Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Jane Jacobs

Quote by Jane Jacobs

“Overcrowding, which is one symptom of the population instability, continues. It continues, not because the overcrowded people remain, but because they leave. Too many of those who overcome the economic necessity to overcrowd get out, instead of improving their lot within the neighborhood. They are quickly replaced by others who currently have little economic choice. The buildings, naturally, wear out with disproportionate swiftness under these conditions.”

Quote by Jane Jacobs

Book:The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Create image

Work

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

This influential work challenges conventional urban planning theories of the 1950s and 1960s, particularly those advocating for large-scale clearance, superblocks, and strict separation of uses. The author draws on close observation of city streets and neighborhoods to argue that vibrant, safe, and economically diverse urban areas arise from dense, mixed-use environments with short blocks and a constant flow of pedestrians. The book critiques the principles of figures like Le Corbusier and Ebenezer Howard, as well as the policies of urban renewal that devastated many existing communities. Instead, it proposes four essential generators of urban diversity and emphasizes the importance of local knowledge, informal social networks, and the intricate ballet of street life in maintaining a healthy city. The work remains a foundational text in urban studies, planning, and sociology. more

Author

Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs, an American journalist and urban theorist, was born on May 4, 1916, and passed away on April 25, 2006. She is renowned for her profound insights into urban life and her unique perspectives on urban planning. Her book, 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities,' had a revolutionary impact on modern urban planning. more

You May Also Like

“The word "moral" must be repeated—not as rhetoric to match the claims of reaction but as the felt spiritual underpinnings of a new social vision. It must be repeated not as part of a patronizing sermon but as a living practice that people incorporate into their personal lives and their communities. The vacuity and triviality of life today must be filled precisely by those visionary ideals that sustain the human side of life as well as its material side, or else the coordinates by which the future should be guided will totally disappear in that commodity-oriented world we call the "marketplace of ideas." The more serious indecency of this "marketplace" is that these ideals will be turned into objects—mere commodities—that will lack even the value of things we need to sustain us. They will become the mere ornaments needed to garnish an inherently anti-human and anti-ecological society that threatens to undermine moral integrity as such and the simple social amenities that foster human intercourse.”

HumanitySpiritualityCommunityMoralityEcologyPolitical System
Book:Urbanization without cities: the rise and decline of citizenship
Create image

“For more Americans, the political system surrounds us in much the same way water surrounds fish. It's just what we know. It's normal. And while we complain about its performance, we don't question its nature because we don't believe it can change. We accept dysfunction, gridlock, and government in action - even in the face of national adversity - as normal. And when we return to our polling places on election day and yet again see only two choices on our balance - neither of which we really like - we accept that as normal, too. Here's what else has become normal for far too many Americans over the last 50 years: A quality-of-life downturn so significant that, when compared with the thirty-six other peer democratic countries with advanced economies, we Americans are near the bottom across numerous dimensions we once pioneered. We are thirty-third and access to quality education, thirty-third and child mortality, twenty-sixth and discrimination and the violence against minorities, and thirty-first and the clean drinking water - just to name a few. The actual water in America is getting bad now.”

Political System
Author:Katherine Gehl
Create image

“There were waves of genocide that overcame indigenous populations of Oceania and do we have a library of books or films to tell our story? No. We have tourist hula shows and commercials where the “natives” tend to tourists like indentured servants with plastic, lifeless smiles. It’s not such a charming picture, is it? The truth is ugly, but so is ignorance or denial of such atrocities and pain.”

TruthPainGenocidePlasticColonialismImperialismIndigenousTourismDocumentationServantsNativesImperialismeIndentured Servant
Book:Quixote in Ramadi: An Indigenous Account of Imperialism
Create image