New York magazine offers a long reflection on the shifting lessons offered by Jane Jacobs after a year of new books and a re-emergence into the public eye.
According to Justin Davidson, "the paladin of the little people still looms large on the cityscape." Davidson is referring to Jane Jacobs, of course, whose name won't be unfamiliar to any Planetizen reader. Some of the new entries into the Jane Jacobs bibliography, however, might be news. "Robert Kanigel’s new biography, Eyes on the Street (Knopf), and a new collection of her essays, Vital Little Plans (Random House), edited by Samuel Zipp and Nathan Storring, have caused her prestige to spike," explains Davidson.
In a thorough examination of Jacobs's legacy, and its effects for cities, Davidson starts with the traditional narrative of civic empowerment and neighborhood-level advocacy:
Most of us now see the city the way she did, noting incremental changes that alter the topography of our lives: the hardware store that closes, the sandwich shop that opens, the tenement that makes way for a tower. Bike activists, community gardeners, and community organizers put her lessons into practice every day. So do the bureaucrats and planners she abhorred. Her influence is ubiquitous; her ideas have percolated from the radical to the self-evident.
In addition to the local passion she inspired, Jacobs also had an effect on the public opinion with regard to the professional practice of planning. "To her, planning was essentially corrupt, an exercise of thickheaded power by self-important men who blundered expensively into disaster," writes Davidson. "She was not wrong."
Bit now, says Davidson, cities have changed so much and so quickly, that it's time to re-evaluate what Jane would do, and whether, in a new of world of homogenized, corporate affluence and reactionary, NIMBY obstruction, whether "the best way to achieve a Jacobean vision is with un-Jacobean means." That is, argues, Davidson, that now more planning is needed.
After describing Janette Sadik-Khan's book Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution as "superb" and citing it as an example of the new playbook for planners and urban quality of life, Davidson also leaves the reader with another controversial statement about where Jacobs might feel most at home in 2016.
Jacobs loved cities at a time when that was an unfashionable emotion. Today, a money-fueled urban renaissance bypasses unpromising urban centers and rolls into expensive ones, often invoking her name. But while different camps squabble over her legacy in dense downtowns, a person of her contrarian disposition might find delight in suburbs these days for precisely the same reasons she loved Hudson Street: because big plans don’t take get much traction there, and because that’s where new mixtures of people are fashioning the reality they choose. With sidewalks or without.
FULL STORY: To Honor Jane Jacobs’s Vision, We Need More Planning, Not Less
Depopulation Patterns Get Weird
A recent ranking of “declining” cities heavily features some of the most expensive cities in the country — including New York City and a half-dozen in the San Francisco Bay Area.
California Exodus: Population Drops Below 39 Million
Never mind the 40 million that demographers predicted the Golden State would reach by 2018. The state's population dipped below 39 million to 38.965 million last July, according to Census data released in March, the lowest since 2015.
Chicago to Turn High-Rise Offices into Housing
Four commercial buildings in the Chicago Loop have been approved for redevelopment into housing in a bid to revitalize the city’s downtown post-pandemic.
How California Transit Agencies are Addressing Rider Harassment
Safety and harassment are commonly cited reasons passengers, particularly women and girls, avoid public transit.
Significant Investments Needed to Protect LA County Residents From Climate Hazards
A new study estimates that LA County must invest billions of dollars before 2040 to protect residents from extreme heat, increasing precipitation, worsening wildfires, rising sea levels, and climate-induced public health threats.
Federal Rule Raises Cost for Oil and Gas Extraction on Public Lands
An update to federal regulations raises minimum bonding to limit orphaned wells and ensure cleanup costs are covered — but it still may not be enough to mitigate the damages caused by oil and gas drilling.
City of Costa Mesa
Licking County
Barrett Planning Group LLC
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Universal City TX
ULI Northwest Arkansas
City of Laramie, Wyoming
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.