The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Pelican Books, 1964.

 

In The Death and Life of Great American Cities Jane Jacobs explores what has made cities across the globe vibrant and human, and what was poisoning and deadening New York in her time. The book begins by touting what had been beneficial about cities in the past, describing them as incubators of community and life, rather than machines tuned only for efficiency. Then, as Jacobs delves further into the nitty-gritty of the issue, she illustrates what exactly has been killing the souls of urban environments, and the reasons and systems that put those degradative trends into effect.

Jacobs’s magnum opus is both a jarring critique of almost every element of the city, from housing projects to building layouts, and an exploration of the city’s most beautiful aspects. She roots all of her arguments in the understanding that the ideal city is centered around human experience, and that they are places where connections should readily form, where anyone can blossom and thrive. She only rebukes urban elements such as highways and monolithic parks to protect this essential human beauty within cities. In calling out structures such as these, she is really showing the reader a path to a happier and more human city.

This book is the essential foundation for my project. In reading it, I came to see what the true intentions of a city should be: to create a vibrant and livable public realm where everyone can exist and thrive. When I’m walking the city and identifying the areas I hope to research, the first question I will always ask myself is: what makes this street vibrant and community-oriented? or what makes this street so inhuman, so uninviting to connection and vibrancy? I will also think to the critiques and observations of Jacobs in describing what is broken in certain spaces – using her extensive research to inform mine. 

 

 

Happy City

Montgomery, Charles. Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 

 

In Happy City, Charles Montgomery is unabashedly asking the question, what makes a city a happy place? He Explores cities and neighborhoods where people are simply happy and looks for what exactly makes them such great places to live. In describing the wonder of bikeable urban centers, vibrant building facades, and open public spaces, Montgomery explores what can make cities wonderful. But, in his book, he also explores what makes cities feel oppressive and unhappy, helping readers appreciate both how successful and how unsuccessful cities can be. On the whole, Montgumary’s text explores what exactly makes a city happy: the building designs, the street details, the public elements.

Many of us recognize how depressing cities can be, and Montgomery critiques the depression caused by urban sprawl, blank facades, and nature-less concrete deserts. Yet after describing the painfully harmful elements of modern urban design, he explores what can make cities beautiful and happy. He describes the international beginnings of the now popular open street, which allow people to interact and explore as pedestrians or cyclists; the wild amount of benefits greenery can have on urban spaces; and the importance of lively and interactive facades. All of his descriptions lead the reader to a picture of what makes a city happy. 

Much like The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Happy City is an essential foundation and inspiration for my project. Montgomery truly engages with what defines the soul of the city. With what, in the nebulous complexity of a street, makes it either happy or demoralizing. I both want to build upon Montgomery’s learning and take his style as an inspiration for my exploration and subsequent documentation.

 

 

Dream Cities

Graham, Wade. Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape The World. Harper Perennial, 2017. 

 

In this book, Wade Graham describes the visions that shape and inspire cities and urban areas today. For each of the ten historical ideas, such as Le Corbusier’s tower in the park model and America’s dreaded malls, Graham brings the reader through the process of each vision’s creation, empathizing with the motivations of the architects and planners responsible for the movements. After showing the reader the beauty and intention of each idea, he showed the reality of the movements, the ways they influence both powerful and damaging architecture and urban design today. 

In each chapter, Dream Cities guides the reader through history in the context of urbanism, illuminating eras and movements that lie at the roots of almost every design movement. By describing the impetus for our present reality, Graham allows readers to peer into the reasoning and inspiration that lies below every element of our urban world. Within the depths of each chapter, there are mountains of descriptions of urban environments and their issues, breaking down everything from climate change to walkability to transit integration. 

This book has guided me to a more nuanced and full understanding of cities, and the ideas that inform many of the spaces I hope to research. The chapters also contain a large amount of information that I can use to inform my learning, helping me to select the spaces and elements with the most notable and impactful designs.

 

 

The High Cost of Free Parking

Shoup, Donald C. The High Cost of Free Parking. Routledge, 2019. 

 

In The High Cost of Free Parking, Donald Shoupe explores the remarkable depth and nuance of the issue of parking. First, he dives into the incredible waste and harm that America’s commitment to free parking has caused. Then he moves into an exploration of why this is, explaining the millions of minuscule decisions and systems which make free parking the destructive force it is. But, essentially, the text is exploring a facet of our nation’s poisonous addiction to the automobile. 

In making his seminary work, Shoup spared no detail in describing every component of our attachment to and abuse by parking. He explores how searching for underpriced parking wastes drivers’ time and energy, why parking is actually a huge portion of the cost of every home, every product, and how we have been trapped into a parking/sprawl feedback loop. But, by fleshing out the larger issues, Shoup is actually laying the groundwork for his descriptions of urban environments across the country. He explores the urban design of cities from Pasadena, California, to Aspen, dissecting how they are bettered or harmed by their policies around parking. 

The High Cost of Free Parking is, in many ways, very different from the project I’m hoping to embark on. It focuses on one issue to the point of expertise, while I hope to explore many environments and examples. But, I do want to emulate Shoup’s methods of tackling larger issues and using them as context for smaller-scale research (although I’ll merely be collecting my larger-scale research from the experts, rather than creating my own). 

 

 

The Way Things Work

Macaulay, David, Neil Ardley, and David Macaulay. The New Way Things Work. , 1998. 

 

In The Way Things Work, David Macaulay uses illustration and writing to describe the genius and depth of the machines and technologies that exist all around us. Macaulay uses the power of art to explain these confounding objects, bringing any reader to understand everything from helicopters to car engines. On each page Macaulay also writes short paragraphs to supplement the illustrations, contextualizing them with details and histories. 

The primary goal of Macaulay’s book is to make these technologies both fun and accessible to a wide audience. Each of his drawings includes one of his recurring characters, such as a wooly mammoth, a flying angel, or a human. These motifs serve to liven and personify these traditionally empty and inanimate machines. His drawings also utilize a strange mix of causal watercolor (with coffee stains and live edges littering the page) and rigid descriptive pen-hatching. This adds to the book’s dual focus of describing these technical objects and making each page feel fun and engaging. 

In many ways, The Way Things Work is the third foundation (along with the works of Jacobs and Montgomery) of my project. I want to emulate Macaulay’s fun and descriptive art style, and hope to use The Way Things Work as the guide in making my art. I’m also inspired by Macaulay’s goal to make opaque aspects of our world fascinating and beautiful, and I hope to use many of his methods to describe the life and interest inherent in the public spaces I’ll be studying. 

A Note: I’ll be intentionally making my work more colorful and poppy, which is counter to Macaulay’s muted (but VERY beautiful) art.