THE DEATH AND LIFE OF

GREAT AMERICAN CITIES

JANE JACOB

Anupama, Samia, Bhargavi, Dhaarini, Fathima, Malavika, kanmani,Vikas

 INTRODUCTION
• The book is an attempt to criticize the various modern city planning
methods. The author says that these new planning techniques crowd the cities
with unwanted buildings. These principles which should be taken into
account to make a city successful, are the very reasons for the downfall
of cities.
• These city rebuilding and planning techniques are a cause of destruction and
social and economic downfall- homes and businesses are snatched away,
money looted from the people in the form of tax just to build a new city.
• Architects and planners have not taken pains to understand what works
for a city and its people, instead, they are inspired by notions that state
what ought to be good for a city n what ought to work for its people.
• Jane Jacobs quotes an example of the North End district in
Boston. In all terms, it was a good place and social statistics
confirmed it, but all the principles about what is good for a city and
its people left North End in the bad books.
• City planning techniques today, are blindly inspired form theories-
they do not meet the probing needs of the world, and there are no
new invention or major ideas in the field for ages.
• On the contrary, the author also quotes examples of some cities
which are very efficient in terms of function, but when the social and
cultural success is taken into consideration, these fail.
For example the Garden City by Ebenezer
Howard which was considered as a
solution to city problems , and
LeCorbusiers Radiant City, a social
utopia in itself, a modification of the
Garden City.
Chapter 2- The Uses of Sidewalks:
Safety
• Streets and sidewalks not only function for vehicles and
people to walk on, but , unconsciously they also play a very
important role in the safety of its pedestrians. Streets and
sidewalks are an important part of a city.
• People start considering a city dangerous when they unsafe on
the streets. Thus people seldom use it thus making it more
unsafe. These streets go on to become centres for crime. This
does not occur only in the slums but in other areas that are
considered upper class areas. Some slum neighborhoods
have some of the safest streets.
• There is someone or the other always looking over
the streets, or the streets are crowded almost
throughout the day, hence providing sort of a
constant security.

