The Death and Life of American Cities (1961)

1. The Death and Life of American Cities (1961) Jane Jacob’s attack on Modernist Planning

2. The Death and Life of American Cities • Jacobs observes wholesale renewal / redevelopment – “the sacking of cities” • 1950’s & 60’s response to surburbanization and central city decay – • Urban Renewal • New Highways • Modernist Public Housing

3. The Death and Life of American Cities • Morningside Heights (NYC) • Parks, Open Spaces • No Industry (Euclidian Zoning) • Slum Removal • Public Housing

4. The Death and Life of American Cities • Goals of Modernist City Rebuilding: “Need to get people off of the street”. • Standard Redlining by Banks – East End of Boston. • Jacob’s Conclusion – Mondernist View of City Rebuilding & poor neighborhoods out of touch with reality.

5. The Death and Life of American Cities • Jacob’s Ideal City • Cities need an intricate and close grained diversity of uses to give each other mutual support “Organic / Holistic city” • Cities should be dynamic places with intrinsic vitality • “Fertile ground for the plans of thousands”

6. Jacob’s Three Prong Attack • (1) Ebenezer Howard – “Garden Cities of Tomorrow”(circa 1898) • City perceived as evil • Accommodate growth through self sufficient garden cities • Population capped at 30,000 • Paternalistic & uniform society.

8. The Death and Life of American Cities • Garden Cities in America • Clarence Stein, Lewis Mumford, Catherine Bauer – cities a “chaotic accident” New Suburbia: • houses face away from streets • Superblocks • Consolidate number of streets • Commerce & residences separated • Radburn / “New Towns

9. The Death and Life of American Cities • (2) Le Corbusier • 1920’s Radiant City (skyscraper within the park) • Vertical, High Density City • Open Space 95 %, Skyscrapers 5% • Elevated Motor Tracks • “Vertical Garden City”

12. The Death and Life of American Cities • (3) City Beautiful • Burnham, Columbian Exposition • “Monument Planning” • Center Monumental – Classical Monuments, Baroque Boulevards, Parks • Separated from city, self contained units.

14. The Death and Life of American Cities • Jacob’s Summary – • Radiant Garden City Beautiful (Lincoln Center, NYC)

17. Between Modernity & PostmodernityRobert Beauregard (1989) • Modernist Approaches: • Reason / Democracy • Technical Rationality • Coordinated & Functional City • Middle Class Society

18. Between Modernity & Postmodernity • Structure of Article • History of Modernist Planning • Deconstruction of Modernist Planning (postmodernism) • How to encompass both modern and postmodern approaches within planning

19. Between Modernity & Postmodernity • History of Modern Planning • Counter the “chaos” of the city. • “Organized and physically coherent cities grounded in good functional and aesthetic principles” • Master Plan and Master Planning

20. Between Modernity & Postmodernity • Early Planning Practitioners • Housing Reform • Responding to Social Needs, challenges of planning practice. • Common sense

21. Between Modernity & Postmodernity • The Emergence of Planning Theory • Post WWII, University of Chicago • Shift away from “learning by doing” • Less Problem Solving, more textbooks • Schools train “teachers” & not “planners” • Emergence of abstract “theorizing” distanced from demands of practitioners.

22. Between Modernity & Postmodernity • The Dominant Theoretical Planning Paradigm: Comprehensive / Rational Model of Problem Solving • Scientific & Objective Logic • European rationalism / American Pragmatism • Sense of “detachment” and unaffected objectivity • Unpolitical • Transportation infrastructure / circulation of commodities • Rise of Middle Class “all enjoy the good life”

23. Between Modernity & Postmodernity • Modernist Planning Besieged • Question the unpolitical “objectivity” of Planners • Mixing of Economic and Political interests • Planners less involved in “master planning” • Now “public – private partnerships” • Planners cannot conduct business outside the realm of public scrutiny & debate.

24. Between Modernity & Postmodernity • Overall, planning theory remains rooted within internal intellectualizing and detached from the real social context of planning practice. While practice has lost its "neutral" meditative position, planning theory remains rooted in critical detachment.

25. Between Modernity & Postmodernity • Three suggestions from Beauregard to reconstruct planning theory to accept the reality of postmodernism while maintaining a basic modernist sensibility and approach to problem solving:

26. Between Modernity & Postmodernity • (1) Planners must reevaluate how they view and understand the built environment, comprehending how city building is linked to political, economic and cultural phenomena. • (2) Planners must abandon "apolitical" detachment and become more involved within the communities they represent, specifically acting as a countervailing power to "capital". • (3) Open the theoretical paradigm to multiculturalism, accepting different methods of approaching and understanding urban society and the built environment.

