That the sight of people attracts still other people, is something that city planners and city architectural designers seem to find incomprehensible. They operate on the premise that city people seek the sight of emptiness, obvious order and quiet. Nothing could be less true.
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) American-Canadian journalist, author, urban theorist, activist
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Part 1, ch. 2 (1961)
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Quotations about:
urban planning
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To approach a city, or even a city neighborhood, as if it were a larger architectural problem, capable of being given order by converting it into a disciplined work of art, is to make the mistake of attempting to substitute art for life.
The results of such profound confusion between art and life are neither life nor art. They are taxidermy. In its place, taxidermy can be a useful and decent craft. However, it goes too far when the specimens put on display are exhibitions of dead, stuffed cities.Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) American-Canadian journalist, author, urban theorist, activist
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Part 4, ch. 19 (1961)
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There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served.
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) American-Canadian journalist, author, urban theorist, activist
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Introduction (1961)
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On urban planning that disregards actual needs for gratuitous features that please outside observers.
Cities are an immense laboratory of trial and error, failure and success, in city building and city design.
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) American-Canadian journalist, author, urban theorist, activist
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Introduction (1961)
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Designing a dream city is easy; rebuilding a living one takes imagination.
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) American-Canadian journalist, author, urban theorist, activist
“Downtown Is for People,” Fortune (1958-04)
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Closing words of the essay.
Originally reprinted in the magazine's topical collection, The Exploding Metropolis (1958). Later collected in Samuel Zipp and Nathan Storring, eds., Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs (2016).