“City officials today prate about ‘bringing back the middle class,’ as if nobody were in the middle class until they had left the city and acquired a ranch house and a barbecue and thereby become precious. To be sure, cities are losing their middle class populations. However, cities need not ‘bring back’ a middle class, and carefully protect it like an artificial growth. Cities grow the middle class. But to keep it as it grows, to keep it as a stabilizing force in the form of a self-diversified population, means considering the city’s people valuable and worth retaining, right where they are, before they become middle class.”
— Jane Jacobs, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” 1961
I am an avid reader, and as I have delved into the topics of urban planning and urbanism in general I have begun to understand the nuances that go into the functioning of cities. This eventually led me to Jane Jacobs, who describes how cities operate in a very human way, focusing on how people interact and shape their cities. Nearly every urbanism author I have read recommended “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” I found it informative and readable; despite being written over 60 years ago, the book is still relevant today.
Jane Jacobs, author and urban activist, was born and raised as Jane Butzner in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She moved to New York City in 1935, at age 19, with her sister, Betty, and studied at Columbia’s School of General Studies for two years, where she took a variety of classes but ultimately did not graduate. She worked at newspapers and magazines as an editor, writer and secretary, and eventually started with the magazine Iron Age, where she would write a well-received article on the economic decline in her hometown. She then moved on to become a reporter for Amerika, a U.S. State Department publication in Russian.
She met her future husband, Robert Hyde Jacobs Jr., at the publication and with him purchased a three-story building in Greenwich Village, the Manhattan neighborhood on which she would base many of her remarks about cities. Only a couple of decades prior, the neighborhood had been marked for clearing and redesign by Robert Moses, commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, for his Lower Manhattan Expressway. Fortunately, Jane Jacobs and the neighborhood rebelled against the redesigns for Greenwich Village, which has since proven — both in the 1960s as well as today — to be one of the liveliest neighborhoods in Manhattan.
One of Jacobs’ most notable articles was published in 1958 in Fortune magazine. Titled “Downtown Is for the People,” it was her first public criticism of Robert Moses and urban renewal in general.
The article brought Jacobs to the attention of Chadbourne Gilpatric, an associate director at the Rockefeller Foundation, and he encouraged her to work on a project exploring urban design and how to improve thinking around urban life. The Rockefeller Foundation awarded Jacobs a grant, and three years later Random House published her first book, “The Life and Death of Great American Cities.”
Back in 1961, the planning field was mainly influenced by the City Beautiful movement; Garden City, Robert Moses, Radiant City and other city design revolutions. Many of these philosophies sought to design cities to be less dense and to consider form over function. Oftentimes planners would eradicate large swaths of cities in order to build these utopias. This played out in Jacobs’ conflict with Robert Moses, whose city design ideas consisted of “solving” city problems with highways and grand-scaled building projects in an effort toward urban renewal.
Jacobs cited several examples of neighborhoods that were selected for clearing because planners thought of them as slums, often because they were dense and composed of lower-income people. One example involved a Boston city planner, who spoke of the city’s North End neighborhood — composed primarily of immigrants at the time — as having “the lowest death rate in the city, the lowest delinquency rate, the lowest tuberculosis rate and the highest density in the city.” He then said that the North End was a slum and must go, due solely to its density and poor reputation. His rhetoric demonstrates the backward thinking that prevailed in urban planning at the time, when a clearly thriving neighborhood “needed” to be cleared due to its density and diversity.
To combat the conventional city-building wisdom of the time, Jane Jacobs responded with a book that described the fundamental way that cities function the principles behind how to design a city to be lively and thriving. The lessons that she shared, despite objecting to mistakes being made in the 1950s and ’60s, are (for the most part) timeless, and can be applied to challenges faced in the Twin Cities today.
