I definitely agree with Jane Jacobs’ belief in the self-policing nature of a city, she essentially had faith in the safety of a crowded street of strangers. When walking late at night vulnerable in the darkness it is a relief to be in the company of a crowd of strangers. What turns me off of Jane Jacobs is her utter disdain for urban planners, more specifically Ebenezer Howard. Her ideas are more the product of common sense and empirical observation, not of any particular urban theorist brilliance.
Jane Jacobs’ attacks on Ebenezer Howard are based on misguided opinions of him and a general dislike for city planners. In her book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs claims that Howard “hated the city.” I completely disagree with that sentiment. Howard did not hate the city, he simply acknowledged the squalor that eroded London, squalor resulting from the dense urban slums. He did not hate the city he sought to heal it. He sought to save it from the cancerous slums that were destroying it from the inside out.
Jane Jacobs also chastised Howard for his ignorance regarding the self-policing that she obsessed about. But her judgements of Howard’s city planning priorities are based on nothing more than her own urban experiences, she had no legitimate education or experience in the field of urban planning. Had she experienced 19th century London perhaps she would have looked more kindly at Howard’s Garden City urban scheme.
Jane Jacobs’ greatest gift regarding urban theory was her distinct ability to chronicle seemingly mundane urban happenings and make them significant to her readers. She could articulate herself very well. I just wish she could have put herself in the shoes of Howard, then she could have understand his motivations.
I am a fan of Jane Jacobs in the sense that I appreciate her ideas on ‘the safety of strangers’ and the development of a community atmosphere on a bustling traditional street.
However, I totally agree with you in that she is rather harsh on other urban planners, without taking time to put herself in their shoes or truly examine their ideas in the context (place and time) in which they were theorizing. Howard is a good example – as you pointed out, while Jacob’s ideas may be great for 19th century New York, they may not have worked in 18th century London, and Howard’s ideas may have been much more suitable in that particular context. I think she may have been more effective had she at least accepted Howard’s ideas as a respectable urban planning alternative. She didn’t have to agree with him, and is completely free to analyze and criticize his theories, but to completely write him off as a ‘city-hater’ is both hasty and unwise.
Did Jane Jacobs ever read Oliver Twist? Self-policing only goes so far when you’re up against the Artful Dodger. I really like this post and ddel’s comment, and agree with a lot of your take on Jacobs, especially her critique on Howard. I would also add that she criticized Howard’s Garden City for being a place for people who had no interest in making plans of their own. But a person has the right attitude, she could do a lot more of her own planning in a Garden City than in the inner city of Boston or New York. You would have to a be a multi-millionaire to buy land and design any building of your own in those places. The Garden City, in theory, would let you start a building co-op and design your own house. This is, of course, part of the great appeal of some (but of course not all!) suburban areas; a middle class person can buy a lot and build a home that, within fairly broad limits, looks how they want it to look.
I also agree with you that Jacobs was a great storyteller and writer. But she was perhaps a bit narrow (although she’s honest on this point, and admits to liking the city more than town). Making the city safe for cars? Well going on sprawling drives through the sprawl can actually be pretty fun. And I know people who live out the JJ dream of community and sociability in places like Port Moody and Pitt Meadows, which are utterly devoid of JJ street life. But they are filled with parks and rec centres and community initiatives, and yes! still filled with people. If a person takes advantage of this, their life can be just as rich and full of casual contacts and relationships as JJ’s was (and they also get to go for epic postmidnight drives over Pitt Meadows’ incredible bridges and farmlands, and are just a quick step away from transcendental rainforests…)
I just realized that my praise of Vancouver’s suburbs totally contradicts my other comment on the Blatchworth post which criticizes Vancouver’s suburbs. Oh well, seeing both sides of every issue; typically Canadian approach right?
I fully agree with your post on Jane Jacobs! I too appreciate her views of ‘having eyes on the street’ and I always feel much safer walking down a street lined with restaurants and shops late at night than I do walking down a poorly lit side street. But like you said, this is common sense. I also think that despite her views, not all streets should be line with shops and stores, and there is a place for the residential street in our cities. After all, maybe I don’t want to live right beside a busy pub or neighbour restaurant. Something to consider is that while Jacobs clearly didn’t appreciate Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City, she was able to bring the concerns of planning to a larger audience. I would assume that more people could identify with Jane Jacobs because she is, as mentioned above, a storyteller (as opposed to some of the dry, technical texts of architects and urban planners). So while I don’t necessarily agree with all her views, the fact that she maybe was able to inspire others to take an interest in the state of our cities is perhaps a greater gift.