• The author thus states that peace on the streets and

sidewalks is not a function of the police or any kind of
security personnel alone but also of the city itself by
means of planning.
 Chapter 3: The Use of Sidewalks:
Contact
• City sidewalks also serve a social function, where people
can meet and socialize. They are a place for public contact,
where people can willingly engage in dialogue upon encountering
one another. This act is not forced upon the by anyone, but is a
natural trait, and it enhances trust and relationship of the people
living in the neighborhood.
• The author uses as an example of trust various residents
of her neighborhood leaving keys with the owner. The
absence of this trust is considered by Jacobs to be a
disaster for the city street. Thus city streets also play a
very important role in the enhancing the social life of the
city.
• City streets and sidewalks function as meeting especially
when there are stores, bars, candy stores, etc. in the
area. Thus streets are necessary for the success of
the social function of the city.
 Chapter 4: Use Of
sidewalks:Assimilating children
• The thought is always to get the
children off of the streets and into
playgrounds or other areas.
• Every time there are problems on
the streets, the movement is for
more parks and playgrounds.
• This is in spite of the fact that the
biggest gang problems are in the
projects with their park mall-like
• There are fewer people watching in these areas than on the
settings.
streets. The author confirms this fact by walking around her own
neighbourhood in New York.
• The children are safer playing on the streets and sidewalks
where the adults are than they are in the deserted playground
areas.
•Children use playgrounds for the first four or five years of their
lives. After that, it is difficult to keep them confined in the area.
•Streets are interesting,
safer and more diverse-
children need an
‘unspecialized outdoor
space’.
•One solution-garden city
planners –interior enclaves
in centre of superblocks.
•This implied that the
building was to be oriented •According to the author-
inwards and the dead back planners need to understand
facing the streets which that only people can rear and
mean, the safety of the assimilate children into a
streets would be civilized society.
compromised. •People in societies take a
•Another solution was to public responsibility for each
appoint people to guard the other.
playgrounds- this meant •Thus the removal of streets
extra expense to appoint minimizes the social and
people who had insufficient economic part of the lives of
 Chapter 5: The Uses of
Neighborhood Parks
• City parks may or may not be successful, depending on their
usage.
• Even though each park is an entity of its own, there are some
principles that apply to all parks.
• Neighbourhood parks are the most prevalent form of parks. When
parks are not popular or used, there are no eyes watching
behaviour in the parks, and they become dangerous as do the
streets that border them.
• Parks tend to exhibit volatile behaviour depending on their
surrounding buildings as well as their location.
• The diverse nature of the buildings that
border the park contribute to the success
of the park. Building used as restaurants,
An example
stores, of this kind
etc. contribute toofpeople
park is walking
Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia- well
through the
used at allpark
hoursatofdifferent times.
the day-functional
 A contrasting example is the Washington square park-by a huge number
of office buildings-lack of diversity-used only during few hours of the day
and thus became a spot for crimes-ultimately abandoned.
• Problems with unpopular parks :waste and missed opportunity;
dangerous-danger spills over to streets; vandalism, etc.
• 4 elements of parks:
1.intricacy-plans need not be complex ,however,
providing intricacies at eye level make it more
interesting.
2.centering- creating a small climax/centre space.
3.Sun- focusing on shade and shadow based on
surrounding buildings.
4.enclosure- well located and include interesting outdoor
activities like fishing, ice skating, boating, etc tend to attract
users.
• Functioncal cities are under the illusion that open land is
good(quality equal to quantity) and Thespend
more successfully
money onatocity mingles
large, toowith
the diversity of the users and uses in
frequent, and ill located parks that remain unused.
everyday streets-the more successfully
people therby enliven and support well
 Chapter 6: The Uses of City
Neighborhoods
• General conception: the concept of neighbourhoods is harmful to
the city-attempts to warp city life into urban life.
• Neighborhood success is a function of neighborhood self-
government and self-management.
• Neighbourhoods are not introverted units.
• City planners view a neighborhood as an introverted group of
about 7,000 people. This is large enough to support a grade
school, a community center, and convenience shopping- basis
for all renewal plans. This concept is termed as ‘harmful’ by the
author.
• Towns: formation of a cohesive community through crossing.
• Cities: no degrees of such crossings. However they also require
neighbourhoods to survive.
• There are three kinds of neighbourhoods in a city: CITY,
DISTRICT and STREET STREET DISTRICT CITY
• 1.CITY as a whole: parent community-source of public money.
Administrative and policy decisions are made at this level. At this
level , people of various businesses, professions and interests
come together.
• 2.DISTRICT level: It is the most weak level in many cities. It has
to be large enough to fight against city hall. At the same time it is
meaningless too large to possess any connections to street
neighbourhoods.
• 3.STREET level: These are not discrete units but are physical,
economic and social continuities. The may be small scale, but
are essential as they can pressurize the city to solve smaller
issues.
• AIMS FOR EFFECTIVE NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANNING
• foster lively and interesting streets.
• to form a continuous network of streets capable of coming
together as a district.
• integrating the different functions of buildings and parks together
with street fabric.
• diversity among areas.
GENERATORS OF DIVERSITY
- Diversity is natural to big cities.
- Different people perceive the same place in
different ways.
Eg : A person with a narrow mind will perceive it
through one particular persuit ,whereas an
intellectual person sees it through in inexhaustible
ways.
- To understand a city well we have to deal with a
combination and mixture of uses and not separate
them.
- City should generate enough diversity to sustain
civilization.
- Big cities are natural generators of diversity.They
are natural economic homes for smaller and newer
enterprises.
- In a large city - the bigger enterprises have greater self
sufficiency and maintain within themselves
but smaller enterprises draw varied supplies and skills
outside themselves and serve a narrow market
at a point where they exist.
- Bigness has more advantage in smaller settlements.
Eg : Towns and suburbs are natural homes for huge
supermarkets.
- Diversity in cities are generated on the fact that so many
people are so close together containing different tastes ,
skills , needs and supplies.
- As rural and small town countries transform to urban
countries the number of enterprises multiplies.
- With urbanization the big get bigger and the small gets
more numerous in number.
- To generate exuberant diversity in a city's streets and
districts -
THE NEED FOR PRIMARY USES
The district must serve more than one primary function , preferably
more than two and ensuring the presence of people who go outdoors in
the same place on different schedules , different purpose and use many
facilities in common.

