fixBuffalo

Could Jane Jacobs Give Us a Hand...

Thinking about all the demolitions here in Masten recently has got me thinking once more of Jane Jacob's work. I last wrote about Jane Jacobs a few months ago, over here. I first stumbled across her work and posted, Required Reading, in January.

In Writing the City, I've linked to a few interviews that Hank Bromley and Tim Tielman assembled a few years ago. They are well worth revisiting as we continue to stumble "managing the decline" here on this side of Main Street.

HB: I thought I’d start by asking how you started writing about cities and what makes them work.

JJ: Well, I really explain all that in the Introduction to The Death and Life of Great American Cities. In brief, I was working for an architectural magazine, and I became dismayed at how unrealistic the plans that I was writing about were. I saw that they didn’t really make very magnetic or attractive city areas; people seemed to shun them instead of enjoying them. And then I was fortunate in having a good mentor who had been thinking about the same things, the head worker of a settlement in East Harlem. And he got me thinking along the lines of how city streets work.

HB: In ways that professional planners hadn’t really been considering?

JJ: No, they didn’t like the street....

Continue reading the interview with Jane Jacobs, over here.

***Update***
10/18/05 11pm

• Just received this link about the life and work of Jane Jacobs from a frequent reader of this blog. See the comment below. Thanks Ken! The site includes Random Thoughts from Jane Jacobs. A must read if you are into urban planning and thinking issues.

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Artspace Archive • Annals of Neglect • BAVPA • Where is Perrysburg? • Broken Promises...
Writing the City • Woodlawn Row Houses • Tour dé Neglect - 2006 • faq