I've gotten behind in my reading. Shock!
"Unslumming and Slumming": First thing to come to mind is, why in this order? Seems backwards. Jacobs attacks the superficial means for solving the slum problem; when planners "clean up" an area by putting a project there to get higher tax yields, or lure less-expensive-to-support populations back to an area, these are merely shifting slums, not remedying them. She sites Gans' work on the West End of Boston [which I read in Marwell's theory class), which is regarded as a slum but is actually a "stable, low-rent area" where residents are intensely attached to their neighborhood and its upkeep. Also, when people stay by choice, it is practical to stay, where newcomers still come, and where there is a thriving sense of urban vitality, all these factors keep slumming at bay. Jacobs addresses how the city grows the middle class, but this is the class it most often loses, for the above reasons. She urges that this emergent middle class in vital low-rent areas is the "greatest regenerative force" for an energetic economy, but is sadly thwarted because it is regarded as "social untidiness and economic confusion" (290).
"Gradual Money and Cataclysmic Money": There are three sources of money for building in cities: the biggest share is credit from non-gov't lending institutions. The second is gov't moneys, either from taxes or through borrowing power. (Did you know some residences and business properties are financed this way?! I'd like to know what businesses in Jackson were financed by gov't help.) The third source is from investment money (its source being mostly concealed). Jacobs takes an interesting stance on the moral difference between these money sources, as to the private vs. publicness, and legitimacy vs. illegitimacy. She urges that gradual money is healthier for a city, as buildings require constant upkeep after the novelty is gone (remember Pruitt-Igoe?). On the cataclysmic side are the agents of city decay, such as credit blacklisting, which is done when the bank and planners create maps with spot-clearance, excluding help in areas projected to be slums. (I admit, I didn't go into intense detail or probing with this chapter. There is much for me to learn here, in money matters!)
Part IV: Different Tactics (Last Section)
SUBSIDIZING DWELLINGS: Herein Jacobs rails against the government as landlord, as it goes about housing people who cannot afford housing today. She indicts the way these peoples' rents are used almost exclusively on local admin, maintenance and running expenses - i.e., paying combaters of vandalism and sitters in conferences on how to improve project safety. Rather, Jacobs suggests a proper use of subsidy monies, by a "guaranteed rent method," in which there are no low-income ceilings for people which will de-qualify them for subsidized housing. Rather, when this happens, the tenant ought to take up ownership of his unit. Soon, private vs. public housing becomes in-differentiable. Jacobs also makes the point here that it is very important to not transform or replace subsidized housing too quickly; gradual change will bring about the victory of "holding as many people as possible by choice over time" (334).
ATTRITION OF AUTOMOBILES I found this to be a rather dull chapter, except for the fact that I have been witnessing of late, since my move to Atlanta, the true war between cars and pedestrians. Cars don't like the anxiety the pedestrians' safety produces upon them; pedestrians hate waiting for proper times and places to cross. One interesting thing I learned is that some traffic, especially of trucks and buses, is essential for the vitality of a city. OK, so maybe this chapter wasn't so dull, because it also got me thinking, which pressure has given way in Jackson: cars over peds, or peds over autos? Definitely the former. In Atlanta, the latter is making headway, although the disincentives of driving aren't quite high enough to eliminate large numbers of one-drive-only private automobiles. Jacobs says equilibrium has been achieved in no american city as of yet. Of course, this was written in the 60's.
Did you know one-way traffic is a solution to alleviate congestion?! I had no idea that was its purpose. Another golden nugget of Jacobs' philosophy -- that no remedy applied to city life comes without a consequence or new problem -- was illustrated by her point that large parking garages actually erode city vitality, even though they aimed to enhance its economy. In this chapter I finally learned the controversy about Robert Moses, which I never understood before. He was park commissioner in NYC in the 30's, and tried various adjustments to Central Park to get heavy traffic flow to be permitted around or through it, both of which were turned down. Oh, New Yorkers and their protectiveness of their Perfect City dreams!
VISUAL ORDER: As the upper limit of complexity, cities cannot be works of art, Jacobs claims. Art and life aren't the same things; for life, better design strategies and tactics are needed. So, in sum, I like this chapter's premise: practicality first, art second, around the skeleton of practicality. Clear thinking about city planning therefore starts with an understanding that cities ought not aim to be works of art, foremost. What cities need is for their "remarkable functional order [to be] clarified" (377). On the same token, art/design ought not interfere with function; they can co-operate and coexist. The minimization of the impression of endlessness, and artful tactics of suggestion and emphasis, can be well applied to a functional cityscape. Using very well organized writing, Jacobs lays out exact, practical ways artful principles such as these can be applied to cities in a functional, life-giving way. Is this kind of application-/prescription-heavy writing sociological? Or are we now in a different era of sociology, one which is less amelioration-based/driven? Is this because we think this posture in academia is somehow more appropriate or respectable? And why is that? Who decided that and catalyzed that shift in thinking?
SALVAGING PROJECTS Again Jacobs uses this chapter to be a practitioner of specific remedies to this particular city illness: projects laid to waste.
GOVERNING AND PLANNING DISTRICTS Coordinating city planning and mapping and zoning ad building is a behemoth of a process. Jacobs thus advocates for the development of a "'Metropolitan Government,'" which is comprised of separate localities which come together into a federation of powers only for the explicit cause of corporate planning. This is in contrast to what she calls "municipal bigness:" the planners-conquer-all approach, which leave localities helpless to change.
THE KIND OF PROBLEM A CITY IS In this chapter, Jacobs dabbles back into the philosophical side of comprehending city problems. She holds that the common, misguided camp's approach to city planning is that cities are problems of simplicity (or of disorganized complexity, which are then easily reduced or converted to problems of simplicity), whereas the appropriate approach to city problems is to treat them as problems of organized complexity. The philosophical underpinnings to this is the understanding that problem solving only works when you understand what kind of problem it is. Cities have organized complexity because their "variables are many, but they are not helter-skelter; they are 'interrelated into an organic whole'" (433). Thus, Jacobs pushes for studying cities in a process-driven, inductive, attention-paid-to-the-anomalies fashion - just as she just exhibited for us in this masterpiece of hers! Too bad its genius ca't be duplicated now! This work can only be original once.
In her final page, Jacobs trumpets the city as king (or rather-and I don't know why this is that I like to imagine the city as a feminized power, a queen...is that not the popular imagination of a city? Like that of a ship as being a "she"?) because it is the only place that is a stage for productive innovation and the stunning "juxtaposition of talents." The best cities generate enough energy not just for themselves, but to meet needs and solve problems outside themselves.
THE END
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