Cities can be compared to ecosystems or the human body—they are comprised of buildings, streets, parks, and governments that all have their distinct role in creating neighborhoods which are like the vital habitats or organs in an entire system. These parts respond to human changes, and it is necessary for us to understand them in order to know how to practically structure them. This is how Jane Jacobs, an urban renewal critic and the author of The Death and the Life of Great American Cities, sees them.
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| Urban Fabric: The Form of Cities (from YUrbanism blog) |
When human habits and preferences change, through gentrification, abandonment, and a new demographic, the structures within a neighborhood must adjust as well. Temporarily, a neighborhood may enter a vortex of disrepair, mundaneness, crime, etc. because of poor decisions made on part of outside planners or city governments. Jacobs believes that any city which has been planned or whose natural development has been manipulated enters the dark side of its life cycle. During this “mid-life crisis,” the city lacks true neighborhood spirit, must deal with crime (which is often not really there), and undergoes urban decay. She states that “whenever and wherever societies have flourished and prospered rather than stagnated and decayed, creative and workable cities have been at the core of the phenomenon. Decaying cities, declining economies, and mounting social troubles travel together. The combination is not coincidental” (Jacobs). Such neighborhoods which have extremely low prices as a result of this decay, can rejuvenate themselves again, attracting young people like students who need low rent. As they begin moving into the neighborhood, it becomes hip again. However, suburbs do not appear to be springing back like city neighborhoods.
What American sprawling cities are dealing with is a natural process for unnatural cities, which I like to call metropolis sickness, but the creators of sprawl cities are at fault. While Jacobs mainly refers to cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago suffering from metropolis sickness, her diagnosis can also be used to point at new cities like Miami, Phoenix, and Houston—all of which seem like they’ve reached a dead end.
Picture endless houses, roads, big box stores, strip malls, and parking lots spreading to the horizon and empty properties which already have a large Lennar Corporations housing project sign to tell us 300,000 more homes are yet to be built. Such areas have no sense of place, as James Howard Kunstler, another urban critic, would say. He’s tried to dissect suburbia, but there’s nothing really to dissect. Such suburbs are an experiment gone wrong and a hindrance to our nation’s development. We try to fix the streets affected by urban blight with some green shrubs, but there are specific aspects of architecture which unify the buildings with the streets for the people. It is necessary that we understand the fundamentals of a healthy city instead of hastily patching up awkward corners with decorations.
1. Human Scale > Car Scale
Jacobs sees human scale as a necessity for cities to do well. Great cities are comprised of distinct neighborhoods and each of these neighborhoods has its pattern of motion. She points to neighborhoods like North End and the Lower East Side and sees the urban blight as a result of obstacles made for humans living in the area. Things are simply placed somewhere, and city commissioners expect people to live there. Everything is controlled from outside sources, not from the neighborhoods within. Living in New York City at the time, Jacobs found the 1950s urban trend of commissioners controlling and maintaining her neighborhood from the other side of the city without any knowledge of her neighborhood’s implications ridiculous. Community planning must be a bottom-up process, in which local expertise is used first, and then if still needed, outside recommendations. Still today, it is typical for planners and commissioners to design and disrupt neighborhoods without the slightest idea of their innate motions. Planners for example, will feel the neighborhood is missing a park, so they will place a park out of the way of the busiest streets. Later, this park will be abandoned, only to attract gang activity and contribute to the already existing turf system. The park, like a housing project, could become like a cancer cell to a neighborhood (as it’s been suggested to look at cities as we look at the body.)
2. High Density = Healthy Economy
Other times, city planners hope to avoid high density because they have seen it cause problems especially since the turn of the century with urban overcrowding. Overcrowding was one of the impetuses for the post-war suburban flight. Now, planners feel they must regulate the density, keeping it low if possible. However, as we see in American suburbs, low density increases the chances of isolation and disconnection in a neighborhood. High density, Jacobs argues, is what enables a city to become lively. That does not mean we must stack up residents in skyscrapers, but rather in six- floor Parisian-style houses. It also doesn’t mean creating housing projects as a form of affordable housing to attract similar, low-class families. Along with this high density, residents should not feel trapped in their neighborhoods. Sometimes this can result from busy streets and long streets in which people must follow the same walking patterns. Low density in a neighborhood also often slows its economic development and the curiosity of its citizens to even explore where they live. Spreading things apart makes people disconnected and reduces job creation. Ryan Avent, a New York Times op-ed columnist argues that density creates the competition of businesses because there are more concepts for places that want to offer the same service. Of course, there must be talent alongside density, and a good variety of products or services offered. Depending on the number of people in a location, a business should or should not specialize and experiment. In large cities, specialization works better for a business than in a smaller city or town because of the competition. Nevertheless, density encourages the economic dynamics in a city and provides Americans with more opportunities.
