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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.BZ 2 00:00:02,036 --> 00:00:04,004 [ambience] 3 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.BZ 4 00:00:09,630 --> 00:00:12,633 [indistinct chatter] 5 00:00:39,660 --> 00:00:41,834 [typewriter clacking] 6 00:00:54,468 --> 00:00:56,470 [instrumental music] 7 00:01:07,274 --> 00:01:11,312 Cities are, in many ways, the greatest invention 8 00:01:11,416 --> 00:01:13,452 that human beings have brought to the world. 9 00:01:17,836 --> 00:01:20,287 Cities have been expanding 10 00:01:20,390 --> 00:01:23,669 and urbanization has been expanding on the globe 11 00:01:23,773 --> 00:01:25,499 in an exponential fashion. 12 00:01:30,331 --> 00:01:33,334 Most extraordinarily, we are urbanizing people 13 00:01:33,438 --> 00:01:35,267 on the planet, at maybe 14 00:01:35,371 --> 00:01:39,064 one and a half million people every week 15 00:01:39,168 --> 00:01:41,204 In less than 2 months 16 00:01:41,308 --> 00:01:43,620 there'll be the equivalent to another Los Angeles 17 00:01:43,724 --> 00:01:45,726 metropolitan area on this planet. 18 00:01:47,314 --> 00:01:51,663 This scale and speed of urbanization 19 00:01:51,766 --> 00:01:54,804 has never, ever happened in human history. 20 00:01:54,907 --> 00:01:56,875 This is the first time. 21 00:02:01,190 --> 00:02:04,503 When you look at what is being built in cities 22 00:02:04,607 --> 00:02:07,886 you have endless, endless 23 00:02:07,989 --> 00:02:11,924 row after row of homogenizing towers. 24 00:02:15,238 --> 00:02:17,861 And you see more and more highways. 25 00:02:30,219 --> 00:02:32,738 At this moment, you're going to shape the cities 26 00:02:32,842 --> 00:02:34,568 for generations to come. 27 00:02:36,121 --> 00:02:39,504 People need to realize this is an opportunity 28 00:02:39,607 --> 00:02:41,333 which will never come again. 29 00:02:47,684 --> 00:02:49,755 There are a couple of ways of approaching 30 00:02:49,859 --> 00:02:51,723 the design of cities. 31 00:02:51,826 --> 00:02:54,760 The question is always who decides.. 32 00:02:56,590 --> 00:02:58,350 ...what the physical form will be.. 33 00:03:00,249 --> 00:03:03,424 ...how the city is going to function 34 00:03:03,528 --> 00:03:06,462 and who is going to live in the city. 35 00:03:14,780 --> 00:03:17,542 In order to understand what's happening today.. 36 00:03:19,440 --> 00:03:21,304 ...we need to think about 2 great figures 37 00:03:21,408 --> 00:03:24,065 in the middle of the 20th century 38 00:03:24,169 --> 00:03:26,827 who embodied the struggle for the city. 39 00:03:32,419 --> 00:03:35,145 The legendary power broker Robert Moses 40 00:03:35,249 --> 00:03:38,114 represented the authority of the great man 41 00:03:38,218 --> 00:03:42,118 who was gonna come into the city with his carving knife 42 00:03:42,222 --> 00:03:45,225 and clear away the cancerous tissue.. 43 00:03:45,328 --> 00:03:47,296 [crash] 44 00:03:50,437 --> 00:03:53,336 ...and replace it with the shiny implements 45 00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:55,200 of modernist planning. 46 00:03:57,133 --> 00:03:59,308 Uh, you have to move a lot of people out of the way 47 00:03:59,411 --> 00:04:01,448 of a big housing, uh, project 48 00:04:01,551 --> 00:04:04,174 or, uh, slum clearance project. 49 00:04:04,278 --> 00:04:06,694 A lot of 'em are not going to like it. 50 00:04:06,798 --> 00:04:10,008 Many of them are misinformed. 