Jane Jacobs' "The Death and Life of Great American Cities"

[cavalier973]

I was able recently to get this book from the library.  An excellent read so far, with lots of information validating an "anarchist" theory of social structure.  Ms. Jacobs points out early on that the safest city streets (in her case, in New York City, circa 1958), are not the ones patrolled by policemen--those tend to be the most troublesome (but not necessarily because of the police themselves).  The best streets are the ones which have a variety of businesses (drug stores and bars and restaurants and boutiques) and "mixed-use zoning" (there are residential quarters above the businesses); they are the safest places to live in a city, because of the constant flow of people that cooperate, mostly in and unconscious manner, to maintain social order.  The businessmen, she points out, are the respected members of the neighborhood, and provide services that could not be officially provided by institutional measures, such as leaving your keys with the deli owner for a visiting friend to get into your apartment.  Also, from Ms. Jacobs' observations, children are much safer on "the street" than they are in the carefully planned parks and playgrounds that city planners try to impose on a city; again, this is due to the multitude of eyes in busy, multi-use areas, as well as a sense that one will have allies in potential confrontations, which gives one a sense of ownership and responsibility for those in the area, even strangers that wander through.  She tells a story about a man trying to cajole a crying little girl to go with him; he didn't notice, but within a few minutes he was completely surrounded by the residents and business owners (turned out the girl was the guy's daughter, and was just being a brat).  She contrasts her observations about such neighborhoods with observations about planned projects that involve lots of parks and open space.  She makes a compelling case that the latter neighborhoods are destructive to social progress, being imposed from above by people relying on bad ideas about how city planning should be conducted.  I'm almost finished with part 1 of the book (the social structure of cities), and will relate my thoughts on part 2 (the economic structure of cities) when I've finished.

[BobRobertson]

Neat.

I ready _The Voluntary City_, which goes into the private provisioning of specific services, but this one sounds like a good complementary book to that.

Thanks. Looking forward to part 2.

[Peppermint Pig]

Dark Age Ahead by Jacobs is a great introductory book if anyone is thinking of picking up her work.