by Jane Jacobs
Nowadays, many architects, and some among the younger generation of planners, have excellent ideas—beautiful, ingenious ideas—for strengthening city life. They also have the skills to carry out their plans. These people are a far cry from the ruthless, heedless city manipulators I have castigated.Although the numbers of arrogant old gatekeepers have dwindled with time, the gates themselves are another matter. Anticity planning remains amazingly sturdy in American cities.
But here we come to something sad. Although the numbers of arrogant old gatekeepers have dwindled with time, the gates themselves are another matter. Anticity planning remains amazingly sturdy in American cities. It is still embodied in thousands of regulations, bylaws, and codes, also in bureaucratic timidities owing to accepted practices, and in unexamined public attitudes hardened by time. Thus, one may be sure that there have been enormous and dedicated efforts in the face of these obstacles wherever one sees stretches of old city buildings that have been usefully recycled for new and different purposes; wherever sidewalks have been widened and vehicular roadways narrowed precisely where they should be—on streets in which pedestrian traffic is bustling and plentiful; wherever downtowns are not deserted after their offices close; wherever new, fine-grained mixtures of street uses have been fostered successfully; wherever new buildings have been sensitively inserted among old ones to knit up holes and tatters in a city neighborhood so that the mending is all but invisible. Some foreign cities have become pretty good at these feats. But to try to accomplish such sensible things in America is a daunting ordeal at best, and often enough heartbreaking.
In Chapter Twenty of this book I proposed that the ground levels of self-isolating projects within cities could be radically erased and reconstituted with two objects in view: linking the projects into the normal city by fitting them out with plentiful, new, connecting streets; and converting the projects themselves into urban places at the same time, by adding diverse new facilities along those added streets. The catch here, of course, is that new commercial facilities would need to work out economically, as a measure of their genuine and not fake usefulness.
It is disappointing that this sort of radical replanning has not been tried—as far as I know—in the more than thirty years since this book was published.*3 To be sure, with every decade that passes, the task of carrying out the proposal would seem to be more difficult. That is because anticity projects, especially massive public housing projects, tend to cause their city surroundings to deteriorate, so that as time passes, less and less healthy adjoining city is available to tie into.
Even so, good opportunities still exist for converting city projects into city. Easy ones ought to be tried first on the premise that this is a learning challenge, and it is good policy for all learning to start with easy cases and work up to more difficult ones. The time is coming when we will sorely need to apply this learning to suburban sprawls since it is unlikely we can continue extending them without limit. The costs in energy waste, infrastructure waste, and land waste are too high. Yet if already existing sprawls are intensified, in favor of thriftier use of resources, we need to have learned how to make the intensifications and linkages attractive, enjoyable, safe, and sustainable—for foot people as well as car people.
Occasionally this book has been credited with having helped halt urban renewal and slum-clearance programs. I would be delighted to take credit if this were true. It isn’t. Urban renewal and slum clearance succumbed to their own failures and fiascos, after continuing with their extravagant outrages for many years after this book was published. Even now they pop up when wishful thinking and forgetfulness set in, abetted by sufficient cataclysmic money lent to developers and sufficient political hubris and public subsidies. A recent example, for instance, is the grandiose but bankrupt Canary Wharf project set in isolation in what were London’s dilapidated docklands and the demolished, modest Isle of Dogs community, beloved by its inhabitants.*4
To return to the treasure hunt that began with the streets and one thing leading to another and another: at some point along the trail I realized I was engaged in studying the ecology of cities. Offhand, this sounds like taking note that raccoons nourish themselves from city backyard gardens and garbage bags (in my own city they do, sometimes even downtown), that hawks can possibly reduce pigeon populations among skyscrapers, and so on. But by city ecology I mean something different from, yet similar to, natural ecology as students of wilderness address the subject. A natural ecosystem is defined as “composed of physical-chemical-biological processes active within a space-time unit of any magnitude.” A city ecosystem is composed of physical-economic-ethical processes active at a given time within a city and its close dependencies. I’ve made up this definition, by analogy.*5
The two sorts of ecosystems—one created by nature, the other by human beings—have fundamental principles in common. For instance, both types of ecosystems—assuming they are not barren—require much diversity to sustain themselves. In both cases, the diversity develops organically over time, and the varied components are interdependent in complex ways. The more niches for diversity of life and livelihoods in either kind of ecosystem, the greater its carrying capacity for life. In both types of ecosystems, many small and obscure components—easily overlooked by superficial observation—can be vital to the whole, far out of proportion to their own tininess of scale or aggregate quantities. In natural ecosystems, gene pools are fundamental treasures. In city ecosystems, kinds of work are fundamental treasures; furthermore, forms of work not only reproduce themselves in newly created proliferating organizations, they also hybridize, and even mutate into unprecedented kinds of work. And because of their complex interdependencies of components, both kinds of ecosystems are vulnerable and fragile, easily disrupted or destroyed.