51 00:04:10,111 --> 00:04:13,632 In opposition to the homogenizing clarity 52 00:04:13,736 --> 00:04:15,876 of Moses was Jane Jacobs. 53 00:04:17,843 --> 00:04:20,984 I have very little faith, uh 54 00:04:21,088 --> 00:04:26,058 i -- in, in even the kind of person 55 00:04:26,162 --> 00:04:29,717 who, uh, prefers to take a large overall 56 00:04:29,821 --> 00:04:31,719 uh, view of things. 57 00:04:31,823 --> 00:04:34,515 Jacobs was an outsider. 58 00:04:34,619 --> 00:04:36,724 She believed the city is not about buildings. 59 00:04:36,828 --> 00:04:38,519 The city is about people. 60 00:04:38,623 --> 00:04:42,316 It is about public spaces and the street 61 00:04:42,420 --> 00:04:44,180 and she stood up for that. 62 00:04:45,561 --> 00:04:47,977 She evolved both a theory 63 00:04:48,080 --> 00:04:49,703 of what made a good and just city 64 00:04:49,806 --> 00:04:52,706 and a theory of opposition 65 00:04:52,809 --> 00:04:56,744 to the kind of planning practice that Moses represented. 66 00:04:56,848 --> 00:04:59,989 There's a prudishness, a fear of life 67 00:05:00,092 --> 00:05:04,476 a wish to direct things from some uncontaminated refuge 68 00:05:04,580 --> 00:05:07,376 that is part and parcel of their bad plan. 69 00:05:09,205 --> 00:05:12,415 They were famously at odds with each other. 70 00:05:12,519 --> 00:05:15,211 It really did become a war between opposing forces. 71 00:05:17,420 --> 00:05:20,527 Today we're still fighting these battles 72 00:05:20,630 --> 00:05:22,011 across the world. 73 00:05:46,691 --> 00:05:49,556 When we look across the spectrum of all the problems 74 00:05:49,659 --> 00:05:52,938 generated by urbanization 75 00:05:53,042 --> 00:05:56,286 there is the extraordinary realization that, my gosh 76 00:05:56,390 --> 00:05:59,117 you know, these have been problems that have been around 77 00:05:59,220 --> 00:06:00,946 for the last 100 years in cities. 78 00:06:02,534 --> 00:06:03,639 New York, of course 79 00:06:03,742 --> 00:06:05,744 is the greatest example of that. 80 00:06:11,819 --> 00:06:14,166 In the 1930s 81 00:06:14,270 --> 00:06:17,446 New York was the world's greatest city, you know? 82 00:06:17,549 --> 00:06:20,380 A very special place. 83 00:06:20,483 --> 00:06:23,072 Just the exuberance of metropolitan life 84 00:06:23,175 --> 00:06:25,143 in the early 20th century. 85 00:06:27,248 --> 00:06:28,767 That's, you know, the -- the great age 86 00:06:28,871 --> 00:06:31,563 of the first real great skyscrapers. 87 00:06:31,667 --> 00:06:33,772 You know, the Empire State Building 88 00:06:33,876 --> 00:06:35,912 is the very climax of that. 89 00:06:39,260 --> 00:06:41,746 But then, it all kind of crashes with The Depression. 90 00:06:43,644 --> 00:06:46,026 Through the entire decade of the '30s 91 00:06:46,129 --> 00:06:48,097 it's just one problem after another. 92 00:06:52,032 --> 00:06:53,999 Down at street level 93 00:06:54,103 --> 00:06:58,383 was this degraded environment. 94 00:06:58,487 --> 00:07:02,836 Slums and dirt and, and pollution 95 00:07:02,939 --> 00:07:05,977 that did not fit with the glorious spires 96 00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:08,289 of the new skyscraper city. 97 00:07:11,051 --> 00:07:13,847 The city was overcrowded 98 00:07:13,950 --> 00:07:16,953 harsh, dirty, dangerous 99 00:07:17,057 --> 00:07:19,853 and infested with disease. 