The Death And Life Of Great American Cities By Jane Jacobs

The birth of a child is a truly magical occurrence. Once a baby’s gender is determined, either through ultrasound, or from the brief examination of a doctor, this small branch of a family’s inheritance, has already been designated with countless burdensome requirements to follow within their limited world. In regards to historical stereotypes, timid, little girls wear pink skirts and hair bows. These girls grow up to become housewives, who cook, clean and babysit the children. Meanwhile, boisterous young boys have the whole world to conquer and rule. The multiple responsibilities of a man are deemed as very important since he is the person who earns the family income. In contrast, Teddy, the main character of “The Fall of a City” by Canadian author Alden Nowlan, is a very inventive and quiet child, who uses his imagination to build himself a utopian escape in his dark, gloomy attic. He uses scrap paper to create the citizens of Upalia and cardboard to fabricate the radiant city of Theodoresburg. Eventually, Teddy’s aunt worries about what Teddy is constantly doing, hidden away from his family. His uncle heads to the attic only to discover the shocking revelation that Teddy has been playing with paper dolls and a doll house. Teddy’s uncle laughs and teases Teddy mercilessly, culminating in Teddy to go against his accomplishments and lose an important part of his individuality. Furthermore, the conflict between Teddy and his uncle is a manifestation of how many adults, such as

For a majority of Earth’s history, its populous has been free to roam and live off of the land, maintaining a balance between the habitat and its inhabitants. However, as technology develops the earth is placed at an even bigger disequilibrium. In the places where massive sequoias reigned, high-rise apartments now stand. Just as water rushed through rivers, cars drive down streets. The populants of Earth continue to innovate, industrialize,and urbanize, but at what cost?

Paul Goldberger, an American architectural critic once quoted, “Urbanism works when it creates the journey as desirable as the destination.”

In “The Possibility Of Evil” by Shirley Jackson and “The Fall of the City” by Alden Nowlan, Miss Strangeworth and Teddy experience the loss of their town as a secret is discovered. The protagonist, Miss Strangeworth, in “The Possibility of Evil” portrays herself as a sweet and caring old lady, though her exterior does not mimic her interior. Miss Strangeworth 's one duty and job is to rid her town of any possible evil. She believes she has power and status in her town. However, once her secret duty is revealed, the town sees Miss Strangeworth as the possibility of evil and destroy

In Chapter 2 of the text “Slavery, Emancipation, and Class formation in colonial and Early National New York” explores the centrality of slave labor and race to the development of class relations in colonial and early national New York City. In the 1600’s slave labor was noted as the central point to New York’s colonial economy and to the survival of European culture. The North colonial economy relied more heavily on slavery for free laborer than Manhattan. As a result of the slave era African American males and females became to central force and the foundation of New Yorkers ‘slave economy. Between 1600 and 1738 the slave population

Cities are generators of economic life and source of changes in the world. Thereby, Jane Jacobs in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities puts into relief the role of cities on the social and economic levels, while denouncing the disastrous consequences of urban renewal programs. To that extent, in chapters 2 and 3, she discusses "The Uses of Sidewalks”, arguing that over all people need safety and trust in their city. Therefore, first she claims the necessity of keeping streets and sidewalks safe because they are the “vital organs” of cities (29). Secondly, she argues that the functioning of cities should be organized in order to foster human interaction in which “casual public

In our lives today, we take advantage of all the luxuries that are presented daily. Freedom alone is one of the greatest luxuries we possess as an American nation. In Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs and Utopia by Thomas Moore, we are presented two life styles, which some might consider very similar in various ways. Both authors focus on a peaceful living lifestyle, to better the people of the nation. Although some of their specific details are different, I believe that Jacobs would definitely approve of the features that More develops in Utopia.

In Jane Jacobs’s acclaimed The Life and Death of Great American Cities, she intricately articulates urban blight and the ills of metropolitan society by addressing several binaries throughout the course of the text. One of the more culturally significant binaries that Jacobs relies on in her narrative is the effectively paradoxical relationship between diversity and homogeneity in urban environments at the time. In particular, beginning in Chapter 12 throughout Chapter 13, Jacobs is concerned greatly with debunking widely held misconceptions about urban diversity.

What is an urban revolution? Why is it important for cities to have one? What are that factors that cause these revolutions? In the articles The Urban Revolution by V.Gordon Childe, The Right to The City by David Harvey and lastly, What Type of Public Transit for What Type of Public? by Kafui A. Attoh, displays the different ways the residents in a city react to the social inequality and human rights.

Campbell (1996), argues that it is necessary to focus on three major points, being the environment, economy and society when planning a sustainable city. He constructs a prism which holds each of these features at a

Imagine a city where no green space can be found. Where concrete and steel buildings rise up and block the sun. Where streets are chaotic and gridlocked and citizens are stuffed in cramped, dirty and unsanitary apartments. This was the world of 19th-century cities where human health and happiness were disregarded for economic gain. These horrid conditions shaped the lives and ideas of three very influential men: Ebenezer Howard, Le Corbusier, and Frank Lloyd Wright. They took their own experiences and redesigned the sprawling metropolis to improve the lives of the residents. Each man created urban utopias that included green spaces, farms, and parks to improve air quality and the livelihoods of the people. Despite theses similar views, each design differed from the others. Howard, Le Corbusier, and Wright all completely reimagined the urban city in differing ways based on scale, distribution of land and technology. Their design concepts have been adapted across the globe and implemented into modern urban planning everywhere.

New Urbanism, a burgeoning genre of architecture and city planning, is a movement that has come about only in the past decade. This movement is a response to the proliferation of conventional suburban development (CSD), the most popular form of suburban expansion that has taken place since World War II. Wrote Robert Steuteville, "Lacking a town center or pedestrian scale, CSD spreads out to consume large areas of countryside even as population grows relatively slowly. Automobile use per capita has soared, because a motor vehicle is required for nearly all human transportation"1. New Urbanism, therefore, represents the converse of this planning ideology. It stresses traditional planning, including multi-purpose zoning,

Part two of Death and Life explains several conditions for city diversity based on the observations of different American cities and discusses in depth the four factors that Jacobs believe are critical for the development of a city. The basis for generating diversity lies in these conditions, and cannot be secludedly achieved by planning and designing. This part lays out the foundation and is the basis for the rest of the book. It shows urban planning and many possible remedies for creating equal diversity, and studies why these are not applied and the effects of it not being so.

Designing a city from scratch is a remarkable thought experiment but ultimately fails at implementation because we always approach it from the perspective of “how can we create a new city that solves problems of existing cities.” It’s less a process driven by design and more by critique. Urban living has paved its way into modern society, yet the vision for a city has changed over time. Large settlements need planning to grow; yet differences in minds is what leads to the modifications of a city, in return makes a city so unique. Alterations in opinions are what thrives urban life, still these differences are what skews the view of how others see a city compared to myself. They say the eye of the beholder deems beauty; this could explain

In this book Lynch defines that performance of the city can be measured by reference to its spatial form. But the quality of a place is depends upon combined effect of place and the society which occupies that place. Here Lynch sets up new dimensions for performance in his own criteria. Author also expresses his approach on size of the city, conservation and growth, planning practices and utopian models. The dimensions which are demonstrated in this book may not be fully perfect but of course they combine all social values as well as physical values. Lynch believed that these described dimensions must cover all features of all forms of the settlements and all these dimensions should be usable where values are different.