“The diversity, of whatever kind, that is generated by cities rests on the fact that in cities so many people are so close together, and among them contain so many different tastes, skills, needs, supplies, and bees in their bonnets.” (page 147, Vintage edition).

I doubt that the word diversity was as hackneyed a term when Jacobs wrote it as it has become today. It’s become a “buzzword” for every kind of corporate initiative to institute more equitable racial, ethnic, and gender representation in the workplace. But I think Jacobs is using it in a much broader way, to describe what naturally occurs when a lot of people, with their varying habits and viewpoints, settle in close proximity: all sorts of creative stuff happens. How does a city make room for that kind of diversity?

Photo by Neil Howard

So much of planning – of development – has had a deadening effect on this occurring naturally. Jacobs cites public housing “projects” and “civic centers” as physical uses that crowd out the smaller, inventive kinds of things that people will dream up if they can afford smaller spaces. Stadiums, university campuses, hospital buildings can all have this same impact—their use is too static, too uniform, too monolithic. Yet we know large cities will continue to attract those kinds of investments. Can diversities of all kinds: people, buildings, land uses, styles, enterprises, activities be cultivated, along with the “mega-projects”? Manufactured diversity feels phony; this is one of the complaints of town plans put together by “new urbanists.” Those communities don’t feel like anything has naturally occurred, because they’re following a formulaic “pattern book.” In her promotion of it, Jacobs resists dictating what diversity should look like. Instead, she proposes there are four conditions that, in combination, will help it along.

An urban area needs to have:

• more than one primary use (at least two);
• lots of streets and turning corners, which short blocks make possible;
• different ages and conditions of buildings with varying economic yield potential; and
• lotsa people in and out of the place, some probably living there.

In subsequent chapters she lays each of these out in more detail.

Now, alas, some of the prescribers among us have wanted to take those four ideas and state them as the Jacobs Law. They then set out to advance all sorts of rules and schemes to make it so. My instincts are counter to this: better that we start by finding ways to strip away the impediments to the natural occurrence of these conditions. Continue reading »

What can the Mandelbrot Set teach us about cities? CC image via Wikipedia.

A couple weeks ago I stated in a post that “I cannot agree with Jacobs when she says that ‘Great cities are not like towns, only larger.’ Great cities and great towns function in very much the same way. In my experience a great city is nothing more than a fractal arrangement of great villages and towns that happen to sit next to one another.”

This comment generated considerable discussion with numerous people taking exception to the idea. I’d like, therefore, to expand upon that discussion here – especially as much of Chapter 6 deals directly with this very issue.

In my work, I tend to inform my understanding of cities from a Naturalist perspective. Please don’t confuse that to mean “Garden City” or any such nonsense. What I mean is that I inform my work by observing and understanding (admittedly generally) the natural processes of the world around us and applying it to how cities grow, thrive and die. And one of those natural processes I feel that underpin how our cities function (or not) are fractals.

For those unaware, fractals are mathematical or real-world patterns that are self-similar at different degrees of scale – meaning they are the same up close as they are far away. That doesn’t mean they’re exact, but they’re similar.

Look at a tree. A tree’s branches look very similar to it’s trunk. And the branches that branch off those branches look remarkably similar as well.

Or look at your body. Then look at your arms and your legs. Then look at your fingers and toes. Or your arteries, veins and capillaries. Or how about highways, arterial roads, neighborhood roads and alleys.

Now think about cities. CC image via Wikipedia.

They’re all self-similar at different degrees of scale.

Great cities, neighborhoods and villages are like that too. A strong neighborhood has a centre; a focal point. So do strong cities. In fact, a strong city is likely to have many focal points. And more often than not, those focal points just so happen to be the centres of neighborhoods. A home has a centre as well; it’s called the kitchen. Continue reading »

I love Jane Jacob’s ideas on cities—and Death & Life is a masterwork of community activism and urban intelligence. I agree with many of the things she says about parks in this chapter, and I also differ with her on a few points.

With Death & Life being 50 years old, of course, our cities have changed and the challenges our cities and communities face have changed.

I’m going to start with what she got right on parks:

• She is very critical of the Radiant City model of towers in large open spaces – “people do not use city open space just because it is there.”Many of Toronto’s tower communities are victims of too much dead open space. There is a lot of park space but it is not the kind of spaces that serve the needs of community residents – they want basketball courts, community gardens, markets, activities, cricket pitches. Thankfully, there are efforts being coordinated by community groups and the City’s Tower Renewal office to animate these spaces.

  'Springing in Spring' by Hernan Seoane

  Continue reading »