Jane Jacobs: Some Myths About Diversity

I cobbled this post out of common objections that Jane Jacobs refuted. It's not really a complete post, but since I haven't worked on it for a while, I'm just going to post it.

Mixed Uses Look Ugly

Sameness looks monotonous, which, though orderly, is dull. She claims that there is still a desire among homogenous uses to appear different, and that it can manifest itself in weird contrived features. So homogenous uses are either depressingly monotonous or "vulgarly chaotic." Admittedly I find this difficult to defend from either side, but I think her point is that mixed uses are not inherently ugly, and that homogenous uses are not inherently beautiful.


Mixed Uses Cause Traffic Congestion

"Traffic Congestion is caused by vehicles, not by people in themselves." 

I could just say, "Look at Peru's strip," where single uses cause traffic congestion. Nobody can really get there, except by car (I've walked it a few times, but it is not fun). The old downtowns are easily reachable by foot or bike. Homogenous uses create a need for automobiles by increasing the distance to go in order to reach other uses. Human lives are so entwined between uses that their physical separation does not make sense. Trips would be shorter with mixed uses. People might even be able to walk. Walking takes up much less space than driving. It would take far more pedestrians to create the perceived amount of vehicular traffic that exists now.

Mixed Uses Invite Ruinious Uses

"Successful city districts are never dotted with junk yards, but that is not why these districts are successful. It is the other way around. They lack junk yards because they are successful."

Ruinous uses are often space-consuming, low economic uses. Vital city districts raise property values and cultivate more profitable, space intensive uses. As far as smoky manufacturing goes, the "air doesn't know about zoning boundaries." Zoning is not a good way to combat pollution, there are other, much more effective tools for that. She concludes that few legal uses "can harm a city district as much as the lack of diversity harms it."

However she does mention a few uses that are harmful: parking lots, trucking depots, gas stations, and other enterprises that, on certain streets, have the wrong scale. The first few are easy to understand, they contort space and disorganize streets, because they are so visually dominating.

I think a lot of her objections have to do with rules being made for situations where rules don't quite belong. Somebody's idea of a good idea was codified and applied to an entire municipality and it should just have been a guideline or a good idea for those that want it to take it and those that don't to leave it.  Why have a standardized environment? It would be boring.

The Castle and Moat Model

Downtown development was originally dense. Buildings touched! The buildings that did not touch were arrange in such a way that they occurred regularly. These patterns made up the urban fabric.There was always something new to discover within a few paces.

In the 40's, parking lots started to catch on. Downtowns found it easy to purchase single family dwellings around the downtown and convert them to parking lots. This created an interesting pattern.

The fabric of the residential area is well and pleasant. People like walking through most residential areas. The downtown is relatively well and pleasant. It is not too bad walking through most downtowns (local downtowns anyways).  However walking from the residential fabric to the commercial fabric is no longer pleasant. There is a moat; a moat of uninteresting, hostile parking space. If I wanted to walk from Shooting Park Road to downtown Peru, I'd have to cross the parking lots to the north of the downtown. Pavement is usually uninteresting. It does not have a level of complexity that most humans can appreciate. Parking Lots, Driveways, Gas Stations, parking structures, blank facades, even just empty lots hold very little attraction for most.

The real problem is that no effort is made to improve the walking experience around these detriments. Sidewalks that surround these paved or unimproved surfaces are often left exposed. They are exposed to the sun, to traffic, to poor views. They need improving.

The following illustration is Peru's downtown. I (using remote sensing) determined that these streets are facing lots or structures, which are undesirable to walk past (possibly even drive past, come to think of it). 

Peru's downtown is ringed with a moat of sidewalks that people feel unease at using. Why not just stick to the residential area where there is shade and buffers from traffic? The only tolerably attractive stroll downtown would be from the Southwest. I wonder if there is any anecdotal evidence to support pedestrian traffic from the southwest... I know in my own dealing with Peru's downtown, I walk through Peru's residential fabric as far as I can go to the destination I have in mind and then penetrate the moat using the shortest perceived distance possible. Then I grab my goods and go. I don't linger or stay. It is not pleasant.

I started thinking about this the other day at a concert on Maud Powell Plaza. This really is not a bad plaza, but it seems underutilized. What about a pedestrian corridor on Putnam Street healing the divide between the North and the South (the Northeast's relations with the Southwest are probably unhealable, haha)?

To fix this, I would think the ideal solution would be to surround Putnam in structures--small, mixed use, very interesting structures. However, I'm sure capital restraints would make that a more long term goal. Temporary band-aids might include putting shade over the side walks, constructing walls using interesting materials, patterns, plantings, and artwork to shield less attractive views, placing repetitive objects such as trees or lampposts or planters on both sides of the sidewalk so that the pedestrian feels sheltered. Putting in benches, informal seating, or leaving space for food stands or spaces for events might even encourage some to visit these places to stay!

I hope to post again with a more detailed model.