Jane jacobs

BIO GRAPHY
 Born: Jane Butzner May 4, 1916
 Pennsylvania, U.S.
 Died: April 25, 2006 (Aged 89)
 Ontario, Canada
 Education: Graduated Scranton High
School;no College; Two Years Of
Graduate Studies At Columbia
University
 Occupation :Journalist, Author, Urban
Theorist
 Employer :Amerika, Architectural
Forum
 Organization: Joint Committee To Stop
The Lower Manhattan Expressway
 Spouse(s): Robert Jacobs
 Awards: OC, O.Ont, Vincent Scully
Prize, National Building Museum
 EARLY YEARS
 Jane Butzner Was Born In Pennsylvania.
 Parents- Dr. John Decker Butzner & Bess Robison Butzner.
 After Graduating From Scranton High School, She Worked For A Year As The
Unpaid Assistant To The Women's Page Editor At The Scranton Tribune.
 In 1935, She Moved To New York City With Her Sister Betty.
 Jacobs Held A Variety Of Jobs, Working Mainly As A Stenographer & Freelance
Writer, Often Writing About Working Districts In The City.
 These Experiences, She Later Said, "… Gave Me More Of A Notion Of What Was
Going On In The City And What Business Was Like, What Work Was Like."
 Her First Job Was For A Trade Magazine, First As A Secretary, Then As An Editor.
She Sold Articles To The Sunday Herald Tribune , Cue Magazine, And Vogue.
 She Studied At Columbia University's School Of General Studies For Two Years,
Taking Courses In Geology, Zoology, Law, Political Science, And Economics.
 She Said:”for The First Time I Liked School And For The First Time I Made
Good Marks”
 CAREER in Amerika
 After Graduating Columbia's School Of General Studies, Butzner Found A Job At
Iron Age Magazine.
 She Is Experiencing Discrimination At Iron Age, ‘She Also Advocated For Equal
Pay For Women And For Workers‘ Right To Unionize.
 She Became A Feature Writer For The Office Of War Information, And Then A
Reporter For Amerika, A Publication Of The U.S. State Department.
 Spouse: While Working There She Met Robert Hyde Jacobs Jr., A Columbia-
educated Architect Who Was Designing Warplanes For Grumman.
 Butzner And Jacobs Married In 1944. Together They Had Two Sons, James And
Ned, And A Daughter, Burgin.
 The Jacobsen Rejected The Rapidly Growing Suburbs As "Parasitic", Choosing
Instead To Remain In Greenwich Village.
 They Renovated Their New House, In The Middle Of A Mixed Residential And
Commercial Area, And Created A Garden In The Backyard.

ARCHITECTURAL FORUM
Jacobs Left Amerika In 1952 When It Announced That It Would Relocate To
Washington, D.C.
 She Found A Well Paying Job At Architectural Forum, Published By Henry Luce Of
Time Inc.
 After Early Success On The Job, Jacobs Began To Take Assignments On Urban
Planning And "Urban Blight".
 In 1954, She Was Assigned To Cover A Development In Philadelphia Designed By
Edmund Bacon.
 Although Her Editors Expected A Positive Story, Jacobs Criticized Bacon's Project,
Reacting Against The Apparent Lack Of Care Shown For The Poor African
Americans Who Were Directly Affected.
 When Bacon Showed Jacobs Examples Of Undeveloped And Developed Blocks,
She Was Upset To Find That "Development" Seemed To End Active Community
Life On The Street.
 In 1956, Jacobs Delivered A Lecture At Harvard University, Standing In For
Douglas Haskell Of Architectural Forum.She Addressed Leading Architects, Urban
Planners, And Intellectuals Peaking On The Topic Of East Harlem.
 She Urged This Audience To "Respect – In The Deepest Sense – Strips Of Chaos
 PERSPECTIVES
 CITIES AS ECOSYSTEMS:
 Jacobs approached cities as living beings and ecosystems. She suggested that
over time, buildings, streets and neighborhoods function as dynamic organisms,
changing in response tohow people interact with them. She explained how each
element of a city – sidewalks, parks, neighborhoods, government, economy –
functions together synergistically, in the same manner as the natural ecosystem.
This understanding helps us discern how cities work, how they break down, and
how they could be better structured.
 MIXED-USE DEVELOPMENT:
 Jacobs advocated for “mixed-use” urban development – the integration of
different building types and uses, whether residential or commercial, old or new.
According to this idea, cities depend on a diversity of buildings, residences,
businesses and other non-residential uses, as well as people of different ages
using areas at different times of day, to create community vitality.
 She saw cities as being “organic, spontaneous, and untidy,” and views the
intermingling of city uses and users as crucial to economic and urban
development.
 PERSPECTIVES
 BOTTOM-UP COMMUNITY PLANNING:
 Jacobs contested the traditional planning approach that relies on the judgment of outside
experts, proposing that local expertise is better suited to guiding community development.
 She based her writing on empirical experience and observation, noting how the prescribed
government policies for planning and development are usually inconsistent with the
functioning of city neighborhoods.

