We lost a good woman this last week, urban thinker and influential writer Jane Jacobs (see NY Times obit).
Jacobs detailed the patterns and plans that make cities alive and vibrant--and railed against the insane urban planning decisions that killed them. Both she and Christopher Alexander helped me to understand why old neighborhoods in inner city America have so much in common with classic Italian villages: They both have narrow sidewalks that encourage contact with our fellow humans.
She also countered that notion in writing:
Great cities are not like towns, only larger. They are not like suburbs, only denser. They differ from towns and suburbs in basic ways, and one of them is that cities are, by definition, full of strangers.
This comes from her book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which is considered Jacobs' single most influential book, and quite possibly the most influential American book on urban planning.
From Wikipedia:
Widely read by both planning professionals and the general public, the book is a strong critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s which, she claimed, destroyed communities and created isolated, unnatural urban spaces. Jacobs advocated dense, mixed-use neighborhoods and frequently cited New York City's Greenwich Village as an example of a vibrant urban community.
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