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September 21, 2007
Is Jane Jacobs Passé?
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Henrik Krogius
As usual, Atlantic Yards supporters, including the project's own designer, serve up Jane Jacobs à la carte, to justify the superblock plan of unprecedented (that means "historic") density. And when supporters can't pound Jane Jacobs' square peg into Atlantic Yards's round hole, they dismiss her observations as "passé:"
The many elements of the Jacobs recipe came out of a minutely observed urban microcosm that she found both stimulating and congenial. So infectious was her enthusiasm for her true city that even Frank Gehry, in a presentation on Atlantic Yards, invoked the spirit of Jane Jacobs as figuring in its planning.
Now, Atlantic Yards is of course seen by many of its critics as just the kind of project Jacobs opposed. They see its size, the height of its buildings as inimical to the neighborhood quality she championed. The pedestrian-penetrable aspect of the Atlantic Yards layout and the street-level shops touted by Gehry are in the critics’ eyes no compensation for the overall size. They see a violation of Brooklyn’s traditional character. What they prefer not to think of is that Brooklyn, after all, is part of New York City — a still relatively young city famous more for its dynamically changing character than for its lasting monuments. We are somewhere between Europe, where the aged cores of cities are to a considerable degree unalterable, and Asia, where cities like Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and Bombay (now Mumbai) have kicked over most recognizable traces of their past.
In today’s world of exploding, skyward-reaching cities, strict Jane Jacobsism is hardly tenable. Which is not to say that all of her ideas are obsolete. Walkability, an active street life, a diversity of uses can be incorporated into large-scale projects so that they avoid the sterility of the “skyscraper in a park” model. This was clearly on Gehry’s mind when he invoked Jacobs.
Posted by lumi at September 21, 2007 8:39 AM