When suburbs or towns zone and plan, they aim to avoid the ugly messiness of cities where the old and new cohabit. But to avoid the monotony of homogeneity, but still capture the visual order and "pleasant esthetic" (223), suburban planners will opt for and get, what Jane scathingly calls "results of vulgarity and dishonesty" (229). I assume she means places like the Renaissance Mall, where there is nothing but a "city guise" ... all the while, anyone who has been in a real city isn't surprised to learn that its walls are literally made of painted and molded styrofoam.
It is by reading Jacobs that my eyes have been open in admiration and understanding of Fondren. Truly, it is a city-pocket that can boast "radical inherent difference" in architectural style and building use.
Jane argues, again using very moral diction, that diversity, and the peculiar and unppredictable uses it sprouts, is "one of the missions of cities" (238). Out of fear that diversity in scale of buildings together in one place will "explode" a street, for instance, diversity is "unnecessarily suppressed" (238). Supressed indeed is the suburban landscape, in its ironic inefficiency and social dryness, compared to the city that hits the planning bullseye, as Fondren does. (OK, maybe I am bringing biad into this.) Only in the city will the strange and the rational be found together, linked by questions. When I studied at Columbia, I found that to be true; the city constantly bombards one with images and social scenes that confront one to examine her own beliefs, and why. In the suburbs, such questions aren't raised; the visual landscape is no catalyst of personal growth.
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