100 00:07:21,302 --> 00:07:23,477 Jacob Riis' famous book 101 00:07:23,581 --> 00:07:25,824 "How The Other Half Live" 102 00:07:25,928 --> 00:07:28,689 brought a lot of attention to this. 103 00:07:32,244 --> 00:07:35,247 The idea was, we will solve the city's problem 104 00:07:35,351 --> 00:07:37,077 by cleaning it up. 105 00:07:38,872 --> 00:07:43,393 Now this is a unfortunate period for the city. 106 00:07:43,497 --> 00:07:48,433 We've done an immense amount to cure these diseases 107 00:07:48,537 --> 00:07:50,470 and we have much more to do. 108 00:07:52,264 --> 00:07:54,335 Robert Moses started to work in an era 109 00:07:54,439 --> 00:07:57,200 where we had a great many people 110 00:07:57,304 --> 00:07:59,893 living in truly horrible conditions. 111 00:08:01,273 --> 00:08:04,587 He began his professional life 112 00:08:04,691 --> 00:08:07,348 in opposition to those conditions. 113 00:08:10,110 --> 00:08:13,078 Moses emerged out of the Progressive Movement 114 00:08:13,182 --> 00:08:15,598 early in the 20th century in New York. 115 00:08:15,702 --> 00:08:18,877 The progressives were eager to improve the city. 116 00:08:20,534 --> 00:08:24,227 His early work in developing public parks 117 00:08:24,331 --> 00:08:28,508 and public beaches was about making life better 118 00:08:28,611 --> 00:08:30,510 for people who were not rich. 119 00:08:33,616 --> 00:08:38,897 Now if we don't clean out these slums 120 00:08:39,001 --> 00:08:40,968 the central areas are going to rot. 121 00:08:42,970 --> 00:08:47,285 And it's all nonsense to say that the problem can be solved 122 00:08:47,388 --> 00:08:51,254 by rehabilitating and fixing up Old Law Tenements. 123 00:08:52,601 --> 00:08:54,119 It can't be done. 124 00:08:54,223 --> 00:08:56,259 That problem we've got to face. 125 00:09:08,064 --> 00:09:10,929 Just about every progressive believed 126 00:09:11,033 --> 00:09:13,794 that the way to solve the city's problems 127 00:09:13,898 --> 00:09:16,728 was to wipe the slate clean, start all over again. 128 00:09:18,523 --> 00:09:22,527 We didn't understand how high the price was 129 00:09:22,631 --> 00:09:25,530 how we were giving up so many things 130 00:09:25,634 --> 00:09:29,430 that were so very important until Jane Jacobs came along. 131 00:09:41,201 --> 00:09:43,859 Jane always would see 132 00:09:43,962 --> 00:09:46,793 in a city opportunities 133 00:09:46,896 --> 00:09:48,484 that existed there. 134 00:09:48,588 --> 00:09:52,937 She observed hints of regeneration 135 00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:55,387 hints of creativity 136 00:09:55,491 --> 00:09:58,356 hints of resourcefulness. 137 00:09:58,459 --> 00:10:01,117 It was this life spring 138 00:10:01,221 --> 00:10:04,155 of people coming to make their way. 139 00:10:04,258 --> 00:10:07,296 I think that must have shaped her approach to the city. 140 00:10:09,643 --> 00:10:11,714 I just loved coming to New York. 141 00:10:11,818 --> 00:10:13,785 It was inexhaustible. 142 00:10:15,580 --> 00:10:19,204 Just to walk around its streets and wonder at it. 143 00:10:20,654 --> 00:10:23,346 So many streets different. 144 00:10:23,450 --> 00:10:25,625 So many neighborhoods different. 145 00:10:25,728 --> 00:10:27,903 Uh, so much going on. 146 00:10:30,664 --> 00:10:33,667 She lived in Greenwich Village 147 00:10:33,771 --> 00:10:36,187 and just viscerally felt 148 00:10:36,290 --> 00:10:38,258 the pulse of the city 149 00:10:38,361 --> 00:10:40,674 and was extraordinarily intuitive. 150 00:10:40,778 --> 00:10:42,849 Was extremely observant. 