If not fatally disrupted, however, they are tough and resilient. And when their processes are working well, ecosystems appear stable. But in a profound sense, the stability is an illusion. As a Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, observed long ago, everything in the natural world is in flux. When we suppose we see static situations, we actually see processes of beginning and processes of ending occurring simultaneously. Nothing is static. It is the same with cities. Thus, to investigate either natural or city ecosystems demands the same kind of thinking. It does not do to focus on “things” and expect them to explain much in themselves. Processes are always of the essence; things have significances as participants in processes, for better or worse.It does not do to focus on “things” and expect them to explain much in themselves. Processes are always of the essence; things have significances as participants in processes, for better or worse.
This way of seeing is fairly young and new, which is perhaps why the hunt for knowledge to understand either natural or city ecology seems so inexhaustible. Little is known; so much yet to know.
We human beings are the only city-building creatures in the world. The hives of social insects are fundamentally different in how they develop, what they do, and their potentialities. Cities are in a sense natural ecosystems too—for us. They are not disposable. Whenever and wherever societies have flourished and prospered rather than stagnated and decayed, creative and workable cities have been at the core of the phenomenon; they have pulled their weight and more. It is the same still. Decaying cities, declining economies, and mounting social troubles travel together. The combination is not coincidental.
It is urgent that human beings understand as much as we can about city ecology—starting at any point in city processes. The humble, vital services performed by grace of good city streets and neighborhoods are probably as good a starting point as any. So I find it heartening that The Modern Library is issuing this beautiful new edition for a new generation of readers who, I hope, will become interested in city ecology, respect its marvels, discover more.
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*1 Edward J. Logue (1921–2000), a planner and urban renewal official in Boston, New Haven, and New York, opens his review of Death and Life with th
e line, “Jane Jacobs has produced 448 pages of bitter, rambling coffeehouse talk mostly attacking urban renewal, public housing and city planning.” Ironically, Jacobs thanks Logue in the acknowledgments of the book, since she interviewed him about his work in New Haven, Connecticut. When asked about this contradiction in a 1985 interview with Richard Carroll Keeley, Jacobs responded, “Ed Logue always horrified me….But I learned from him.”
*2 William H. Whyte (1917–99), well-known journalist, editor, and author of The Organization Man, an influential 1957 study of white-collar life, was an editor at Fortune in the 1950s when Jacobs was at Architectural Forum. Both magazines were part of Henry Luce’s Time-Life empire. Whyte included Jacobs’s article “Downtown Is for People,” also reproduced here, in his influential Fortune series “The Exploding Metropolis.” Later, inspired in part by Jacobs, he began his own investigation of urban life, in particular a series of books, articles, and a film on “the social life of small urban spaces.”
*3 The City of Toronto began a pilot “tower renewal” initiative in 2009, which has since become a permanent program. The program aims to help tower owners make their buildings more environmentally friendly, while also improving the built environment of the surrounding neighborhoods, including new mixed-use zoning and infill, much as Jacobs suggests in Death and Life.
*4 The Canary Wharf project, which redeveloped the old West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs into an office district, began in the 1980s and continues today. With over 14 million square feet of office and retail space already built and more residential and commercial space planned, its cluster of high-rises has altered the skyline of London, created a new financial district in the city, and, as Jacobs notes, sparked no end of controversy over the gentrification of the Isle of Dogs and other nearby working-class communities.
*5 Jacobs explores this connection between urban and natural systems more fully in The Nature of Economies. Her definition of ecology seems to come from “The Trophic-Dynamic Aspect of Ecology,” a 1942 article by the seminal ecologist Raymond L. Lindeman.
Two Ways to Live
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INTERVIEW WITH DAVID WARREN, THE IDLER, SUMMER 1993*1
THINGS THAT RUN TOGETHER
DAVID WARREN: As early as 1985 you were using the words “Trader” and “Raider” to describe two ways of making a living, and the two “moral syndromes” that go with them. What started you down this forked road?
JANE JACOBS: When I was researching The Economy of Cities, I thought how extraordinary it was that even in early medieval times, in primitive circumstances, ships met to trade and primitive fairs were held in England and the Baltic and other places too. How extraordinary that they would exchange goods instead of grabbing things from each other.
Independently of this, I began noticing what kind of behavior was approved and esteemed, and what was not. I made lists of esteemed behavior and found many of the items contradictory, all kinds of things mutually exclusive. So I kept on making these lists and, much like Kate, my character in the book, I began combing them out—this is esteemed for this purpose but not for that purpose.*2 Near the end of Cities and the Wealth of Nations, I have a remark about very successful military people—Castro and Mao and many others—who are just dreadful flops when they try to run an economy. They have expectations, intuitions, assumptions that are different from people who build up economic institutions. By that time, I had gotten the two syndromes separated.
WARREN: The characters in your book discover and expound what you call the “Guardian syndrome” and the “Commercial syndrome.” The impulse to trade comes later in the evolutionary order, so I suppose in this sense the Guardian syndrome is prior, and we could discuss it first.
JACOBS: Well, I started with the Commercial one.