Sidewalks and Sidewalk Life
Jacobs begins her book by discussing sidewalks, the basic human-centered infrastructure of our cities. Through their use (or disuse) we can gain vital information about the economic vitality of our cities. Sidewalks with a lot of users are inherently safer than ones left unused, because more people mitigates the influence that any one person can have. More eyes on the street also potentially lessen rowdy or disruptive behavior. Busier sidewalks are generally found in mixed-use neighborhoods where people both live and work, and are walking at different times of the day. Walking builds community and the opportunity for chance connections that humanize others and help us recognize our shared interests.
In Minneapolis, this was evident for anyone in Downtown during the Promenade du Nord event from June 27-30, which filled Nicollet Mall with street vendors, a stage and other events. This brought people into the street. They chatted with the vendors and learned about their businesses. The street felt alive, a pleasurable change from how sterile it can sometimes be.
The biggest difference I noticed was at Peavey Plaza, in front of Orchestra Hall, which often feels underused. However, during Promenade du Nord, the plaza was filled with people. Children played in the water and ran around. When parents feel comfortable letting their kids run loose, you know there’s an innate sense of safety.
Sidewalks that are well used at all times, beyond just events, show a successful street. Think of Selby Avenue west of Downtown St. Paul or Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis. On Eat Street, in particular, people travel at all times of the day — sometimes to work, other times to a restaurant. This travel and foot traffic shows life in a city and is a way to measure the success of our streets.
Parks
Jane Jacobs proceeds to note that, like busy streets, lively neighborhood parks can help ensure safety. Parks in a mixed-use neighborhood — think of Boom Island Park in Minneapolis or Frogtown Park and Farm in St. Paul — will have more people using the green space at different hours of the day and night compared with a park near only offices. Secondly, parks need a central attraction, something to draw people in. This can be a central fountain or areas to host sports and concerts. Additionally, parks should strive for visual and functional diversity to remain interesting and appealing to those using the park.
Loring Park, the park I know best, frequently has art festivals and other events that bring people in. Because of the dense population surrounding the park, it is used at almost all hours. When there are no events the park is still used at nearly all times of the day, some people passing through to go to Minneapolis College (MCTC), some to eat at restaurants nearby, others just taking a stroll. Our Twin Cities parks consistently rate among the best in the nation, with Minneapolis and St. Paul being ranked number 2 and 3, respectively, by the Trust for Public Land; last year, those positions were reversed.
The Importance of Diversity
Even 60-some years ago, Jacobs — still revered by urbanists and city planners — knew that an abundant, eclectic mix of people helped cities thrive. This is, in my opinion, the central theme of the book. Diversity in a city is critical to the success of the city. The city needs a diverse mix in order to truly benefit from all of the advantages of a city. Diversity brings entrepreneurs who can create new and unique places and shops, and brings unique people to frequent them. Diversity brings leaders who are able to organize and get organizations moving around a cause, while also providing people to push back if it strays too far off base. Diversity also provides businesses with a more differentiated pool of workers to draw from, providing greater opportunities to find in-demand skills. Attractive and diverse cities, and walkable areas in general, attract educated highly skilled workers, and this can pull businesses in, further increasing the attractiveness of the area.
This also benefits cities’ bottom lines as well: more businesses bring in more taxes and can support office spaces and other nonresidential uses, increasing the number of functions that a neighborhood can provide. The same can be said for highly skilled workers who tend to get paid higher salaries; the more of them in your city, the more people there are helping to pay taxes and cover the cost of public services.
This diversity can be seen in areas such as the North Loop, near Main Street in Minneapolis and in Cathedral Hill in St. Paul, where an abundance of various businesses fit into a small area of the city. These areas are filled with life and vitality, pedestrians are out walking about, and the area is alive for the majority of the day.
Generators of Diversity and Vitality
Here is the essential question: how do we create these neighborhoods with diversity and vitality? Jane Jacobs sums it up in 4 requirements that must be met.
- The district (neighborhood) itself must serve more than one primary function.