151 00:10:45,058 --> 00:10:48,164 New York was a place where you don't have to be 152 00:10:48,268 --> 00:10:50,201 big and important and rich 153 00:10:50,304 --> 00:10:51,927 or have a great plot of land 154 00:10:52,030 --> 00:10:55,413 or a great development scheme 155 00:10:55,516 --> 00:10:58,761 or something like that to do something. 156 00:10:58,865 --> 00:11:01,419 And maybe even do something new 157 00:11:01,522 --> 00:11:03,870 and do something interesting. 158 00:11:03,973 --> 00:11:06,631 A place that has scope for all kinds of people. 159 00:11:09,082 --> 00:11:12,395 What she saw was the soul of New York 160 00:11:12,499 --> 00:11:14,432 and what it meant to be a city 161 00:11:14,535 --> 00:11:16,537 and a city meaning a community of people. 162 00:11:39,940 --> 00:11:43,944 After the war, the most sensational thing 163 00:11:44,048 --> 00:11:48,673 that came was the full flowering of this vision 164 00:11:48,777 --> 00:11:50,986 of the expressway tower city. 165 00:11:56,612 --> 00:12:01,686 This generation of idealistic city planners comes along 166 00:12:01,790 --> 00:12:04,482 and they're infected with the modernist purity idea. 167 00:12:06,829 --> 00:12:09,452 And they certainly have the tools at their disposal 168 00:12:09,556 --> 00:12:12,179 to sweep away large tracts of land. 169 00:12:14,112 --> 00:12:16,425 We recognize the problems that your community faces 170 00:12:16,528 --> 00:12:18,185 and we know that you share them 171 00:12:18,289 --> 00:12:22,293 with hundreds of cities everywhere. 172 00:12:22,396 --> 00:12:24,778 Now what's involved in making your city a better place? 173 00:12:26,366 --> 00:12:29,127 Well, things like housing 174 00:12:29,231 --> 00:12:32,130 industrial development 175 00:12:32,234 --> 00:12:34,546 better streets and highways. 176 00:12:34,650 --> 00:12:37,998 Improving all these things adds up to a better city. 177 00:12:39,966 --> 00:12:42,796 I'm sure that you will see the exciting opportunity 178 00:12:42,900 --> 00:12:45,661 that exists for your city to become better. 179 00:13:04,887 --> 00:13:08,753 There was this emerging idea that crowded urban areas 180 00:13:08,857 --> 00:13:11,238 where people were kind of hanging out on the street 181 00:13:11,342 --> 00:13:14,207 on their stoops, uh, where there was a lot of poverty 182 00:13:14,310 --> 00:13:17,210 that the way to deal with that problem 183 00:13:17,313 --> 00:13:19,419 was to effectively get rid of the streets. 184 00:13:21,041 --> 00:13:23,595 Was effectively to eliminate that sidewalk culture. 185 00:13:26,840 --> 00:13:29,670 And build projects that would make it impossible really 186 00:13:29,774 --> 00:13:32,156 for people to kind of cluster in public in that way. 187 00:13:34,537 --> 00:13:36,505 The idea of urban renewal was that 188 00:13:36,608 --> 00:13:39,680 places that were blighted 189 00:13:39,784 --> 00:13:41,786 were a cancer on the city 190 00:13:41,890 --> 00:13:43,512 and therefore, we're gonna cut out the cancer. 191 00:13:57,940 --> 00:14:00,253 The planners conceiving these urban renewal projects 192 00:14:00,356 --> 00:14:02,911 are doing this from that 193 00:14:03,014 --> 00:14:05,292 God-like vantage point in the sky. 194 00:14:06,638 --> 00:14:08,433 To be able to look down 195 00:14:08,537 --> 00:14:11,574 and you're able to imagine massive transformations. 196 00:14:16,027 --> 00:14:18,719 They thought that applying the logic 197 00:14:18,823 --> 00:14:21,101 of The Machine Age was gonna do that. 198 00:14:28,764 --> 00:14:32,802 The problem had to be solved by some supervisor 199 00:14:32,906 --> 00:14:35,909 noticing where the slums were, noticing where the traffic was 200 00:14:36,013 --> 00:14:37,773 and going in and bulldozing.. 