I've been reading Jane Jacob's The Death and Life of American Cities. Jacob's book was published in 1961, and it is startling how fresh it seems in its insights about how to create interesting and vibrant cities.
One of the main themes of the book is that cities are like organisms, and that, for various reasons, the health of American cities is critically threatened. Jacobs attributes much of this poor health to the very city planners and policy experts who are charged with the health of the cities. They are grossly violating their primary duty: "First, do no harm!"
In their insistence that a proper living environment requires space and greenery rather than sidewalks, buildings and other people these planners successfully promoted two agendas. The first agenda was to transform city districts into towers of apartment dwellers surrounded by shared greenery and community spaces. The second agenda was to transfer people away from the cities into the suburbs where each house had its own private greensward.
In both cases the effect was the same. Neither the city towers nor the suburban streets could support the interesting diverse kind of life that healthy cities can.
While reading Jacobs' text, I realized that there was another effect: in both cases there was a dramatic degradation of public space. In the case of the apartment towers (and famously in high-rise public housing) there were designated community spaces--but since the delicate dynamic which maintained the safety of the public in the old city was destroyed, these community spaces lay unsafe and unused. In the case of the suburbs, true public space was not created. Healthy cities maintain public order by having many eyes on the street. Suburbs maintain public order by privatizing or otherwise maintaining turf.
The net result is that public space in our country has been dramatically degraded, with much of this being the result of well-intentioned, but severely misguided public policy.
This upshot here is that we have a ready diagnosis--and possible cure--of why Americans behave so poorly in public. We behave poorly in public precisely because we have so little experience dealing with it.
And the cure? Well the cure is to generate a vibrant public life. Jacobs has a lot to tell us about how to achieve this in a city. But insofar as it took generations to destroy the public life we once had, it may take a long time to build it again anew.
So, this is a blog of both pessimism and hope. It is pessimistic about our ability to change the boorish behavior of those we encounter on a daily basis in the public realm. ON the other hand, it is hopeful that by working to address the root causes, we can make it possible for future generations to live a public life governed by respectful manners.
posted by Silver @
8:32 PM
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Wednesday, February 05, 2003  |
