. She mentions that
what she writes about cities may not be applicable to smaller towns, but it
mostly is (I believe she was just pointing out the limits of her own
experiences.)

There are many, many social issues worth reading about right now. This book is
important not because its issue is more pressing, per se, but because its
issues are so foundational to many others we struggle with in our cities and
in the whole country.

~~~
andy_wrote
I'm in the middle of Death and Life right now. I'm enjoying it for sure, and I
find myself nodding my head at a lot of what she says, particularly stuff
about border vacuums and mixed-usage areas, both of which have figured into my
own past decisions about where to live.

One thing I do find lacking is a discussion of assessing tradeoffs,
particularly when her design principles bump up against natural pressures
(i.e. driven by the market, not by fiat city planners). For example, she
advocates a mix of new and old city buildings. Enforcing this may generate
housing and office shortages, if a neighborhood becomes attractive at a rate
exceeding that which we can maintain the desired old-new mix. How do we trade
that off; at what price do we value incremental old-new mix?

She does cover some of this in her chapter on self-destruction of diversity,
but her solution of zoning for diversity was a little tautological for me,
just stating that diversity should be enforced. What I'm interested in is how
we weigh that against the lost utility of individuals and businesses who would
prefer to move to the neighborhood in question.

It's definitely a tough question! While I'd prefer some more head-on
discussion of tradeoffs, I think (unfortunately, decades later) that there's
still plenty of room for the ideas she advocates to be recognized at all.

~~~
tbihl
Yeah, making her ideas systematic are definitely a sticking point. In so much
as she suggests anything, the more prominent idea to me was the influential
neighborhood association. That wasn't so much a policy as a recommendation to
have a standing public opinion "army", if you will.

I'm not sure that there is a way to put a system in place to save us from
ourselves if we fail to be well informed, but the book definitely points out a
lot of ways you can notice things going wrong. Jacobs also does a great job of
explaining the mechanism of the many traps that we plan ourselves into.

My favorite non-profit, Strong Towns, also frequently mentions how difficult
it is to give a formulaic solution to these problems. Furthermore, as the
founder likes to put it, what we're often asking for are "ways other people
can change what they do so I don't have to change what I'm doing." Until I can
figure out a better way to make change, I'm at least determined to be informed
and well-versed enough in the lingo so that urban planners can't make their
dumb ideas look good in conversation with me just by dressing the ideas up in
jargon.

------
Shalhoub
In this article, the opening paragraph actually tells us why Jane Jacobs is
culturally relevant. without all the irrelevant digressions. I mean what the
heck does her boss being unable to attend a conference got to do with urban
architectural planning.

[https://www.pps.org/reference/jjacobs-2/](https://www.pps.org/reference/jjacobs-2/)

~~~
tbihl
It's long form writing, in this case taking the form of a narrative. It gives
texture and context, which some people certainly appreciate. Having said that,
it's also nice to have a summary version like the one you've offered, though I
tend to go straight to Wikipedia if that's the mood I'm in.

~~~
Shalhoub
I do appreciate long form writing, but not when it's done badly, as in all the
salient details are scattered about the page. That article would be good as
part of a biography. Having never heard of Jane Jacob, I too had to consult
wikipedia. They should do what Time Magazine does and have a separate info-box
with a brief synopsis of the salient details.

~~~
mturmon
"They should do what Time Magazine does..."

Sorry, but you have really made a blunder here. The magazine you're critiquing
is the foremost American journal of left political thought. It has been
publishing weekly since the Civil War. Its editors, writers, and readers
expect to read difficult, complex pieces there. It wants nothing to do with
_Time_ , which, being an upstart Luce rag, is the opposite of it in so many
ways.

Anyway. Doubtless, Jacobs excites some contradictory impulses in the _Nation_
readership. As a small article in another leftist journal
([http://inthesetimes.com/article/2743/jane_jacobs_reconsidere...](http://inthesetimes.com/article/2743/jane_jacobs_reconsidered))
put it:

"Jacobs’ iconoclastic ideas raised questions about her political beliefs. Her
opposition to the Vietnam War and her role in organizing movements for urban
social justice seem to mark her as a woman of the left. And yet, conservatives
also embraced Jacobs’ wars with City Hall, joining her on the barricades to
stop federal urban renewal policy. They found comfort in her cantankerous
individualism and her attack on planners and government bureaucracy. Her
economic ideas–which locate the roots of productivity in ingenuity rather than
class struggle–attract libertarians."

This is the reason a short article on Jacobs in this magazine, especially,
makes no sense.

~~~
ghaff
That's a pretty good summary based on what I know of Jacobs. She has a lot of
fans in the circles of city living advocates who are particularly opposed to
car-centric cultures. On the other hand, I suspect that based on her record in
NYC she'd be equally critical of those who would like nothing better than for
the city (e.g. SF) to just bulldoze blocks of low rises and build, build,
build.

~~~
snrplfth
That's the trouble with a lot of people who think of themselves as Jacobs
fans. They like the sorts of outcomes that she liked, but then they ignore
almost the whole of her analysis and basically come up with ideas for Master-
Planning the Jane Jacobs City.

~~~
ghaff
That's a good way to put it. I think it's also the case that Jane Jacobs
wanted outcomes for cities that make them attractive and vibrant living places
in the eyes of many. However, she was far less interested in then making, say,
NYC easy and affordable for more people to live in--especially if doing so ran
counter to goal #1.

