NY Times review of Death and Life of Great American Cities--From 1961

In the last week, I've been involved in some spirited discussions of some stuff in the Columbia Heights and H Street neighborhoods (not to mention historic designation in Brookland, for which I am getting excoriated by someone appears to be far beyond reason). The former has been discussed in the blog, the "taking" of public space by Giant Supermarkets-Horning Development in the Tivoli Square, which I am happy to say, I received an email from a DC government official of whom I have the greatest respect, who says that this is under control and a 22 foot wide sidewalk will result.

The other has been an email thread that I initiated, that I haven't included in the blog, about the idea of changing the one way pair of streets: G Street NE going west, and I Street NE going east; as well as 7th Street NE one way going south from H Street to Massachusetts Avenue, in the context of the just now launching Capitol Hill Transportation Study.

I raised this because in my "Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design" perspective, I believe that these street traffic patterns, which experience so little traffic as to be laughable, which of course seems to not be the perspective of residents, contribute greatly to "border vacuums" that support disorder, in particular these streets have been drug sales corridors for decades. Increasing positive activity, adding more activity, can provide more eyes on the street and bring critical mass to "the forces of good."

Anyway, the New York Times online archive has decades of book reviews including this one:

November 5, 1961
Neighbors Are Needed
By LLOYD RODWIN
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by JANE JACOBS

One of the most memorable carticatures by Max Beerbohm shows George Bernard Shaw's view of the world: it pictures the celebrated dramatist-- his expression a cross between a scowl and an impish grin-- standing gracefully on his head. In some cases, such views are rewarding; in others, unforgettable. In any event, one sees things somewhat differently, especially if the reporting is done with an irreverent eye, a waspish tongue and a "no holds barred" attitude to customary villains, heroes, strategy and tactics. By dint of these talents, Jane Jacobs achieves a brashly impressive tour de force in her reinterpretation of the problems and needs of the contemporary metropolis.

To the innocent onlooker, the drive for more comprehensive planning regions, low density suburbs, redevelopment of central areas, more parks, open space and highways, public housing, modern neighborhood design with superblocks facing interior lawns to reduce traffic hazards and achieve economies of scale-- all these and more-- suggest that we may yet make our cities more gracious and efficient. Contemplation of these prospects, however only fills Jane Jacobs (an editor of Architectural Forum) with revulsion.

Big cities she says, are full of strangers. Citizens and strangers alike must enjoy security on city streets. This security, she insists, will never come just from a vigilant police force. It requires an intricate social system, which automatically achieves this effect. You get it from "public actors," from habitual street watchers, such as storekeepers, doormen and interested neighbors, and from more or less constant use at different hours, which is possible only if there is a rich mixture of activities in buildings of varying age and character. (Emphasis added.)

Mrs. Jacobs' view is that people like to live, not just be, in such lively neighborhoods. Youngsters and elders alike need such surroundings. But she scoffs at our understanding of these requirements; for we continue to put up civic centers, low density residential areas and housing "projects" segregated by income. All these developments, she complains, combine to produce boring homogeneous cores which generate traffic for limited periods and then lapse afterward into dead or dangerous districts.

Worse still, the new buildings with high rents squeeze out the marginal activities, the small business man just getting a start, the colorful shop with strange and exotic waves, the little restaurants and bars, almost everything deviant, bohemian, intellectual or bizarre-- in other words, all that the author believes lends spice, charm and vigor to an area.

To brighten neighborhoods, "unslum" slums and reweave housing projects into the fabric of the city, Mrs. Jacobs proposes that we do most of the things urban experts tell us not to do: attract mixed activities which will generate active cross-use of land; cut the length of blocks; mingle buildings of varying size, type and condition; and encourage dense concentrations of people. Some of the most intriguing parts of this work involve the ingenuity with which she applies her ideas for enlivening districts such as Wall Street or Central Park after dark Greenwich Village where the author lives as her model par excellence. A few other favorite examples include the North End of Boston, Georgetown in Washington, Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, the "Back of the Yards" in Chicago, and Telegraph Hill in San Francisco.

Reading this volume, one almost gets the impression of a golden age before the Garden City and the High Rise enthusiasts appeared on the scene. For Mrs. Jacobs mainly blames their ideas, or bastardized versions of them for what is wrong with our cities. The irony is that most of the things she objects to are the effects of rising income and economies on parents hungry for more space for themselves and the kids. The reformers shared, perhaps even anticipated, this hunger: so that in effect, what the author really resents is their failure to buck the trend or to provide more sophisticated living styles.

Whether Jane Jacobs is right or wrong, the first big efforts to do something about our cities are not conspicuously successful; and the reformers are already worrying about the reactions to the increasingly visible inadequacies. Her book is significant precisely for this reason. It fuses ineffectual elements of discontent into a program that can pack quite a wallop. It won't matter that like the reformers she criticizes, she has little sympathy for persons who want to live differently from the way she thinks they ought to live; nor will it matter that some of her own proposals (on the planning process, for example) come straight from the planners she criticizes; and that some of her cherished reforms, however tentatively advanced, are as romantic and "utopian" as those she rejects. The same holds for transparent gaps and blind spots, such as her blasé misunderstandings of theory and her amiable preference for evidence congenial to her thesis. In short, except to the miscellaneous victims and the academic purists, it won't matter that what this author has to say isn't always fair or right or "scientific." Few significant works ever are.

Jane Jacobs' book should help to swing reformist zeal in favor of urbanity and the big city. If so, it might well become the most influential work on cities since Lewis Mumford's classic, "The Culture of Cities." It has somewhat comparable virtues and defects. Not quite as long or comprehensive, it is wittier, more optimistic, less scholarly and even more pontifical. The style is crisp, pungent and engaging; and like its illustrious predecessor, the book is crammed with arresting insights as well as with loose, sprightly generalizations.

A great book, like a great man, "is a strategic point in the campaign of history, and part of its greatness consists in being there." For all its weaknesses, Jane Jacobs has written such a book. Readers will vehemently agree and disagree with the views; but few of them will go through the volume without looking at their streets and neighborhoods a little differently, a little more sensitively. After all, it is the widespread lack of such sensitivity, especially among those who matter, which is perhaps what is most wrong with our cities today.