Reading-Writing Assignment - Coursework Example

Jacobs explains the ‘mix of uses’ of various elements in a He considers that the primary objective of a s streets and side walk is to positively influence people’s perception of safety. The streets and sidewalks should be able to offer people a feeling of security. Jacobs argues that it is not the regulatory mechanisms like the police that make cities safe. It is the voluntary monitoring that the strangers on the street does, that keeps it safe. The shops and the shop keepers contribute a lot here.

They knowingly or unknowingly keep an eye on what happens on the street. The crowd on the streets and the perception of safety are reciprocally connected. If people feel that streets are unsafe, they stop using them, shops remain shut and the street becomes more unsafe. A city is basically a network of such streets. A city with more streets which are perceived to be unsafe is eventually an unsafe city. Thus it is important for streets to have lots of stores and other public places so that it has lot of ‘eyes on the street’ as Jacobs puts it.

Jacobs use the dance of the ballet to represent the vibrancy of the streets. The roles voluntary and involuntary that people play in Jacobs’ neighborhood on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village are represented as parts of a ballet. Every person who pass through the street has some or the other role to play in this ballet. What is interesting here is that Jacobs is able to see order and rhythm in otherwise seemingly disoriented and disorganized Hudson Street. A ballet on stage has to have lot of coordination amongst its actors.

What connects them is the story line. They play the roles assigned to them according to the story line. Here, on the street every stranger play their role based a connecting factor which ultimately leads the security of the street. Jacob see himself playing her role as she places the garbage bin on the street. The school goers, shop keepers all play their role in varied vibrancy. In totality, all of this leads to the well being of the city.What connects Jacobs’ idea of urban planning with other sociologists like Wirth, Simmel, and Tonnies is the consideration of underlying social connections between the physical structures of the city and the people.

All of these thinkers could go beyond the idea of physical structures being determinants of the quality of a city. The work of Simmel, and Tonnies lays the philosophical foundation for the ideas of Jacobs. While the works of Wirth, Simmel, and Tonnies identified the underlying social connections in the process of urbanization, Jacob’s theories were looked up to as benchmarks of urban planning. The design oriented approach in urban planning has taken much from the ideas suggested by Jacobs’ Death and Life.

In general, while thinkers like Wirth, Simmel, and Tonnies were looking back and deep on the system of urbanization, Jacobs’ work internalized the process of urbanization as a reality and makes suggestions for a positive development.