- Neighbourhood parks need people who are in immediate vicinity for

different purposes . If parks go idle they do not disappear like the
consumer enterprises which have high chances of being shut down
if idle for long.
Eg : Ballet of Hudson - workers from
laboratories , warehouses , meat
packing plants support the eating places
during mid-day and further the resident
of the area support a modicum of
commerce.
-There should be related attractions ,
set not at the shoreline itself but inland
a little delibrately to carry visitors farther down the streets.
Eg : To build an aquarium with free entry , public libraries etc.
-The first primary uses are those which themselves bring
people to a specific place –
offices , factories , dwellings and
museums , libraries and galleries to
an extent.
-Primary use is combined effectively
with another that puts people on the
street at different times so that it can
be economically stimulating.
-Secondary diversity are enterprises that grow in
response to the presence of primary uses and to serve
the people the primary uses draw.
-To generate diversity effectively different people should
use the same street, people using the same street at
different timings must include among them people using
the same facilities and also have a relationship between
the people present at different times of the day.
- American downtowns are declining due to the delibrate
policies of sorting out leisure uses from work under the
misapprehension that it is orderly city planning.
- Sometimes wrong principles motivate important aspects that have
been developed historically and have
acquired blind support without any questioning.
Eg : In washington government buildings are being concentrated
together and separated from the buildings of the cityL'Enfant's idea
was to amalgamate the two of them and place them at points of
architectural
advantage throughout the city.
- Lack of sufficient primary mixture is usually the most serious
problem, this is because most residential
districts have blocks that are too large.
THE NEED FOR SMALL BLOCKS

Most blocks must be short , that is streets and

opportunities to turn corners must be frequent.

- Instead of mutual isolation of paths, they should be

mixed and mingled with one another.
- People living in long blocks for the same primary
reasons are kept too much apart to permit them to
form
a reasonably intricate pools of city cross use.
- To contrast the stagnantation of these long blocks
with the fluidity of an extra street can be
propositioned.
- Long blocks thwart the potential advantages that cities offer to
experimentation and small enterprises.
Eg : Short side or East side of New york is mostly a residential area
with small bookstores,dressmaker or
restaurants which have inserted themselves around the corner. The
West side or the Long side is full of
intellectuals and is a natural market but are not capable of forming
intricate pools of fluid street use
needed for urban diversity.
- Thus , frequent streets and short blocks are valuable beacuse of the
fabric of intricate cross use they permit among
the people of the neighbourhood.

THE NEED FOR AGED BUILDING

The district must mingle buildings that vary in age and conditions including a good proportion of
old ones.
- Old building's not only mean museum like old building's but also plain , ordinary , rundown
buildings.
- If a city has only new buildings, then the enterprises existing are limited to those that can support
the high costs of new construction.

- NEW CONSTRUCTION : chain stores , chain restaurants ,

banks , shoe stores , supermarkets.
- OLD CONSTRUCTION : neighbourhood bars , foreign
restaurants art studios , galleries.
- Old ideas can sometimes use new building but new ideas
must use old buildings. This is because no matter how
successful they may be - there is no leeway for such a chancy.
trial , error and experimentation in the over-head economy of new
construction.
- Flourishing diversity means the mingling of high , medium , low and
no yeild enterprises.
-The corner grocery stores in a city design is a gimmick and a
patronizing concept of city diversity. It is suitable for a village but in a
city it will be a mark of stagnant and undiverse area.
 Chapter 11: The Need for
Concentration
• Population density is another of Jacobs' success factors.
However the concentration be it should be diverse. Also, she
says the beauty of cities lies in its high concentration of people.
This concentration includes visitors as well as residents. High
population densities in residential areas do not necessarily lead
to slums. Jacobs discusses neighborhoods in various cities with
comparable high population densities and finds that some are
successful, such as Greenwich Village and some are not, like
Roxbury. Many city slum areas have low population densities as
in Oakland, Cleveland, Detroit, and New York. Population
densities are not the whole story of diversity.
• A high population density is not the same thing as overcrowding.
Overcrowding is defined as 1.5 persons per room. Overcrowding
can occur in high-density areas or in low-density areas. Densities
should be at a level that promotes diversity.
 Chapter 12: Some Myths About
Diversity
• Diversity results in congestion. Cities end up fighting diversity
through zoning regulations to reduce the congestion.
• This ends up destroying that which makes the neighborhoods
alive and vibrant.
• Diversity means that there are differences, like old buildings and
new buildings, different cultures.
• This doesn't mean that the mix has to be bad or ugly.
Homogeneity becomes boring and monotonous, or what the
author calls, the Great Blight of Dullness.
• In certain successful areas, there are short blocks of houses that
are very similar that do not result in monotony. This wouldn't be
true if they were repeated on the next block, but as they exist,
they stand out as a unit. Resident building with stores and other
uses also break the monotony and many such instances.
• Diversity need not necessarily bring out the differences.
Diversities should be such that they should look as one. That
would be the true beauty of cities.
Decline and degeneration of Cities

