How Did Jane Butzner Contribute To Urban Planning

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jane-Jacobs

On May 4, 1916 in Scranton Pennsylvania one of the greatest urban geographers of our time Jane Butzner (Jacobs) was born. Jane was a visionary, activist, write, and urban planner that made a significant contribution to the way we see modern city planning. Jane started her career in New York City in the field of journalism. However Jane’s true interest lies in urban design. In 1952 Jane became an associate editor of the Architectural Forum. Through this Jane became sceptical of the traditional American view of city planning. Jane’s first published book titled ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’ was released in 1961 which kick-started the rise of her name in geography and city planning.

The book challenged the existing practice of the time regarding urban planning. Traditional planning was a perspective that generally bothered Jane, she believed that it lacked a true connection between people and their city. Although Jane is categorised as an urban geographer, her work joins the field of physical geography to human geography. Both being an essential part of successful growth and development she truly emphasised the importance of human scale development.

The Death and Life of Great American cities delves deep into the critiques of traditional planning and suggestions for a newfound method of urban development. The title represents the downfall of major cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles due to the impact of the great depression and how they have and are able to be revived. Jane used a connection of several types of geography including economic, ethical, and social to address existing planning issues. Traditional planning was focused on development of districts under the same use as well as clearance of

The number one factor was that self destruction of diversity is the primary force leading the decline of a city. Diversity of districts encourages competition for space, while if one industry is the most prominent all other industries/uses are pushed out. The next factor addressed was border vacuums, and how they cut off people from the use of the city. A border vacuum is essentially a territory with only one use, an example would be a transport corridor like a highway with no connection for pedestrians. The last factor discussed was the attempt of slumming or ‘un - slumming’ done by the government. Jane discussed that government attempts to change a neighbourhood will only create a shift in location of that neighbourhood, but will not solve the issues underlying. After this Jane discussed several tactics that can be implemented to revitalise the city. This includes a ‘Guaranteed Rent method’ where governments provide subsidies to those who are unable to beare their rental costs, and the construction of affordable housing done by private groups rather than the government. The next point in city revitalization was the attrition of automobiles, Jacobs believed that rather than building more roads to accommodate traffic, less roads would lead to people choosing alternate forms of transport including city buses, biking, walking. Lastly she encouraged restoring visual order of a city, salvaging low