27. Planning Theory’s Emerging Paradigm: Communicative Action and Interactive PracticeJudith Innes • New planning theorists are emerging. • See planning as an interactive, communicative activity and depict planners as deeply embedded in the fabric of community, politics, and public decision-making. • They document what planners do and reflect critically on that practice. • Different than “systematic” planning theory – studying impacts and planning at the incremental level.

28. Planning Theory’s Emerging Paradigm: Communicative Action and Interactive Practice • Communicative Action Theorists • Address planning issues differently than “systematic” or instrumental rationality theorists. • By simple numbers, the planning theory base is changing – which changes the type of communication that takes place – evolution.

29. Planning Theory’s Emerging Paradigm: Communicative Action and Interactive Practice • Systematic Theorists • Seldom reported first hand experience. • Based much of it’s focus on tacit assumption. • Not part of politics • Were tired of in uncertainty and could never tie down a solution as problems evolved or changed.

30. Planning Theory’s Emerging Paradigm: Communicative Action and Interactive Practice • Communicative Action Theorists • Find out what planners do – there is no “tacit” impression. • See planners as actors rather than observers and experts. • Rely on qualitative interpretive inquiry rather than logical deductive analysis.

31. Planning Theory’s Emerging Paradigm: Communicative Action and Interactive Practice • The Study of Practice • Information that influences is information that is socially constructed in the community where it is used. • Learning, deciding and acting may not be distinguished in successful community development. • This is not to say that what becomes “common” in practice is always correct. Continued analysis is required of what may be considered “common knowledge” information.

32. Planning Theory’s Emerging Paradigm: Communicative Action and Interactive Practice • Building the Framework • Accepting instrumental rationality and the scientific method, but focus attention on critical “pathways of knowing” that are designed to get past the embedded power relations in a society. • Pathways of knowing are found in self reflection, discourse, and praxis.

33. Planning Theory’s Emerging Paradigm: Communicative Action and Interactive Practice • Further Direction • Institutional design - cannot be followed – new pathways of thought and practice are being created. • Ethics – change with the institutions that implement them. This goes beyond professional ethics and encompasses substantive and procedural ethics.

34. Advocacy & Pluralism in PlanningPaul Davidoff 1965 • The prospect for future planning is that of a practice openly inviting political and social values to be examined and debated. • Appropriate planning cannot be prescribed from a position of value neutrality, for prescriptions are based on desired objectives.

35. Advocacy & Pluralism in Planning • Planners must and should engage in the political process as advocates of the interests both of government and of such other groups, organizations or individuals who are concerned with proposing policies for the future development of the community.

36. Advocacy & Pluralism in Planning • The welfare of all and the welfare of minorities are both deserving of support: planning must be so structured and so practiced as to account for this unavoidable bifurcation of the public interest. • The idealized political process serves the search for truth in much the same manner as due process in law.

37. Advocacy & Pluralism in Planning • The advocacy of alternative plans improves planning by: • 1) serving as a means of better informing the public of the alternative choices open. • 2) forcing the public agency to compete with other planning groups to wing political support. • 3) forcing those who are critical of the “establishment” plans to produce superior plans.

38. Advocacy & Pluralism in Planning • Planner as Advocate • Acts as the “devil’s advocate” to the client, but for the purpose of finding creative solutions. • Find techniques for evaluating alternative plans. • Be a researcher and educator about the pertinent issues. • Be a voice for the client. • Shepard the client through the planning process.

39. Advocacy & Pluralism in Planning • The Structure of Planning • Citizen participation are more often reacting to agency programs than proposing their concepts of appropriate goals and future action. • Political Organizations, special interest groups and ad-hoc protest associations don’t propose plans – but react to them. • Creation of plans will only likely be initiated at the neighborhood level.

40. Advocacy & Pluralism in Planning • The Public Planning Agency • Effective, democratic planning is hindered by the Planning Commission • The PC: • is not responsible to any contingency, • is not “professional planners”, • reduces the possibility of enlightened political debate, • is yet another board that distances itself from community by focusing on land-use planning rather than embodying social, economic and political value alternatives to develop a community.

41. Advocacy & Pluralism in Planning • An Inclusive Definition • City planning is not just organizing the “built” environment. Types of building take on value by those who use it, not by the structure itself. • As such, planners have been blamed for perpetuating social and economic problems through either not addressing them or addressing them inappropriately.

42. Advocacy & Pluralism in Planning • Solutions (by Davidoff) include: • Legislation should be amended to permit planning department to study and to prepare plans related to any are of public concern. • Planning education must be redirected so as to provide channels of specialization in different parts of public planning and a core focused upon the planning process. • Professional planning should enlarge its scope so as not to exclude city planners not specializing in physical planning.