 THE CASE FOR HIGHER DENSITY:

 Although orthodox planning theory had blamed high density for crime, filth, and a host of
other problems, Jacobs disproved these assumptions and demonstrated how a high
concentration of people is vital for city life, economic growth, and prosperity unctioning of
city neighborhoods.
 she developed a model of local economic development based on adding new types of work
to old, promoting small businesses, and supporting the creative impulses of urban
entrepreneurs.
WORKS
 Jane Jacobs Spent Her Life
Studying Cities. Her Books
Include:
 The Death And Life Of Great
American Cities
 The Economy Of Cities
 The Question Of Separatism:
Quebec And The Struggle Over
Sovereignty
 Cities And The Wealth Of Nations
 Systems Of Survival
 The Nature Of Economies
 Dark Age Ahead.
THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT
AMERICAN CITIES
 In 1962 She Gave Up Her Position At
Architectural Forum To Become A Full-
time Author And Mother.
 The Death And Life Of Great American
Cities Remains One Of The Most
Influential Books In The History Of
American City Planning.
 It Introduces Terms Like "Social Capital",
"Mixed Primary Uses", And "Eyes On
The Street“ Which Became Popular In
Urban Design, Sociology, And Other
Fields.
 She Criticized The Construction Of The
World Trade Center As A Disaster For
Manhattan's Waterfront.
 THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT
AMERICAN CITIES
Part 1:

Influential Ideas In Orthodox Planning, Starting From Howard’s Garden City, Later Le Corbusier

Devised The Radiant City, Composed Of Skyscrapers Within A Park. Jacobs Argues That All These Are
Irrelevant To How Cities Work, And Therefore Moves On To Explain Workings Of Cities
She Explores The Three Primary Uses Of Sidewalks: Safety, Contact, And Assimilating Children.
Street Safety Is Promoted By Pavements Clearly Marking A Public/Private Separation”element Of
“Trust”. As The Main Contact Venue, Pavements Contribute To Building Trust Among Neighbors Over
Time.
Moreover, Self-appointed Public Characters Such As Storekeepers Enhance The Social Structure Of
Sidewalk Life By Learning The News At Retail And Spreading It. Jacobs Argues That Such Trust
Cannot Be Built In Artificial Public Places Such As A Game Room In A Housing Project..
Successful, Functional Parks Are Those Under Intense Use By A Diverse Set Of Companies And
Residents. Such Parks Usually Possess Four Common Characteristics: Intricacy, Centering, Sun, And
Enclosure. Intricacy Is The Variety Of Reasons People Use Parks, Among Them Centering Or The Fact
That Parks Have A Place Known As Their Centers. Sun, Shaded In The Summer, Should Be Present In
Parks, As Well As Building To Enclose Parks.
Jacobs Then Explores A City Neighborhood, Three Levels Are City, Districts, And Streets, Can Be
Identified. Streets Should Be Able To Effectively Ask For Help When Enormous Problems Arise.
Effective Districts Should Therefore Exist To Represent Streets To The City. City Is The Source
Of Most Public Money – From Federal Or State Coffers.
 THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT
AMERICAN
 PART2:
CITIES
 Given the importance of all kinds of diversity,
intricately part two of the book explains the
conditions for city diversity or the economic
workings that produce lively cities.
 First, districts must serve more than one primary
function to ensure presence of people using the same
common facilities at different times.
 Second, blocks should be short, to increase path
options between points of departure and destinations,
and therefore enhance social and as a result economic
development.
 Third, buildings should be at varying ages,
accommodating different people and businesses
which can afford different levels of rents.
 Fourth, there should be a dense concentration of
people, including residents, to promote visible city
life. It is important that all of these four conditions
 THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT
AMERICAN CITIES
 Jacobs refutes the myths about disadvantages of
diversity presented in orthodox planning.
 First she argues that diversity does not innately diminish
visual order. Conversely, homogeny or superficially
diverse-looking homogeneous areas lack beauty.
 Moreover, diversity is not the root cause of traffic
congestions, which is caused by vehicles and not people in
themselves.
 A second category of conceived ruinous uses such as bars
and theaters are a threat in grey areas, but not harmful in
diverse city districts.
 The final category includes parking lots, large or heavy
truck depots, gas stations, gigantic outdoor advertising and
enterprises harmful due to their wrong scale in certain
streets. Jacobs suggests that exerting controls on the scale
of street frontage permitted to a use wouldalleviate such a
use.
 THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT
AMERICAN
 Part 3: CITIES
 Part three designated to analyzing four forces of decline and regeneration in city
cycles:
 -Successful diversity as a self-destructive factor,
 -deadening influence of massive single elements in cities,
 -population instability as an obstacle to diversity growth
 -effects of public and private money
 Population instability is the third factor in the life cycle of cities. For instance, the
reason that slums remain slums is the unstable population of residents there, ready to
get out when they have the choice.
 Therefore, Jacobs suggests that the real slumming process, as opposed to slum
shifting through renewal projects or slum immuring practices of orthodox planning,
is to make slum dwellers desire to stay and develop neighborhoods. This could
possibly be done by gradual incremental monies which make continual
improvements in the quality of lives of individual residents of slums.
 The last factor is public and private money. Jacobs argues that money has its
limitations, incapable of buying inherent success for cities lacking the success
 THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT
AMERICAN CITIES
 Part 4:
 Part four of the book is dedicated to effective tactics to
actually improve city performance. These include:
 -subsidized dwellings, attrition of automobiles as opposed
to erosion of cities by cars,
 -improvement of visual order without sacrificing diversity
 - salvaging projects
 -redesigning governing and planning districts.

 Finally Jacobs argues that cities are a problem of

organized complexity. Unlike simple two-variable or
disorganized-complexity problems of statistical
randomness, problems of organized complexities are
composed of numerous interrelated factors.
 Therefore, horizontal structures in city planning would
work better than vertical structures, which aim at
oversimplifying problems of such complexity.