I don’t think that the Guardian syndrome is more basic to us. What is uniquely human is more basic for us than what is generalized. Think how important language is. If we are going to say something, we can growl and clutch and do various things, but speaking comes more naturally. The word syndrome, which comes from the Greek, means “things that run together.” We use it to denote a bunch of symptoms that characterize a condition. These collections of precepts and morals and values characterize certain conditions, functional conditions.
WARREN: Didn’t the word “syndrome” make your skin crawl?
JACOBS: No. I think it is the only jargon word I use and it is so common by now. The items in a syndrome are not separate; they are interrelated. It would be a mistake to think of them standing independently.
WARREN: Then we’ll start with the Commercial syndrome. “Shun force,” “come to voluntary agreements,” “be honest,” “collaborate easily with strangers and aliens,” “compete,” “respect contracts,” “use initiative and enterprise,” “be open to inventiveness and novelty,” “be efficient,” “promote comfort and convenience,” “dissent for the sake of the task,” “invest for productive purposes,” “be industrious,” “be thrifty,” “be optimistic”—all of this smacks to me of Tawney and Weber and the Protestant work ethic.*3
JACOBS: But these precepts existed before Christianity, let alone Protestantism. They are incorporated in what we call the Protestant work ethic, but they existed before there was any such thing, in places where Protestantism was unheard of, and they exist today where Protestantism has no sway. The reason for them is that they work for the function of trade and production for trade.
WARREN: Where do you first spy these qualities?
JACOBS: Phoenicians, among the oldest traders we know of—actually there were bound to be earlier ones—traveled from port to port. They were enterprising. They had invested for productive purposes or they wouldn’t have had those ships and those jars of oil. For their times they were probably efficient. As for “shunning force,” they hated pirates. All ancient traders hated pirates. Roman and Greek commercial law, and in fact Hammurabi’s laws, had respect for contracts in them. Oh, you can find all of these qualities in the Phoenicians. I don’t know about “be optimistic,” you certainly must have expectations, and nowadays, as in ancient times, the traders and producers are extolled for their optimism, for the cheery way they think they can manage.
WARREN: There is a human tendency to take sides, to say Syndrome A is people like us, and Syndrome B is people like them. Were you tempted by this?
JACOBS: No. Well, to begin with perhaps, but not for long.
WARREN: In the book you seem especially to relish manifestations of the Commercial syndrome.
JACOBS: No, I don’t.
WARREN: That is not your disposition?
JACOBS: My disposition probably, but no, it’s not that one is good and one is bad. Each syndrome is good for its functions, and if you mix them up—if you try, for instance, to run a government as if it were a business—it is a disaster. Or if you try to run a business as if it were a government, it is equally a disaster. You must have both syndromes. Each is bad in the wrong place, but each is necessary and good for its suitable function.
WARREN: The Guardian Syndrome: “shun trading,” “exert prowess,” “be obedient and disciplined,” “adhere to tradition,” “respect hierarchy”—my Tory heart is already glowing—“be loyal,” “take vengeance”—ah! vengeance may be wrong but it is so sweet….
JACOBS: Well, vengeance is at the root of justice. We all believe in justice, and we believe that the authorities ought to see justice done.
WARREN: “Deceive for the sake of the task,” which I take as opposed to “dissent for the sake of the task”…
JACOBS: They are not really opposites there. “Deceive for the sake of the task” is opposed to “be honest.” “Dissent for the sake of the task” is opposed to “be obedient” and “adhere to tradition.”
WARREN: “Make rich use of leisure”: I think of art and poetry.
JACOBS: And sports.
WARREN: And then, “be ostentatious,” “dispense largesse,” “be exclusive,” “show fortitude,” “b
e fatalistic,” “treasure honor.” You apply these qualities not only to civil servants but to the police, the army, to every sort of protection racket.
JACOBS: To the courts, too. They don’t all emphasize the same qualities to the same degree, but all are infused with them. The Guardian syndrome also applies to people outside of government. That’s one reason I called it that, instead of the Governing syndrome or the Territorial syndrome. Our civil life is full of self-appointed Guardians and we find them indispensable—the free press, people who start movements. Environmentalists are self-appointed Guardians. We take lots of these things for granted—a museum and its board, a library, the many public agencies that are staffed by volunteers.
WARREN: Volunteers who shun trading.
JACOBS: That’s right; you must shun trading by not regarding income as the bottom line when you are doing public service. And if you don’t shun trading you will mess it all up. Consider the opportunity a museum board has, and must resist, to sell off acquisitions under the pretense that they’re worthless when really somebody on the board or a friend wants to get them. You see, a museum board consists of self-appointed Guardians. Even if it receives no public money, just endowments, members must stick to the Guardian code.
WARREN: While Canadian public life more and more imitates that of the United States, we retain more pomp and circumstance. We have always been more comfortable with that Guardian code, and therefore perhaps inclined to be a little less corrupt.
JACOBS: Yes, ostentation is a way of getting respect for government and the authorities. It is perfectly all right for the court to erect an unusually ostentatious building, but Ontario Hydro is doing commercial work and it regards itself as somehow above that. And see what a mess it has gotten into.
WARREN: The evils come from hybridizing these syndromes.