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November 6, 2006
Jane Jacobs, Robert Moses And City Planning Today
Gotham Gazette
By Amanda Burden
Amanda Burden, the chair of the New York City Planning Commission and director of the Department of City Planning, talks a good game out of one side of her mouth about the legacy of Jane Jacobs, while she keeps mum about Atlantic Yards superblocks, top-down planning, publicly accessible-except-during-NBA-games privately owned open space, hand-selected community stakeholders, etc., etc...
The opposing visions of Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses towards city building resonate with many New Yorkers today. It is certainly clear to me that Jane Jacobs is now the prevailing force. While no one person changed the physical landscape of New York as much as Robert Moses, Jane Jacobs’ legacy and her influence is much more deeply rooted and felt widely by urbanists, planners and elected officials.
That legacy embraces:
- the importance of the relationship of people and the public realm
- the appreciation of networks created by diverse uses
- understanding that blocks are the basic unit of the city
- the primacy of the street as the glue of neighborhood life
...
Big cities need big projects. Big projects are a necessary part of the diversity, competition and growth that both Jacobs and Moses fought for. But today’s big projects must have a human scale; must be designed, from idea to construction, to fit into the city. Projects may fail to live up to Jane Jacob’s standards, but they are still judged by her rules.
Posted by lumi at November 6, 2006 10:23 AM