201 00:14:41,397 --> 00:14:42,812 ...and building grand projects. 202 00:14:42,916 --> 00:14:44,676 Well, we got out a brochure just now 203 00:14:44,780 --> 00:14:47,231 telling when everybody has to move. 204 00:14:47,334 --> 00:14:49,164 Robert Moses was the great embodiment of this. 205 00:14:58,690 --> 00:15:00,692 I don't honestly believe that 206 00:15:00,796 --> 00:15:04,524 considering the large numbers of people we've had to move out 207 00:15:04,627 --> 00:15:07,803 of the way of public housing and other public improvements 208 00:15:07,907 --> 00:15:09,287 I don't believe that we've done 209 00:15:09,391 --> 00:15:12,325 any very substantial amount of harm. 210 00:15:12,428 --> 00:15:14,637 There must be people who are discommoded 211 00:15:14,741 --> 00:15:17,433 inconvenienced or call it what you will 212 00:15:17,537 --> 00:15:20,471 on the old theory, that you can't make an omelet 213 00:15:20,574 --> 00:15:22,300 without breaking some eggs. 214 00:15:36,970 --> 00:15:38,868 After the Second World War 215 00:15:38,972 --> 00:15:41,871 Robert Moses began to amass power. 216 00:15:41,975 --> 00:15:44,357 He was the august parks commissioner 217 00:15:44,460 --> 00:15:45,979 in the city of New York. 218 00:15:46,083 --> 00:15:47,808 And he got power to build parkways. 219 00:15:49,672 --> 00:15:53,331 He was appointed the city's construction coordinator. 220 00:15:53,435 --> 00:15:55,644 He built thousands of apartments. 221 00:15:57,197 --> 00:15:59,372 He became urban renewal czar 222 00:15:59,475 --> 00:16:02,927 the head of the mayor's committee on slum clearance. 223 00:16:03,031 --> 00:16:05,585 By the time that Moses was running 224 00:16:05,688 --> 00:16:07,242 the Urban Renewal Program 225 00:16:07,345 --> 00:16:09,175 we had torn down 226 00:16:09,278 --> 00:16:12,695 literally thousands of tenement buildings 227 00:16:12,799 --> 00:16:14,766 in cities like New York and Chicago. 228 00:16:16,389 --> 00:16:17,838 You know, there's the, the pre-war Moses 229 00:16:17,942 --> 00:16:19,185 and the post-war Moses. 230 00:16:19,288 --> 00:16:22,740 The pre-war Moses was mostly an angel. 231 00:16:22,843 --> 00:16:26,571 Post-war Moses was increasingly problematic. 232 00:16:26,675 --> 00:16:28,194 For nearly half a century 233 00:16:28,297 --> 00:16:30,748 this man has pushed people around New York. 234 00:16:33,958 --> 00:16:36,961 Almost anybody who is anybody has cursed him 235 00:16:37,065 --> 00:16:40,620 fought him, knuckled under to him and admired him. 236 00:16:40,723 --> 00:16:43,933 The list of his adversaries include Franklin Roosevelt 237 00:16:44,037 --> 00:16:46,591 Fanny Hurst, Elmer Davis who once compared him 238 00:16:46,695 --> 00:16:49,180 to Hitler, Walter O'Malley 239 00:16:49,284 --> 00:16:51,631 and hundreds of thousands of landowners 240 00:16:51,734 --> 00:16:53,702 who thought their property was sacred. 241 00:16:58,258 --> 00:17:00,088 Absolute power corrupts absolutely 242 00:17:00,191 --> 00:17:03,263 and Robert Moses was absolutely powerful. 243 00:17:03,367 --> 00:17:05,369 So he had amassed, um, not simply 244 00:17:05,472 --> 00:17:07,095 an incredible amount of power 245 00:17:07,198 --> 00:17:09,442 but had insulated himself 246 00:17:09,545 --> 00:17:11,996 from oversight by political authorities 247 00:17:12,100 --> 00:17:13,791 and by the broader public. 