The third part deals with powerful factors that can influence the
GROWTH OF DIVERSITY AND VITALITY in cities

The factors include:

• SELF DESTRUCTION OF DIVERSITY

•CURSE OF BORDER VACUUMS
•SLUMMING AND UNSLUMMING
•GRADUAL AND CATCLYSMIC MONEY

PURPOSE OF UNDERSTANDING THE FACTORS:

-To convert them into CONSTRUCTIVE FORCES.
 Chapter 13:Self Destruction of
Diversity

• Starts when a VARIED MIXTURE OF USES at a part of

the city becomes popular as a whole
• This results in a competition due to the location’s
success
• Those who succeed in the competition represent a
NARROW SEGMENT of the many uses that together
formed the locality
• More people move into the area,resulting in GROUPING
OF PEOPLE
 Results in a VISUAL AND FUNCTIONAL MONOTONY
• Suitability of locality for its predominant use will die
• Ms . Jacobs’ views on
homogeneity and
diversity
 Chapter 14:Curse Of Border Vacuums
:

Big city university campuses ,Civic centres and large Hospital

grounds result in vacuums in the adjoining areas.

All borders divide cities into pieces .Problem arises when districts
are fragmented by borders such that the neighbouring districts are
weaker units unable to function independently

Developments like campuses are required for the functioning of

a city.However,Jane Jacobs argues that such development
causes destructive effects that should be countered.
She suggests that BORDERS must be seen as SEAMS-a line of
connectivity, rather than as
a BARRIER
 Chapter 15:Slumming and Unslumming

Slums and their population are victims of endless troubles that reinforce each
other
MAIN PROBLEMS OF SLUM:
-High population turnover
- Lack of identities of residents with their neighbourhood
Overcoming slums retain considerable number of residents and business
people pursue plans within slums

Jacobs is against the attempts of URBAN RENEWAL LAWS to solve the

problem of spreading slums by eradicating slums and their population
,replacing them with bigger projects to improve the city’s tax base

This method fails since relocating slums to another area can destroy the lively
neighbourhood where improving communities dwell
 Chapter 16:Private and Public Money

Jacobs argues that money has its limitations, incapable of buying

success for cities

She classifies money into 3 forms:

Credit extended by traditional, non-governmental lending institutions

,Money provided by government through tax receipts or borrowing power
Money from the underworld of cash and credit.

Jacobs argues that despite the differences, these three kinds of money
behave similarly in one regard.They shape SUDDEN changes in cities.
She matches the cycles in city districts with money.
PART 4 :
DULL, INERT CITIES – seeds of their own destruction and little else.

LIVELY, DIVERSE, INTENSE CITIES – seeds of their own regeneration.

CAUSES ~

Mixed uses
dense populations
old buildings
decentralized ownership

EFFECTS ~

opposite of slums
encourage investment
variety and diversity
revitalize areas around them
neighborhood that regenerate themselves spontaneously
 Chapter 17: Subsidizing
dwellings
City planners do not have plans for unslumming slums, stimulating
diversity or street uses, etc. Planning does not exist for these purposes.
They deal with things like subsidized housing, traffic, visual design, and
analytic methods, according to Jacobs.

City planning lacks tactics for building cities that can work like cities, it
does possess plenty of tactics. They are aimed for carrying strategic
lunacies.
Unfortunately, they are effective.

