The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs - Book Report/Review Example

The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Urban Planning) Jane Jacobs is an activist who focused on metropolitan settlement and development. She wrote the book to criticize policy makers who had outlined the 1950s urban planning policy. The policy are said to be the genesis of the downfall of many cities and neighbourhood in the United States of America. Her ideas as explained by the book would initiate the growth of the modern cities in the country as opposed to the outlined policies. The first part of the book begins by elaborating the development of cities in the ancient styles. The ideas that were in use are influenced by the orthodox planning system. The planning system began from the city of Howard Garden. She says that the method was suitable for small towns for those who were only interested in the planning of their lives. She continues to state that some monuments that were place in the cities were only made to beautify them and gather them as a single entity. The second concocted system is the Le Corbusier form of a luminous capital[ CITATION Jan92 \l 1033 ]. The model constitute of a huge stories and flats building in a single place. She acknowledges that the models were inappropriate, and therefore she decides to come up with ideas that can be used to design better cities in the country. Jacobs starts by explaining the importance and the use of the sidewalk that lacked in the housing policy. The first importance is that the sidewalk can be used for safety. Given that the main roads may have some first moving cars, pedestrians can use the sidewalk which is a small path on the side of the road for their safety. Sidewalk, according to Jacobs can be used for contact and assimilation. Children require to be assimilated to the city order whilst they are young[ CITATION Jan92 \l 1033 ]. They will be able to know the rules that govern both the pedestrians and the drivers via observation from the sidewalk. Jacobs continues to explain that safety in the street should be viewed from the city buildings. According to her, will enhance both the safety of the ramblers and the motorists[ CITATION Jan92 \l 1033 ]. The contact will be improved as the people walk by the building side; they will become familiar to one another. The familiarity will improve trust among the pedestrians and the owners of the stores or the buildings. There will also be an enhancement in the business sector as the pedestrians will give the price reports to the owners of the stores. The children as said will benefit not only by learning but also by the presence of parks that will ensure their safety. The safety will include the protection from the adverse of weather such as direct sunlight and extreme cold conditions. The parks, therefore, requires to have such items like sheds and enclosed walls for protection. Jacobs also looks at the governance of a neighbourhood and explains that cities should not be self-contained. She argues that neighbourhoods should be categorised into three; the city, the district and the street. The argument presented is that the demarcation will present efficiency in the services provisions to the dwellers. People will only move to the higher levels if only there is inadequate provision of the required service at a lower level. The second part of the book details the core functions of the city’s buildings to the people living in the city. The people living there performs dissimilar jobs[ CITATION Jan92 \l 1033 ]. The jobs differ according to the specialism of individuals. The individuals also perform different tasks depending on various factors such as their age, sex and their level of education. Therefore, the city, according to Jacobs, must be planned so that it can cope with the needs of individuals. Service offered to the people at the district level need to be more that of a single primary function. The multiple function facility is supposed to make sure that the majority of people in the district acquires the service at any time. The second function entails the area covered by one block in the city. According to Jacob, the area covered need to be small in size. The reason she puts forward is that people will need to walk a short distance to reach the points of departures and destinations. The short time used to cover the area will enhance social integration as well as the economic growth of the city. The third assumption outlined entails the age and the affordability of houses[ CITATION Jan92 \l 1033 ]. Jacob offers that the block’s age need to be different. The variance in age will enhance disparity in the aggregate of lease paid. The difference will thus accommodate people who have different economic ability that will encourage them to set up diverse forms of business. The orthodox planning method according to Jacobs lacked diversity. The lack of diversity entails that the city had a diminished beauty and the visual appealing. The planning system did not create some areas where the dwellers could use for recreational activities. The dumpsites were all over, and there lacked a proper criteria where the refuses would be damped and recycled. The lack of this social amenities could easily lead to diseases that could adversely affect the people living in the city. The city also lacked some proper arrangements that could enhance the parking of vehicles. Some vehicles such as huge trucks need to be parked in a well arranged and spacious floors. The parking lots also need to be near the presence of fuels that the vehicles use. According to Jacobs, these lots need to be in a region that is sparsely populated in order to ensure safety of the dwellers. The roads require also to be commodious to countenance an unceasing movement of vehicles. People are also encouraged to walk in the streets instead of boarding the vehicles so that they can make the city lively. These conditions can only be achieved as Jacobs says by