ARCH 6151

Shriram Lele Theories of Urban Design Tuesday,

13thSept 2016<o:p></o:p>

QUESTIONS:<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]-->1. <!--[endif]-->What is more important while planning/ making changes to a city?
Personal experience of the city or the lessons learned from the formal planning education? What has more
impact on today’s planning profession?<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]-->2. <!--[endif]-->Considering current factors, like population growth, migrations due to
jobs which ultimately results into further complex problems like affordable housing, traffic congestion and
livability of a city how does author’s critics help us get back on the right track? Is it practically possible to
follow her views in today’s cities?<o:p></o:p>

SUMMARY<o:p></o:p>

The scope of this week’s readings covered an overview of a very famous and influential book in
the field of planning, ‘The Life and Death of Great American Cities’ by Jane Jacobs. The
introduction itself starts with the very fact that money is not an answer to all of our problems, in
fact often, it is the root of problems when it comes to planning any city. Jacobs strongly argues
that we need to understand how cities work in real life through our personal observations and
using those we should come with our ideas/ thoughts of re planning/ designing of a city. She also
explains her argument that over the years, all the efforts in the city planning profession have
actually worsened the condition of cities in most of the examples creating worse low income
projects than the original slums, dull middle class housing and a “cultural sphere” that does not
allow book stores in the zone. She plainly calls it “sacking of cities”. I completely agree with her
argument that ‘subtraction of culture and intimacy from a city’s casual life through destruction of
locally existing communities and small businesses, which actually reflect the originality of a city
is certainly not city planning’. She compares the planning practices happening over the years
with ‘lab experiments’ which totally rely on lessons of orthodox planning principles that we
planners are learning through formal education, turning a blind eye towards actual experiences of
a city and fantasizing someone’s ‘dream city’ which won’t be applicable to any remodeling
process of any city. She proves this with some strong examples of her own from cities like North
End, Boston where the actual city experience was very friendly and vibrant but the planners
along with bankers which are crucial to any planning process just could not see it as they were
blinded by the influence of literature over the years full of orthodox ideas of planning which
disabled them to experience and sense the city’s vital strengths which were already there! She
bluntly states that ‘years of learning has resulted into a foundation of nonsense in planning
profession’. Further she explains about how aesthetics and functionality of a city go hand in hand
and designing a city’s look without considering functions within is completely useless. She also
encourages the capability of common people like tenants and others to notice important things in
a city just through observations, without any ‘education/ lessons’ of city planning. She argues
that if these people can figure out what is wrong, then why the planners can’t do it. Further she
criticizes handful of people in planning profession starting from Ebenezer Howard’s ‘Garden
City’, the unnecessary use of monuments in ‘City Beautiful Movement’ to Corbusier’s Modern
city and she does it focusing on different elements of city like streets, use of sidewalks and
diversity in socio-economic sphere, ultimately synthesizing the vitals for a city’s better
performance. The book explains author’s views on the above topics in four parts starting from
streets, sidewalks and parks where she focuses on safety and active interaction through visual
connectivity at these places which also helps minimizing racial segregation. Then she also talks
about parks and its successful functioning which depends on the amount of activity of people
that takes place there and not just a fancy design to decorate the city. Further she talks about
hierarchy of neighborhoods, and if followed, how it facilitates the process of identifying and
approaching issues from street level through district level to the city level.<o:p></o:p>

Further, she explains the importance of diversity in a city in terms of socio- economic sphere and
how it helps a city to remain vibrant. As I mentioned before, she strongly advocates the fact that
diversity within people and businesses goes hand in hand with the mutual support that is required
for the nourishment of a city’s lively atmosphere. While doing so, she explains these facts with
reference to variety of elements like walkability and abandoned spaces in a city and how it
creates positive/ negative areas in certain spots. Further, in the remaining book she talks about
effective use of available funds and its relation to the growing population. She also self
contradicts her thoughts about diversity stating that it can be a cause of downfall for a city. [This
was confusing to me]. She also discusses slums and criticizes renewal projects dedicated to
eradicate slums, and suggests gradual changes to these type of settlements instead of a rapid
transformation as it’s often been seen turn into a failure, for people as well as the city. Next, she
discusses the vital strategies that can be/ should be used to make cities better like achieving
balance between effective transportation methods that would minimize congestion and careful
land use regulations allowing a vibrant and active city life for all its residents.<o:p></o:p>

Jacobs strongly puts forward her thoughts about urban renewal and its disadvantages, mainly
through the examples like Greenwich Village, NY which was a very vibrant and lively small
town on the verge of losing its attributes, just like North End, Boston. Jacobs, being the resident
of Greenwich Village, strongly opposed any ideas of urban renewal with help of actively
engaged community as she knew it would destroy the well-functioning structure of the town. The
basic lessons learned from this are definitely relevant to today’s contemporary cities and their
planning as it teaches us a lot about relative scale, suitability of elements in a city and of course
the actual experience which depends upon existing communities and lifestyles that one must
respect while re planning/ designing. A lot has changed in today’s NY City if we compare it with
Jacobs’s original ideas as she advocated for scale suitability to humans and communities,
walkability, reducing traffic congestion through effective land use, liveliness and active
interactions between people on streets and concentrating mixed use instead of suburbanization
and sprawl into surroundings of a city segregating residential areas, work areas and ultimately
the people. Today, according to me, we see a lot of things in NY City which do not reflect these
ideas. Central park is a great idea, but how much of it is actively used by people? , the scale and
weird proximity of skyscrapers hardly relates to human vision, creating alleys which are places
for dumpsters and crimes, congestion in terms of traffic is seen everywhere, which leaves people
with no other option than to walk, which is good in a way but bad in many other ways. We can
relate this all to exponential population growth/ migration of people over the years which is
beyond capacity for actual NY City, in all aspects like housing, transportation and ‘human
connection’ thus, resulting into today’s NYC.<o:p></o:p>
 Summarizing all of her ideas, that orthodox planning principles are the basis of today’s practices
and they harm us because we take them for granted and wish that they would work at all the
places the same way. She simply states that ‘All that glitters is not gold’ and my addition to it
would be ‘if we scratch the surface even a little bit/ actually experience a city ourselves, then we
can see the reality’. The book becomes a powerful means of attack on the planning profession
through its honest criticism supported by number of strong examples and author’s personal
experiences.<o:p></o:p>

BULLETS:<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Money is not the solution for everything, especially in city
planning<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Planning/ designing does not mean subtraction of culture, eradication of
existing businesses and communities<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Government incentives leading to monotonous cities<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Aesthetics and functionality go hand in hand in planning

process<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Following orthodox planning principles vs actually experiencing life in a

city<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Impact of literature on planners and planning process<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Years of learning = foundation of nonsense<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Streets, sidewalks- safety, visual connectivity is important <o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Parks- active use is important<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Neighborhoods- hierarchy and categorization into streets, districts and
cities to approach planning issues<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Diversity- in communities, in local businesses, in land use<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Population growth and its impacts on city structure<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Human scale in relation to city’s design/ planning<o:p></o:p>

<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Achieving balance between effective land use and transportation
planning<o:p></o:p>