248 00:17:15,137 --> 00:17:18,106 Don't forget that it's one thing to buy a park 249 00:17:18,209 --> 00:17:21,040 or a great big chunk of land from one owner. 250 00:17:21,143 --> 00:17:23,559 It's quite another thing to get a right-of-way 251 00:17:23,663 --> 00:17:26,907 where hundreds and even thousands of people own it. 252 00:17:27,011 --> 00:17:30,739 You theoretically and, according to some of the, uh 253 00:17:30,842 --> 00:17:33,293 goo-goos and uplift organizations 254 00:17:33,397 --> 00:17:36,400 we ought to negotiate with every individual until he's happy. 255 00:17:36,503 --> 00:17:37,987 Can you imagine when you'd build anything 256 00:17:38,091 --> 00:17:39,472 under those conditions? 257 00:17:41,508 --> 00:17:43,441 Moses along with all of the people 258 00:17:43,545 --> 00:17:45,512 that were involved in the Urban Renewal Program 259 00:17:45,616 --> 00:17:48,619 had an agreed-upon agenda. 260 00:17:48,722 --> 00:17:52,485 People needed adequate housing 261 00:17:52,588 --> 00:17:54,797 adequate recreation facilities 262 00:17:54,901 --> 00:17:58,007 and the motorcar was coming to America 263 00:17:58,111 --> 00:18:00,976 and it needed to be accommodated on a large scale. 264 00:18:01,080 --> 00:18:02,874 That was the agenda. 265 00:18:06,809 --> 00:18:10,606 Moses became one polar view of what you could do. 266 00:18:15,439 --> 00:18:18,718 Until, all of a sudden, there was an alternative. 267 00:18:19,857 --> 00:18:21,341 Jane Jacobs has in 268 00:18:21,445 --> 00:18:23,343 "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" 269 00:18:23,447 --> 00:18:25,621 written a book that advances with the controlled 270 00:18:25,725 --> 00:18:28,486 and implacable power of a bulldozer 271 00:18:28,590 --> 00:18:31,972 against modern orthodox city planning and rebuilding. 272 00:18:32,076 --> 00:18:34,078 I first began to look into city planning 273 00:18:34,182 --> 00:18:35,735 and, and housing 274 00:18:35,838 --> 00:18:38,151 and it was unbelievably awful. 275 00:18:38,255 --> 00:18:40,015 Uh, insane. 276 00:18:42,707 --> 00:18:45,848 When "Death And Life" comes out in the '60s 277 00:18:45,952 --> 00:18:48,127 it's a clarion call. 278 00:18:48,230 --> 00:18:51,544 It's Martin Luther nailing those 95 theses 279 00:18:51,647 --> 00:18:53,994 to the, to the cathedral door. 280 00:18:54,098 --> 00:18:56,307 The book is really the first cogent 281 00:18:56,411 --> 00:19:00,242 accessible articulation of a whole set of ideas 282 00:19:00,346 --> 00:19:04,660 that questions the mainstream thinking about our cities. 283 00:19:04,764 --> 00:19:07,042 She is constantly probing. 284 00:19:07,146 --> 00:19:09,320 By that example, she's saying 285 00:19:09,424 --> 00:19:12,047 "You, reader, you have the ability to question." 286 00:19:13,497 --> 00:19:16,534 "Look what we have built. 287 00:19:16,638 --> 00:19:18,847 "Low-income projects that become 288 00:19:18,950 --> 00:19:20,538 "worse centers of delinquency 289 00:19:20,642 --> 00:19:23,369 "vandalism and general social hopelessness 290 00:19:23,472 --> 00:19:25,371 "than the slums they were supposed to replace. 291 00:19:27,787 --> 00:19:29,754 "Middle-income housing projects 292 00:19:29,858 --> 00:19:32,688 "which are truly marvels of dullness and regimentation.. 293 00:19:35,035 --> 00:19:37,762 "...sealed against any buoyancy or vitality of city life. 294 00:19:39,695 --> 00:19:43,251 "Luxury housing projects that mitigate their inanity 295 00:19:43,354 --> 00:19:47,531 "or try to with a vapid vulgarity. 