Interesting Look at Jane Jacobs and the Path of Planning

[johnny_simpatico]

An article in the Financial Times discusses the lessons learned from Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a06ecf44-954a-11e2-a151-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2OlPkU33h

It rehashes some of the important themes from Jacobs's work, such as:

Jacobs explained, through meticulous observation, how the life of cities is the product of multiple, unplanned social interactions. The density of urban living, far from being an evil, is the source of its vitality. Short streets divided into many blocks lead residents and visitors to take a multiplicity of routes and acquire a variety of experiences. Jacobs explained why the planned cities of the world such as Canberra, Brasília, Chandigarh and Letchworth Garden City are so boring. And her readers were told how the expressways Moses had built had damaged the life of the outer boroughs of New York.

The article says Jacobs's work helped to defeat Robert Moses's plans for an expressway which would have destroyed lower NYC the way the Cross-Bronx Expwy. destroyed that borough. 

Got me thinking how that the "paradigm shift" up there effectively made it down to the Bold New City of the South, where gargantuan highway interchanges continue to destroy the urban fabric to this day.  Of course, a tranportation system centered on high-speed automobile traffic does nothing to maximize the human interactions that make cities livable and appealing.