3. Diversity is Necessary
Planners of newer American cities have also made the mistake of trying to standardize building as much as possible so that neighborhoods can no longer even be identified as neighborhoods. Jacobs claims that the fifties marked the beginning of “The Great Blight of Dullness,” which began to take over her concrete jungle in form of housing projects, planned communities, and bland architecture. This lack of diversity which still exists today spans from building types to the citizens living in the area. Today, many cities have the same housing types in their neighborhood, keeping high-income and low-income and of course those in between separate. In regards to the age of a building, Jacobs would respond that “old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.” Also, if there is a uniformity in housing types, an influx of wealthier people can push the poor out. Jacobs says that neighborhoods with this uniformity, like the North End in Boston, earn themselves a bad name as low-income, crime-ridden areas. They came to this point because planners arranged the neighborhood to attract the same kind of people. However, civic centers act as a vitamin for the neighborhood, keeping it healthy and encouraging its residents to interact. Neighborhoods that have one type of housing, not just according to price but purpose, suffer from the Great Blight. If a neighborhood only has houses, no one will be there during work hours so the neighborhood becomes unproductive. Likewise, a commercial area with only banks and offices similarly attracts people only during the day. Then, planners come in and place a park in one of these commercial neighborhoods, but the park is only full during lunch break, and then empty the rest of the day. Planning without taking the needs of diversity into account makes buildings, parks, and other urban projects inefficient and useless. They contribute to metropolis sickness.
Picture endless houses, roads, big box stores, strip malls, and parking lots spreading to the horizon and empty properties which already have a large Lennar Corporations housing project sign to tell us 300,000 more homes are yet to be built. Such areas have no sense of place, as James Howard Kunstler, another urban critic, would say. He’s tried to dissect suburbia, but there’s nothing really to dissect. Such suburbs are an experiment gone wrong and a hindrance to our nation’s development. We try to fix the streets affected by urban blight with some green shrubs, but there are specific aspects of architecture which unify the buildings with the streets for the people. It is necessary that we understand the fundamentals of a healthy city instead of hastily patching up awkward corners with decorations.
1. Human Scale > Car Scale
Jacobs sees human scale as a necessity for cities to do well. Great cities are comprised of distinct neighborhoods and each of these neighborhoods has its pattern of motion. She points to neighborhoods like North End and the Lower East Side and sees the urban blight as a result of obstacles made for humans living in the area. Things are simply placed somewhere, and city commissioners expect people to live there. Everything is controlled from outside sources, not from the neighborhoods within. Living in New York City at the time, Jacobs found the 1950s urban trend of commissioners controlling and maintaining her neighborhood from the other side of the city without any knowledge of her neighborhood’s implications ridiculous. Community planning must be a bottom-up process, in which local expertise is used first, and then if still needed, outside recommendations. Still today, it is typical for planners and commissioners to design and disrupt neighborhoods without the slightest idea of their innate motions. Planners for example, will feel the neighborhood is missing a park, so they will place a park out of the way of the busiest streets. Later, this park will be abandoned, only to attract gang activity and contribute to the already existing turf system. The park, like a housing project, could become like a cancer cell to a neighborhood (as it’s been suggested to look at cities as we look at the body.)
2. High Density = Healthy Economy
Other times, city planners hope to avoid high density because they have seen it cause problems especially since the turn of the century with urban overcrowding. Overcrowding was one of the impetuses for the post-war suburban flight. Now, planners feel they must regulate the density, keeping it low if possible. However, as we see in American suburbs, low density increases the chances of isolation and disconnection in a neighborhood. High density, Jacobs argues, is what enables a city to become lively. That does not mean we must stack up residents in skyscrapers, but rather in six- floor Parisian-style houses. It also doesn’t mean creating housing projects as a form of affordable housing to attract similar, low-class families. Along with this high density, residents should not feel trapped in their neighborhoods. Sometimes this can result from busy streets and long streets in which people must follow the same walking patterns. Low density in a neighborhood also often slows its economic development and the curiosity of its citizens to even explore where they live. Spreading things apart makes people disconnected and reduces job creation. Ryan Avent, a New York Times op-ed columnist argues that density creates the competition of businesses because there are more concepts for places that want to offer the same service. Of course, there must be talent alongside density, and a good variety of products or services offered. Depending on the number of people in a location, a business should or should not specialize and experiment. In large cities, specialization works better for a business than in a smaller city or town because of the competition. Nevertheless, density encourages the economic dynamics in a city and provides Americans with more opportunities.
3. Diversity is Necessary
Planners of newer American cities have also made the mistake of trying to standardize building as much as possible so that neighborhoods can no longer even be identified as neighborhoods. Jacobs claims that the fifties marked the beginning of “The Great Blight of Dullness,” which began to take over her concrete jungle in form of housing projects, planned communities, and bland architecture. This lack of diversity which still exists today spans from building types to the citizens living in the area. Today, many cities have the same housing types in their neighborhood, keeping high-income and low-income and of course those in between separate. In regards to the age of a building, Jacobs would respond that “old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.” Also, if there is a uniformity in housing types, an influx of wealthier people can push the poor out. Jacobs says that neighborhoods with this uniformity, like the North End in Boston, earn themselves a bad name as low-income, crime-ridden areas. They came to this point because planners arranged the neighborhood to attract the same kind of people. However, civic centers act as a vitamin for the neighborhood, keeping it healthy and encouraging its residents to interact. Neighborhoods that have one type of housing, not just according to price but purpose, suffer from the Great Blight. If a neighborhood only has houses, no one will be there during work hours so the neighborhood becomes unproductive. Likewise, a commercial area with only banks and offices similarly attracts people only during the day. Then, planners come in and place a park in one of these commercial neighborhoods, but the park is only full during lunch break, and then empty the rest of the day. Planning without taking the needs of diversity into account makes buildings, parks, and other urban projects inefficient and useless. They contribute to metropolis sickness.
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