allowing the city centres to be free of the passengers carrying vehicles. The third part of the book describes the reasons that can make the city to either grow or fall. The four reasons that make the city to backslide are explained and given a focus as follows. The self-destruction causes the presence of a single element in the city, population instability and the consequence of the private and public funds. Self-destructive causes of the city fall are when there lacks a balance between the investments levels in the cities. Some of the businesses that attract most of the people into the cities may be over-shadowed by the huge investments of the same types. The huge investments make some of the local businesses to shift to the terminus where they can afford to attract some customers. The cause can also be a result of the decline in the levels of mastering the art of playing functions in the city[ CITATION Jan92 \l 1033 ]. The art can be modified by the presence of colleges and other learning institutions. When this lacks, the city functions may be run in an awkward ways that may lead to the fall of the city. The city needs to be bordered by suburbs that provide the supporting staffs and facilities to the city for a better and successful growth. The unstable population being another cause of the decline of the growth of the city need to be examined as explained by Jacobs. There are various diversity of residents in the urban. The most of the common phenomena is the manifestation of city poor and the opulent. The purlieus is the major horde of the poor living in the city. These group of people acts as a workforce to the few rich in the cities. These areas usually remain slums as people usually live there due to the lack of proper housing that is normally costly. When some dwellers finally get some good jobs they usually shift to other areas. The orthodox planning process suggested that the situation could have been improved by the upgrading of the slums. The suggestion meant that some amenities such as housing needed to be improved. Jacobs’ suggestion to the idea is that their slums need to be left in the same way. According to Jacobs, the slum dwellers can only improve their living standards when their income is increased. She, therefore, suggests that firms need to improve their salaries so that they can improve their housing and other amenities by their own. The public and private money is also discussed, and Jacobs gives her opinion on how the money need to be handled in order to increase their utility. She says that although money comes from different sources, the main purposes is planning. The government should not use its funds to structure some patterns in the city. The private sectors need to be encouraged to do investment in such things as housing with the use of their hard-earned coins to that they can make a disciplined investment. The investment shall encourage the growth of the cities. The fourth part of the book by Jacobs describes the tactics that can be used by the strategists to improve the quality and performance of cities. She gives these tactics as a way of supporting her ideas outlined. One of the stratagems provided is that of subsidizing the dwelling places. The subsidies will allow most of the city residents including those who earns an average income be able to house themselves. The ability of someone to be housed will be a source of encouragement, and most of the people will desire a city life. The attrition of automobiles is also commended against the flooding of cities with cars. The automobiles will help in overcoming the problem of heavy traffic caused by the presence of many cars. Diversity also needs to be discouraged, and visual order be exhilarated. These will help in create a unit city where different cultures are eliminated and therefore improve the efficiency in the city. There is also a need to redesign the governing and planning districts as Jacobs illustrate. The restructuring will help the city dwellers to get the required services urgently. The work of Jacobs was and remains important in the designing of the modern cities. Although she forwarded her suggestions through the book on the 1950s and 1960s, it is in the early 1980s that most of the planners started to take the ideas presented seriously. The architecture are taking into consideration every aspect provided to them. Deep analysis are done to ensure that the new model of urban cities remains attractive even to the future. Her work is, therefore, recommended and has led to the new revolution of cities with a new and beautiful face. Her ideas are always furnished to add to the newly developed strategies that are used in architecture. Although Jacobs’s critics to the orthodox planning system were valid in the 1961, they are a lot of changes that have been made from today’s planning technique. In the early 1960s, the strategy was useful as it was meant to attract people to the urban life. Today, the most of the cities are flooded as migration from the rural area has increased. The high urban population has led to increased pressure on social amenities such as housing and water. Urban environment has also been deteriorated as industrial wastes have reached an unmanageable state. These wastes have been termed as the cause of ever unending diseases in the urban regions. The situation in most of the urban life more so in the developing world need to be addressed in immediate effect. Safety has also gone down to the ground levels as most of the cities now experiences a lot of crimes. The high crime levels have been as a result of high population especially in the slums. Given this problem, the Jacobs planning criteria remains relevant in the design of the present day cities. Most of the countries globally do appreciate her ideas against the orthodox planning criteria. She needs to be applauded for her effort in presenting the most beneficial ideologies in city planning. Works Cited CITATION Jan92 \l 1033 : , (Jacobs), Read More