In „The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, Jane Jacobs highlights “diversity’ in urban planning.

According to her, said diversity is what makes a city thrive, and she outlines four key factors to
achieve it.
First, a significant number of enterprises in every district for people to use in common. Said facilities
should differ in purpose, be it recreational, economic, cultural or residential. Next, the author
introduces the importance of short blocks, which make navigating the city and reaching different
locations easier. Furthermore, buildings and places are to vary in age, as occasional renovations and
refurbishments for long-standing edifices cost less than continuous construction. Finally, a sufficiently
dense enough population.
To live and prosper, any city should contain all four factors. That was not always, the case, however,
in 1950’s America. For example, New York’s Lower Manhattan suffered from a lack of any facilities
providing leisure for the citizens, turning into a drab, uniform entity. Similar issues plagued Bronx. In
Washington, D.C., the cluttering of governmental buildings together and separating them from the
rest alienated the officials from the people. But there were some positive cases, too. New York’s
Greenwich Village and East Side made use of the short blocks principle, while a district in Stuyvesant
Town, New York utilized the strategy of “mingling” structures of different age.
Curious is the case of public institutions. Their role and power should imply obvious diversity
generation, yet the ability is unequal amongst them. Again, the four rules come into play. Institutions
located on short blocks are far easier to be reached, and if they are of older age, their maintenance is
cheaper. There has to be a lot of people living near them, and they’re of course to be surrounded by
enterprises of varying purpose.