Jacobs identifies that cities do have a population of people who are

too poor to afford an adequate level of housing. Many cities have a
shortage of low-income housing. The view is that since some people
can't be housed by the private sector because they can't afford the
rental payment: they must be housed by the public sector. . Jacobs
does not believe that low income means that government has to
take over the housing responsibility. Some sort of subsidized housing
is required. Payments or rent supplements are preferable to
government owned buildings. This would result in gradual
 Chapter 18: Erosion of cities or attrition
of automobiles
Much of the cities problems are due to the automobile and the things
that are done to accommodate them. Cities need multiplicity of choice
and trade and commerce. This means that people have to have a way
to travel around the city.

Automobiles didn't ruin cities. They had the same complaints about
horses in London. Both pedestrians and automobiles have to exist
within cities, which are congested with cars. Cities have looked at
different plans that try to minimize the congestion between truck, cars,
and people. Some have tried to separate pedestrians from vehicular
traffic. However, this isn't a workable solution.

Jacobs explains how congestion instigates street widening,

then route changes, and then triggers complete roadway
Changes with new bridges and greater areas of land
devoted to parking. All of these pieces feed on
themselves. The more space that is devoted to cars,
the more cars come to use.
 Chapter 19: Visual order : its limitations
and possibilities
Designing cities means dealing with people's lives. However,
cities also need art, but they cannot be viewed as an
architectural problem and solved with visual works of art.
Streets represent our visual views of cities. They have different
kinds of buildings, storefronts, and businesses.

When they are used intensely, they need some sort of visual
interruptions or they look like they are endless. This is due to
the grid-like nature of streets in a city. If they aren't grid like, too
many people get lost in the neighborhood.

There are ways to put interruptions to straight streets so

they don't have the appearance of being endless.
Buildings can jut out to the street edge. They can build
squares or parks. However, not all streets should have
interruptions. Streets that end at borders are examples.
Chapter 20: salvaging projects
•Projects are necessary for cities. The projects should be worked
back into the framework of the city. Projects are a part of city
planning. The planners must correctly assess what is needed for
diversity on the project borders.

•The low-income housing projects needs to be unslummed. People

must freely choose to live there.
•They need all of the elements that are required for a lively, healthy
neighborhood.
Jacobs’ view:
• Begin at the ground level( above it is the apartments) and develop
new streets that have uses.
•The new streets should unite both sides of the project border and
must fit in with the characteristics of the housing project itself.
•Deliberate street arrangements for vendors can be full of life,
attraction and interest.
 chapter 21: Governing and planning
districts
•Public hearings are held on planning issues. Citizens can interact. In many
cases, they find that issues have been decided before the formality of a
hearing. People of all kinds attend these hearings and speak out.
Jacobs’ Proposal :
• The Commission members must deal with a large city. They have to find ways
to stimulate the diversity of uses in areas.
•They have to provide what is missing in the factors needed to stimulate vitality
and diversity.
Planning:
•They have to have streets whose users keep the area safe.
•They have to overcome the border vacuums and unslum the slums.
• They have to create the conditions that encourage activities hence the
planners should have an idea of the neighborhood.
 PART 22: The kind of problem a
city is
Cities have different kinds of problems that must be approached and handled in
different ways. Time brings with it new ways of thinking, and new strategies.
Dr. Warren Weaver, writing in the 1958 Annual Report of the Rockefeller
Foundation, defines "three stages in the history of scientific thought:
(1) ability to deal with problems of simplicity
•The first category consists of problems that contain two variables.
Jacobs compares the parts of a city and the variables in physical science. They
react in the same way. Some parts function well; others do not.
(2) ability to deal with problems of disorganized complexity
Second category consists of powerful probability theory and of statistical
mechanics.
(3) ability to deal with problems of organized complexity.
•Third category involves dealing simultaneously with a sizable number of
factors which are interrelated into an organic whole.
INFERENCE
•Opposes the ideal
Functional city concept.
•Rigid design without
proper understanding of
the working of the city.
•The planning should be
regionally sensitive –
done by using local
material and taking into
account their lifestyle and structure.
•Effectively conveys her point across through repetition and examples.
•Stresses on the importance of inculcating diversity within a society for economic growth and
sustainability.
• The importance of a development to spread over an area rather than being concentrated in an
area – opposing BORDER VACUUM.