Review of 'The death and life of great American cities' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Jacobs asserts that effective self-government requires community continuity. Social ties developed over time can fracture in an instant when city planners "revitalize" a neighborhood, preserving its buildings, but gutting the connections that make a city alive. Intentional or not, this atomizing of social connections destroys The People's ability to effectively resist tyrannical city policies and leaders.
Political action is needed and enormous effort to bring together coordination of multiple departments, and individual experts don't know what they don't know about specific neighbors in the city. Communication and coordination among stovepiped government agencies and departments and committees is done through a patchwork of communication channels and liaisons and informal back channels.
Fragmented administration, fragmented and overlapping authority is perceived as being hypocritical or not caring, but it's the structure of administration itself. Planning Commissions are supposed to be the solution to complexity and coordination breakdown, but they're still very vertical and …
Jacobs asserts that effective self-government requires community continuity. Social ties developed over time can fracture in an instant when city planners "revitalize" a neighborhood, preserving its buildings, but gutting the connections that make a city alive. Intentional or not, this atomizing of social connections destroys The People's ability to effectively resist tyrannical city policies and leaders.
Political action is needed and enormous effort to bring together coordination of multiple departments, and individual experts don't know what they don't know about specific neighbors in the city. Communication and coordination among stovepiped government agencies and departments and committees is done through a patchwork of communication channels and liaisons and informal back channels.
Fragmented administration, fragmented and overlapping authority is perceived as being hypocritical or not caring, but it's the structure of administration itself. Planning Commissions are supposed to be the solution to complexity and coordination breakdown, but they're still very vertical and understand the city only at a very high level. Proposals have to be made to them. Timing is an issue when engaging neighborhoods, and because communication didn't get to all the stakeholders.
Jacobs looks to techniques used in the sciences to manage this complexity, rather than treat every problem like a 19th century 2-variable problem, like the ratio of residential units to greenspace.
Overall, I love her identification of the problem and solution for her local issues in New York City. Her recognition that “City Planning is all bustle and no progress” rings true, and it’s exciting to read her diagnosis of the issue. Systemically, Jacobs doesn’t offer specifics on how to solve the problem for everyone, but I think through progressively solving more “local” coordination problems and working toward increasing economic and “use” diversity in cities, we’ll converge to a solution that uses the best mathematical and scientific techniques available.
