The Death and Life of Great American Cities

This chapter focuses on a second force that impacts the diversity and vitality of cities: massive single elements. The main problem with massive single elements, such as college campuses and hospitals, is their border zones, which separate the elements from the rest of the city. Massive single elements create vacuums in the areas immediately next to their borders, forming terminuses of general use.

Train tracks are classic examples of deadened borders. Tracks divide districts that often diverge socio-economically. However, it is the areas immediately adjacent to the tracks on both sides are that are the most disadvantaged. Lively growth is possible at a distance from train tracks, but not in their immediate vicinity. These decaying, low value areas stretch on, interrupted only by buildings that make direct, practical use of the tracks. Noise and soot only partially explain the blight lining rail lines. As Jacobs points out, similar decay appears along the edges of college campuses, civic centers, oversized parks, and other massive single elements that are not “inherently noisy, dirty or disagreeable environments” (258). This contradicts orthodox planning and land-use theory, which holds that cleanliness and quiet lead to economic and social success.

The most successful urban neighborhoods are rarely in areas immediately adjoining massive single use elements. The problem with these areas is that they form dead ends for people using streets. In other words, they function as barriers. Thus, the streets adjoining massive single elements get relatively little use. As a consequence, the adjoining areas also get less use. The vacuum of use immediately adjoining massive single elements “feeds upon itself” (259). As Jacobs observes, these zones are problematic because “literal and continuous mingling of people, present because of different purposes, is the only device that keeps streets safe. It is the only device that cultivates secondary diversity. It is the only device that encourages districts to form in places of fragmented, self-isolated neighborhoods or backwaters” (260).

Jacobs describes two types of land. The first is general land, which is used freely by pedestrians. The second is special land, which is not typically used as a pedestrian thoroughfare. Special land can be public or private. Some special lands are accessible, others are not. The defining characteristic of special lands is that “people walk around them” (262). Both general land and special land contribute to circulation, but in different ways. Special lands tend to produce a vacuum in the areas near general lands, thereby dividing the city. The carving up of the city is always harmful. Understanding these drawbacks, however, can help stop the creation of unnecessary borders.

Cities need massive single uses, but they come at a cost. Good planning can mitigate their detrimental impact by turning borders into seams. Large parks, for example, should have special uses along their edges, such as chess and checker pavilions or ice-skating rinks, in order to connect the borders to the surrounding area. College campuses should incorporate public uses at their borders. Encouraging high density in areas bordering massive single elements can also combat vacuums.

This chapter focuses on a third force that impacts the diversity and vitality of cities: population instability. Jacobs centers the discussion on slums and slum dwellers. She notes that “slums operate as vicious circles” (270) that have a broad impact on cities.

Most policies pertaining to slums fail because they simply replace one type of slum (unplanned) with another (planned housing projects). The policy makers are paternalistic. They refuse to see slum dwellers as “people capable of understanding and acting upon their own self-interest” (271). Moreover, they impose changes without discerning, respecting, and building upon the “forces for regeneration that exist in slums themselves, and that demonstrably work in real cities” (271).

Population instability is the primary reason slums remain slums. People filter in and out of slums too quickly. Indeed, slums are such undesirable places that upwardly mobile slum dwellers move out of them as soon as they can. Unslumming a slum hinges on the retention of large parts of the slum population. This is only possible if slum dwellers deem their homes and neighborhoods desirable.

Housing projects simply shift slums from one place to another. People are relocated to new neighborhoods, causing social rifts. Forcibly uprooting slum dwellers breeds loneliness and insecurity. As Jacobs notes, “neither slum shifting nor slum immuring breaks that key link in the perpetuation of slums-the tendency (or necessity) for too many people to leave too fast” (278).

Jacobs uses the term “perpetual slums” to describe slums that do not improve socially or economically over time, or that regress after some improvements. The key to unslumming is to introduce the conditions for generating diversity, such as creating sidewalk safety and a vibrant public life. Unslumming makes slum dwellers want to stay, even when they have the choice to leave. The choice hinges on personal attachments, as well as physical factors. Important changes occur when sufficient people remain in slums by choice, including an increase in competence, a decrease in provincialism, and self-diversification within the population, which is most notable in the areas of finance and education. Self-diversification of the population goes hand-in-hand with the diversification of commercial and cultural enterprises. New, diverse enterprises that fill people’s needs increase the desirability of slums. Unslumming not only makes dwellers want to stay in their neighborhoods, it also makes it practical for them to do so.

Jacobs touches on the economics of unslumming. Although unslumming itself is not lucrative (perpetual slums and high-rent areas generate more revenue), the process depends on a strong metropolitan economy that transforms the poor into the middle class. Jacobs concludes the chapter with a discussion of race and racial discrimination. She notes that black slums “cannot effectively unslum in the fashion demonstrated by slums formed by other ethnic populations and mixtures” (284) because black slums do not hold on to their upwardly mobile dwellers.

This chapter focuses on a fourth force that impacts the diversity and vitality of cities: money. Money is “a powerful force both for city decline and city regeneration” (292). It does not guarantee that a city will be successful. The conditions for inherent success must either be in place or supplied by the infusion of money for that to happen. Conversely, money can also destroy the conditions for inherent success. The availability of money on its own is not enough to impact diversity. Rather, what matters is “how it is available, and for what” (292).

Jacobs outlines three financing streams used to shape cities. The first is credit extended by traditional lending institutions, such as savings and loans associations, insurance companies, banks, and minor mortgage lenders. These institutions finance most city construction. The second is government money provided from tax revenue or through borrowing. This type of money generally pays for schools and highways, as well as residences and businesses. Subsidies for land clearance, much of which goes toward redevelopment and renewal projects, also fall under the category of government money. The third kind of money stems from a “shadow world of investment” (293) with no clear source and comes with high interest rates. It is used to finance exploitative conversions of slums for profit. The three kinds of money function differently, but each participates in financing properties, leading to cataclysmic, rather than gradual urban change. Cataclysmic money is not distributed evenly across all areas of cities, with some localities receiving little or none. Continual, gradual money lies on the opposite end of the scale. This less common kind of money capitalizes and builds upon existing urban elements.

Money droughts result in urban decline. Droughts occur when lending institutions withhold or divert credit. City dwellers who wish to stay in their neighborhoods and improve them cannot do so if lending institutions withhold credit. In many cases, the problem extends beyond individual borrowers, resulting in the blacklisting of entire localities. Not coincidentally, these areas correspond precisely to those slated for slum clearance. The behavior of city planners anticipates that of lending institutions and vice versa. As Jacobs observes, “credit-blacklisting maps, like slum-clearance maps, are accurate prophecies because they are self-fulfilling prophecies” (301). Without exceptional vitality and resources, a conventional money drought leads to deterioration.

Blacklisted communities can borrow money from conventional lenders, but that money generally leads to cataclysmic change, such as the construction of a housing project. They can also obtain government and shadow money. However, this does not open blacklisted communities to non-cataclysmic investment. In other words, many districts that would benefit from gradual money never receive any. Much of the gradual money coming from conventional sources is funneled to suburbs on the outskirts of cities. Suburbs are also recipients of cataclysmic funds, which serve to fuel sprawl.

Governments have long-used eminent domain to acquire land for public use. Under redevelopment law, however, it is extended to acquire property for private use and profit. Both public and private investment thus shape urban development. Slum clearing is one of the main uses of eminent domain, with slum landlords reaping the benefits of high sale prices. They often use the profits from the sale of one slum to purchase another, continuing the cycle of destruction and dislocation, while increasing their fortune. Shadow-world money then finances the creation of new slums, perpetuating the problem of slum shifting.