- Most blocks must be short with frequent corners and streets to turn on.
- The district must have a variety of building ages that blend together seamlessly.
- The district must be dense in order to support enough economic activity.
Starting with number one, mixing neighborhood uses brings different people into the neighborhood and onto the street at different times. That also allows businesses to thrive. This adds to the resiliency of the neighborhood, as a downturn in one sector (say, office work or a manufacturing plant closure) will affect a mixed-use neighborhood less than a single-use neighborhood. Mixed uses can come from residential, office, manufacturing, entertainment, etc. The time of day during which each function is active should be mixed to ensure people are on the streets throughout the day.
The obvious example in the Twin Cities is our downtown areas, both of which have no shortage of problems. In Minneapolis, Nicollet Mall is designated almost solely for office use and the same can be said about most of St. Paul’s downtown, specifically around Robert Street. This sole use has hurt them tremendously. Bringing in other uses into the district, such as residential uses, will greatly diversify and revitalize our downtowns. We can see this already in Downtown East, Northloop, and along Fort Road near the Xcel Center, which have more residential and event uses and have fared far better in terms of streetlife than the office-orientated areas
There are other examples as well. South Loop in Bloomington is already a prime commercial area, but could use an increase in residential use to complement it. Many Minneapolis neighborhoods are almost entirely residential, for example North, Powderhorn, Southwest and others that could use an increase in office or other work-related uses. This should, of course, be done on a small scale, such as at the corners of blocks and with buildings to fit the neighborhood, but this would give residents closer work options and allow them to walk more.
Secondly, Jacobs notes that smaller block sizes with more frequent streets and corners make for more interesting and walkable neighborhoods. The length between streets should optimally be around 400 feet. Given sufficient corners, people can take different paths to get where they are going, which offers them more space to walk. Businesses perform best on corners, and having more businesses on corners results in more economically vibrant neighborhoods. This also makes it critical to allow businesses to pop up on the corners that do exist. Both Minneapolis and St. Paul do well in this regard, for the most part. They were built during the streetcar era and primarily on a grid, which offers enough streets and corners to let people take multiple routes while walking to their destination.
Where the Twin Cities fail at having proper block sizing and connections is in regards to our highways. Interstates zig and zag throughout the metro, causing long stretches of streets that are unconnected and without corners. This can be seen along the edges of Elliot Park and Ventura Village, where I-94 and I-35W have cut off all streets that aren’t major corridors. This is one of the huge advantages that removing interstates can provide, letting us reconnect the street grid and reestablish the corners and blocks that are essential to street life.
Thirdly, she notes that successful neighborhoods need a mixture in the age of the buildings. They need some new buildings, some well-kept old buildings, and a lot of old buildings that might be less well-kept. The latter decrease the cost that a tenant will pay in rent, as they are not compensating for the construction, and thus allow new residents or nascent businesses to make their start. These could be startups, less profitable but desirable businesses such as bookstores or ethnic restaurants, or cultural institutions such as art studios.
To be sure, a healthy amount of construction helps keep a neighborhood alive, but not to the extent where it pushes all of the tenants out. This issue has been seen in Uptown, where too much new construction happened all at once, forcing rents up for both residents and businesses.
Lastly, she describes how a neighborhood needs sufficient density of people, both residents and visitors or customers, to thrive economically. More businesses and other enterprises bring more people to the streets, livening up the neighborhood. Neighborhoods dense in residences still need to have other primary uses in order to function optimally, but neighborhood density makes it much easier for enterprises to start, especially if the other three conditions are present. One distinction: Density of people living in an area and density of people per household/room are distinctly different. A higher density of people per acre is heavily desired, whereas the ratio of people per bedroom is optimized around one person per bedroom.
The Twin Cities have a huge opportunity to increase their population density. Currently Minneapolis has a density of roughly 8,000 people per square mile and St. Paul has roughly 6,000 per square mile. This compares with:
- Seattle (9,000)
- Chicago and Philadelphia (12,000)
- Boston (14,000).
