The Life and Philosophy of Jane Jacobs
The Life and Philosophy of Jane Jacobs
The Life and Philosophy of Jane Jacobs
Jane Butzner Jacobs was born in nineteen sixteen at Scranton Pennsylvania, a coal mining town to Jewish parents. Unlike other families at the time, both of her parents were professional with her mother being a schoolteacher and her father a doctor. It is also worth noting that her family was protestant in a town that was characterized with Catholicism as the major religion. Not much is said about her early life and school years but it is documented that through elementary and high school she was an indifferent student who rarely paid attention to her teachers but preferred to read on her own under the desk. Consequently due to this disinterest and boredom in class work she failed in high school. She graduated from Scranton's central high in nineteen thirty three (Alexiou).
After high school, Jane Jacobs went on to study at Columbia University for two years in the school of general studies. She majored in geology, law, political science, economics and zoology because she was able to study subjects that interested her. This interest in her studies made her get credits in the courses she was taking a reason that made her become in essence a property of Barnard College. She despised this possession because she felt that in being a property of the college she could only study what the college wanted her to study and not what she desired to study. Luckily for her, the college rejected her due to her poor grades in high school and as such she was able to continue with her education. It is worth noting that Jane Jacobs's higher education was brief and she ended up not completing college despite being a successful writer in her later years.
After graduating from Scranton Central, Jane went to work at the Scranton tribunal though the position she held as an assistant editor to the women's page was unpaid. A short while later, actually a year later she left her city of birth to New York which had gotten her attention when she had visited earlier in nineteen twenty eight. Her first years in the city were marked with her holding a number of different positions and even went through periods of being unemployed. These varying experiences is given credit for her knowledge of living in the city and more so what working in the city entailed. The most notable one was when she got a job to write about workers in the city.
She held a myriad of positions as a writer but her first real writing job was at a metal trade paper. During her tenure here she concurrently held writing jobs at the vogue, the herald and the New York Tribunal. While working at the office of war information, she met her architect husband Robert Jacobs. She halted her writing to get married in nineteen forty four and with her husband they had four children. Years later she resumed writing when she joined the staff at the architectural forum. Her interest in the magazine was egged by her husband's career affiliations and she worked at the magazine as a writer and was eventually promoted for an editor position. It is documented that her husband's knowledge was critical in developing her knowledge in the world of architecture because when she started at the magazine she had little knowledge of even reading simple plans.
Due to her objection of the Vietnam war coupled with the fact that two of her sons had reached the age to be drafted in the war, Jane and her family moved to Toronto ,Canada in nineteen sixty eight. In Toronto she continued with her architectural writing but also indulged in politics by being supportive of particular candidates and David Miller is among the successful mayors that she supported. At the ripe age of eighty nine, at the Toronto Western hospital in two thousand and six, Jane Jacobs suffered a stroke and passed on.
Jane Jacob's Philosophy
Jane Jacobs had a chief belief on what caused the world problems and gave her recommendations on how the problems could be solved. She perceived that most of the problems in architecture and more so in urban planning resulted from abuse of the environment. Jane saw the nature as a mentor and her writings insinuated that every problem of nature contained its own solution which it could propose. Jane Jacobs was an environmental determinist, a champion of the environment and an avid hater of technological innovations like the automobile. In her architectural writings she back lashed against the excessive use of human made clutter in the environment like hoardings, signs and signposts.
Jane proposed that the only way which was effective in looking at the status quo of the day was to observe the past and the present activities as these would reveal the outcomes. In tandem with this she believed that nature held the answers to nature's problems. Jacob's believed in doing such analysis that the best model was in cities unlike prior economists who had based their models in larger models. She asserted that in analyzing cities, the correct deductions could be drawn. Jane Jacobs thus believed that a nation's economy can be deduced by understanding the city economies.
Her book the death and life of great American cities', is a clear revelation of her philosophy as an environmental determinist. She insisted upon perceiving the city as an organism which evolved dynamically over time and was as dynamic and complex as the human beings who called the city home. Jane critiqued on the city planning and building of the day. She went ahead to propose that there should be a grounds-up approach to urban governance and city planning. She believed that people should actually plan for how the city works instead of determining how it works.
As an environmental determinist, Jane perceived cities as eco-systems where each element functioned together with other elements in a synergy from signposts to sidewalks. Her philosophy asserts that high density was critical in achieving the dynamism because she believed that if density took the correct form it could close communities that were economically successful. She suggested that mixed development should be used to create dynamic neighborhoods that were vibrant. Perhaps the cream of her philosophy was her belief that the communities were the building block of any society. They not only led to social development but to economic progression.
The influence of Jane's philosophy is strongly evident in the revolutions against the modernist city planning that were characteristic of American cities in the mid part of the last century. These revolutions advocated for the building of highways and for the clearance of slums like Salem. The contemporary urban planning that is seen in current American cities is heavily rooted on the beliefs that Jane Jacobs held. Jane emphasized in human interactions in the neighborhoods. She believed that the problems that the society was facing were due to the revolutions of the city. She argued that highway systems had separated neighborhoods and urged people to remember what it was like to be part of a neighborhood. She humanized urban planning.
Jane viewed the environment as the chief controller of human achievement and searched for environmental relationships to salvage the ecological degradation. She believed that nature had a strong impact on human relationships and more so in influencing culture. The uttermost peak of her philosophy was her belief that the environmental in which people lived in and particularly in cities, influenced the psychological being of people. It can thus be said that environmental determinism was the chief life philosophy of Jane Jacobs (DeWolf).
Jane Jacob's Lifestyle in New York and her battle with Robert Moses
After graduating at Scranton central and working for a year, Jane Jacobs moved to New York City, a city which had caught her attention five years earlier when she had visited with friends. On arrival to the city Jane would get on the subway everyday and pick a random stop where she would apply for jobs in the neighborhood. Her first years in the city were marked with her holding a number of different positions and even went through periods of being unemployed. It is documented that during these hard times she would live on bananas for days but ended up becoming a confirmed New Yorker. These varying experiences is given credit for her knowledge of living in the city and more so what working in the city entailed. In her pursuits of finding employment she discovered the Greenwich Village in Manhattan and at the Christopher Street she found work as a secretary in a candy company. Soon enough Jacobs found an apartment in the neighborhood (Lawrence).
Jane enjoyed wandering in the city not only in the confines of the village and she investigated the city's neighborhoods and industrial districts. Her writings had topics touching on issues like the metal industry where she wrote articles on manhole covers and even on the sale of furs in the garment district. During the fall of nineteen forty four while working at the federal office of war she met her husband Robert Hyde Jacobs. They married a month later and had three children and it is her husband's career which influenced her to go work at the architectural forum.
While working at the magazine she wrote articles for other magazines and even wrote her book, the death and life of the American cities'. In her writings she critiqued city planning that involved big development urban rejuvenation projects. She also criticized public planning official like Robert Moses who were unwilling to compromise. She helped to crusade for neighborhoods and local communities. As such Jane was instrumental in stopping the construction of major highways in the city. All this happened in the nineteen sixties when she was actively involved in urban activism. All of her efforts of opposing the highway were a battle with Robert Moses, the then New York City parks commissioner who had been the champion of such developments (Alexiou).
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