Jane Jacobs. "The Death and Life of Great American Cities"....Summary for chapters 6 & 7

In this chapter Jane Jacob points out the importance of neighborhoods and its role in a city. She states that “ultimately our failed city neighborhoods are due to failed localized self-government.”

Before I write about my ideas about Jacobs’s observation I want to express my thoughts about neighborhoods.

Neighborhoods are very essential to people’s lives. Usually communities are formed in neighborhoods thus residents will share the same experience in the quality of their life such as jobs, schools, businesses and etc. Also if a crime takes place people in that community will be affected by it.

In this chapter Jacobs believes that there are three types of neighborhoods which are important for self-government. City as a whole, street neighborhoods, districts around 10,000 people.

She argues that districts should be between streets and the city in order to have safer community while bringing communities together.

The ideal neighborhood that I have seen which also falls into Jacobs category is city of Houten in the Netherlands. The neighborhoods are built in the way that they are interconnected while they are separated from each other. The connection comes through bicycle paths and also pedestrian paths. This connection allows residents in different neighborhoods to interact more with each other thus leading to an active community.

In the United States I have only lived in Portland for a few years and I have seen a few neighborhoods that falls into Jacobs’s category such as Pearl District.

Unfortunately neighborhoods from where I came from looks very different from Ideal neighborhoods mentioned above. Usually comminutes does not exist in neighborhoods and every decision is made by the government. The result is that there are not many interactions between neighborhoods and residents. One of the examples that I experienced in my visit to Iran was that there was new signal placed at the entry of a highway just a block from my house. Because of the queue that was made due to the installation of that signal cars were taking a shortcut through my street. That just turned a quiet and clean street to a dirty, noisy and dangerous street. Since there is no community, every neighbor had to sign a letter asking for a change on that matter. Off course nothing changed and everything got worst. That’s when localized self-government is really needed to assure the safety and comfort of communities.

In chapter 7 Jacobs suggests conditions for city diversity that will lead to a lively city. She states that districts must serve more than one primary function so that people could use common facilities at different times. Second point, she mentioned that blocks should be short in order to increase social activities and interaction between people. Her third argument was about buildings and their ages. She stated that buildings should vary in their age in order to accommodate different people and business based on the affordability. Her last argument is that there should be a dense concentration of people in order to have a lively city.

I agree with her. Again a good example would be Iran. It’s been a trend for many years that areas with new buildings and fancy businesses should be located where reach people lives and in contrast the old buildings and business should be located where poor people lives. That’s the main reason there is a huge difference between the levels of people. When there is great amount of difference between people’s levels in a city it will lead to more crimes and unsafe community. Diversity plays an important role for communities to interact with each other and learn about different cultures and life styles in order to adopt a safe and great city.

Thoughts about The New York Times article. "Across Europe, Irking Drivers Is Urban Policy"

This blog covers my thoughts about a recent article “Across Europe, Irking Drivers Is Urban Policy” from “The New York Times”.

For many decades having a cleaner air and having less traffic in cities has been a challenging problem for government officials, engineers and city planners.

It’s known that one of the important facts in having cleaner air is to have less motorized vehicles in the street since motorized vehicles produces emissions.

According to U.S Environmental Protection Agency, “Transportation sources emit greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. In 2008, transportation sources contributed approximately 27 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Transportation is also the fastest-growing source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 47 percent of the net increase in total U.S. emissions since 1990, and is the largest end-use source of C02, which is the most prevalent greenhouse gas”.

Now let’s thinks about this as an equation:

Motorized vehicles produce emissions, traffic increases motorized vehicles, emission increases and finally emission is bad for health! So what is the solution?

Well, it’s simple. The usage of motorized vehicles should decrease. I know it’s easy to say this fact but it’s very challenging to adopt this in the major cities of the world.  

In order to solve this equation highly education is needed. People from young age should know that cars produce emissions and its going to be bad for their health thus they should learn the alternatives instead of using cars. This is like teaching a kid the basics of math before they start middle school. If a 12 year old does not know the basics then how can they solve an equation! I learned that in the Netherlands 4^th graders have a course for bicycle riding and they will get certified at the end of the term. They learn all about the benefits of bicycle riding as well as the harmful cause of vehicles.

I remember when I was a kid all I could think of was learning how to drive a car. I learned how to drive when I was 9. Nobody ever told me that driving a car will produce emissions and it’s bad for health. It was one of my happiest days when my father bought me a car. And I used to travel with it for even a 500 meter distance.

Now let’s look at my country, Iran and its air quality problems. Iran is ranked 8^th in the world as producing emissions and it produces 538,404 metric tons of CO2 emissions per year! That is a lot! 

Below you can see two simple pictuers of traffic in Iran which is not only in rush hours. It continues from early morning to 10 pm.

WOW!

I just came back from a visit to Iran and the moment I stepped out of the plain I could feel that breathing is not normal there. I read an article that stated, “If you sit down and breathe from near a car exhaust, it’s cleaner than the air in the city that people breathe”!

Going back to the article, it seems that Europe is doing a great job reducing traffic. For example, drivers should pay expensive congestion charges while entering the heart of the city in London and Stockholm. That is a great idea. If I know that my car expenses is much more than a train ride in order to get to the city then I would use the train.

Another example from the article was from Zurich’s busiest squares which it seems that cars are banned on many blocks which will lead to a cleaner air and less traffic in the city.

Recently in Iran they started a strategy which is called “even and odd”. The strategy was cars with an odd number at the end of their license plate could only travel in the odd days of the week and vice versa for even numbers. The only free day was holiday which is Friday in Iran. It worked at the beginning but that strategy did not continue to work since the amount of cars were increasing day by day.

Having said all these facts I should point that the Irking drivers should be a policy however in order to do that great facilities are needed such as a good public transportation system and also a good bicycle facility. If these facilities are available for people I am sure we would see the shift towards using less personal cars and having a cleaner environment.

Jane Jacobs. "The Death and Life of Great American Cities"....Summary for chapter 4

The main point that Jacobs argues in this chapter is comparing safety of children in parks and playgrounds versus city sidewalks. She argues that parks and play grounds are dangerous environment for children to play and instead they should play on city sidewalks so in case of an emergency they can reach for help.

Personally I disagree with her on this matter. I think city sidewalks most of the time are more dangerous than parks and play grounds. Let’s consider this question. How big should a side walk be in order to be safe for children and have a pleasant environment for them? Well it should be big enough so they could have the space for running and being active as they could be in a park or playground. I don’t think there are a lot of these kinds of sidewalks around the globe.

In parks or playgrounds there is no need to be worried about cars. That is a very important matter. City sidewalks are surrounded by cars, busses, bikes and even trucks and history has shown many fatal accidents which involved a child playing on street or running for their ball.

Jacobs mentioned a gang battle in 1959 which led to the death of a 15 year old girl. This battle happened in a park in New York. I admit that parks are often a place for crimes and drug dealing and etc. I was a victim of this act about 15 years ago when I was 13. I was coming back from a soccer play and I decided to take a shortcut through the park which I got rubbed and got threaten with a knife. From that day I never went to that park again. My point is that if we are worried and concerned about the safety of our children we should have the right facilities for them. A good example is city of Houten in Holland. Play grounds and basketball courts and soccer fields were all surrounded by houses which created a very pleasant environment for children’s to play without being scared or worried about their safety.

Children’s need space in order to play and have fun. Sidewalks will not satisfy their need. City sidewalks should be a nice environment for people to walk shop and sit down at a restaurant and enjoy their day.