Minneapolis and St. Paul have made strides to increase their density. Both have removed parking minimums for new construction, and Minneapolis has finally been allowed to reinstate its 2040 Comprehensive Plan, which will upzone much of the city. St. Paul has also worked to get rid of single-family zoning, allowing denser construction throughout the city. To both decrease or maintain rents and to increase density, we need to increase the supply of housing. This will take time, but policies like the 2040 plan, upzoning and incentivizing small local developers will pay dividends in the long run.
Cars and Their Influence
Jacobs acknowledges that cars are not inherently bad for cities, but can create problems through “induced demand.” As people switch to cars, they demand parking at their destinations. This parking requires more streets, which causes more people to drive. This becomes a vicious cycle in which more people opt for driving, and more of our cities become built to accommodate cars. This eventually results in a city that is easy to drive to, but due to all of the space devoted to streets and parking, there ceases to be a reason to go. Prioritizing cars also hampers public transit, since the declines in public transit usage are greater than the increases in car usage. As such, prioritizing cars by any measure hurts public transit and puts more cars on the road.
One way to naturally reduce car use is through attrition, in which the use of cars is made more difficult and people opt not to use them. This can be done as long as there is enough demand for people to go to a destination that they will go no matter what; then simply making it more difficult for them to use cars will increase the number of people who walk, use transit or other active transportation methods. Another way is to widen sidewalks and put trees, sidewalk cafes or other amenities to enhance the pedestrian experience while reducing road space. TDrivers will then slow down and pay more attention to the road, improving the safety and comfort of the pedestrian and increasing the liveliness of the street.
In Minneapolis, increasing the number of separated bike lanes can ease people into opting for a different form of transportation. An excellent example is on Bryant Avenue in South Minneapolis, and a similar conversion could be made on Lyndale Avenue and any other streets that are up for reconstruction. Other streets that already have bike lanes but are not separated should be in the waiting line to receive separated bike lanes. Some examples include LaSalle/Blaisdell Avenues and University/4th Streets, among others. Biking and walking need to be prioritized and made as easy as car travel.
Additionally, the playing field needs to be leveled for transit and cars. A bus or train transporting dozens of people is often stuck on a red light waiting for cars carrying one or two people. Buses and trains need to be given signal priority in order to increase their attractiveness and get more people using them. There also needs to be more dedicated bus lanes to increase bus speeds, and the bus lanes we do have need to be permanently bus-only. Looking at you, Hennepin Avenue.
Cars are not inherently bad, but they are consistently given the highest priority in our cities despite being space-inefficient forms of transportation. This needs to change if we wish to design livable, walkable and lively cities.
Closing remarks
Jane Jacob’s closes her book with thought-provoking remarks:
She states that streets need to be interesting visually to attract liveliness, but at the same time not too chaotic. Emptiness kills visual interest. We as humans like to feel enclosed. This is one of the dangers of having surface parking, or any emptiness, on the corner of a street. Corners are often the most used and liveliest areas of a street, but placing emptiness near them will dilute the vitality of the corner. Incentivizing development on surface parking lots, and on any empty lot, is a quick way to solve the issue of emptiness.
The problem of cities is not simple, with one ratio determining another; nor can it be thought of as a disorderly complex problem where we ignore the details and look at the statistical averages. Instead it is a problem of many variables that influence one another, and all must be examined and thought of within those relationships. Cities are complex, changing variables affects other variables, and we have to be aware of what these potential changes can be.
Once we begin to understand more about the relationships that make up a city, we can better understand the problem and the solution. We can begin to comprehend how to adjust and improve the relationships and to benefit from the interconnectedness.
Jane Jacobs wrote in a timeless fashion about the inner workings of cities. I highly recommend reading “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” if you wish to dive into the complexities and oddities of how cities work. I can almost guarantee you will enjoy it.