Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities vastly criticizes how modern planning of cities has been destroying inner cities complexes. Throughout the text she argues that for safety reasons, it is necessary for the streets to have many eyes and because of the way the inner cities were built, neighbors either have extended contact or no contact at all with each other (Jacobs 65). However, because of developments in city planning and the change in housing trends that has evolved in our society in the past half-century, some of these once revolutionary ideals have become obsolete and outdated.
One of Jacobs’ leading arguments to promote community safety is through the use of the sidewalk that there must be eyes on the streets all the time “to insure the safety of both residents and strangers” (Jacobs 35). Even though this can still somewhat apply to today’s society in some cases, housing trends have changed in these past fifty years, and the location of most residential areas has moved; thus somewhat abolishing the need for these “constant eyes”. Today, instead of living in the central areas of the cities, because of the advancement in mobility and accessibility, most residents have moved to suburban residential areas located outside of cities. It is common in the 21st century for a worker to drive for an hour daily in an interstate to go to work. This change has caused the dispersion of the population from the cities to the suburbs. This dispersion has also developed many smaller neighborhoods and thus local economies.
New suburbs are much smaller in size than those packed neighborhoods that were common in the 1960s. As a result, these communities adopted new characteristics and trends that better suited them. One of those is that there are no strangers. Everyone knows each other and when someone new arrives, it is duly noted. Also, with the development and growth of the economy, a new private sector has become fairly popular in the last couple of decades in those regions: gated communities. In these communities, access is restricted to its residents and a private security company is responsible for controlling the influx of people. It was created as a result of the high crime rates and in 2002 it accounted for the communities of 6% of the American population (El Nasser). The grandiosity and attractiveness of these types communities is that they are affordable not only to the rich population but also to the less privileged families as well (El Nasser).
In another point of view, Jacobs also argues that in those 1960’s neighborhoods contact is restricted to “all or nothing” (Jacobs 63). That is, either a resident has a lot of friendly contact and interaction with his neighbors or none at all. This is due mainly to the fear of suspicion and trouble one might have with his tenant such as the one case where a resident is scared that news of his job bonus might cause the tenant to increase his rent (Jacobs 67). However, that is not the common trend in today’s society. Neighbors are allowed to have an in-between interaction where both can be either friends or at least well known to each other. This is because of the fact that contracts are now common between tenants and residents, which prevents unreasonable raises in rents and defines the interaction between tenant and renter. In addition, the extension of the work day, due to traffic and other related matters, has created the need to make friendships close to home where not much driving is required. As a result, this need has reinforced and emphasized neighborhood friendships.
Conclusively, even though an influential piece of writing back in its time, Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities is certainly outdated in some of its arguments. As American cities have evolved and, with it, housing trends along with the resident’s personalities, it is clear that different alternatives have been developed to the housing problems that disturbed many in Jacobs’ time.
Works Cited
Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House, 1961.
El Nasser, Haya. "Gated Communities more popular, and not just for the rich." USA Today (2002): n. pag. Web. 1 Sep 2011. <http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-12-15-gated-usat_x.htm>.
I agree with the fact that housing trends have changed and the location of most residential areas has moved. But when Jane Jacobs talks about sidewalks, she doesn't necessarily only mean sidewalks aligning houses and residential areas. These could be sidewalks along shops, stores and offices as well.
ReplyDeleteTake for instance, Atlanta. The reason why some of us do not wander about the so called "shady areas" is that there are very few eyes on the street and hence these areas are deemed unsafe. Now this has nothing to do with housing patterns changing over the last few years.