296 00:19:47,634 --> 00:19:49,740 "Cultural centers that are unable to support 297 00:19:49,843 --> 00:19:52,639 "a good bookstore. 298 00:19:52,743 --> 00:19:55,918 "Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums 299 00:19:56,022 --> 00:19:59,991 "who have fewer choices of loitering place than others. 300 00:20:00,095 --> 00:20:02,304 "Expressways that eviscerate great cities. 301 00:20:04,893 --> 00:20:08,276 "This is not the rebuilding of cities. 302 00:20:08,379 --> 00:20:09,898 This is the sacking of cities." 303 00:20:25,085 --> 00:20:26,915 She was questioning orthodoxy 304 00:20:27,018 --> 00:20:29,607 and in essence saying the emperor has no clothes.. 305 00:20:31,091 --> 00:20:33,956 ...at a time when women were not welcomed 306 00:20:34,060 --> 00:20:35,855 in those kinds of environments. 307 00:20:40,135 --> 00:20:44,346 If you wanna see what kind of a city can flourish 308 00:20:44,450 --> 00:20:47,832 you need to look at the cities where it's happening. 309 00:20:47,936 --> 00:20:50,214 There must be a lot of diversity 310 00:20:50,318 --> 00:20:53,355 continually building up, diversity of kinds of work.. 311 00:20:55,357 --> 00:20:58,360 ...diversity of kinds of people. 312 00:20:58,464 --> 00:21:01,329 She revealed the way to create better cities 313 00:21:01,432 --> 00:21:03,365 is by working with the people who live there 314 00:21:03,469 --> 00:21:05,988 and the fabric that existed. 315 00:21:06,092 --> 00:21:08,819 The traditional fabric that people inhabited. 316 00:21:11,994 --> 00:21:14,721 There have to be areas of the city 317 00:21:14,825 --> 00:21:18,518 which people use a lot, walking on the streets 318 00:21:18,622 --> 00:21:22,315 and use at all times of day. 319 00:21:24,524 --> 00:21:27,838 Jane understood neighborhoods need lots of connections. 320 00:21:27,941 --> 00:21:30,565 Short blocks, lots of turns 321 00:21:30,668 --> 00:21:32,670 allowing different kinds of interaction. 322 00:21:34,465 --> 00:21:37,882 Neighborhoods need a mix of buildings, old and new. 323 00:21:37,986 --> 00:21:41,886 They need diverse uses, 24/7, so that they're safer. 324 00:21:43,819 --> 00:21:47,927 Constant connection with, uh, neighborhoods around 325 00:21:48,030 --> 00:21:49,687 so that you're not isolated. 326 00:21:49,791 --> 00:21:53,208 You need public spaces that are accessible to people. 327 00:21:53,312 --> 00:21:55,314 It's all a great network in the city. 328 00:21:55,417 --> 00:21:56,591 It's all related. 329 00:21:59,076 --> 00:22:01,596 She observed these early, early qualities at a time 330 00:22:01,699 --> 00:22:02,942 when housing was being built 331 00:22:03,045 --> 00:22:05,358 in completely opposite direction. 332 00:22:05,462 --> 00:22:07,222 They were isolating communities. 333 00:22:09,397 --> 00:22:11,709 They were creating dead-end streets. 334 00:22:11,813 --> 00:22:13,332 They were separating work uses 335 00:22:13,435 --> 00:22:16,058 and recreation and residential uses. 336 00:22:18,198 --> 00:22:20,891 She was explaining how life worked. 337 00:22:33,766 --> 00:22:36,527 Before "Death And Life," she was a journalist. 338 00:22:36,631 --> 00:22:40,462 She was a very savvy observer of human behavior 339 00:22:40,566 --> 00:22:43,879 of places, of cities. 340 00:22:43,983 --> 00:22:45,812 Jacobs started writing about the city 341 00:22:45,916 --> 00:22:48,608 when she was 18 years old. 342 00:22:48,712 --> 00:22:51,300 She was a secretary for a candy company. 343 00:22:51,404 --> 00:22:53,717 She was determined to write on the side. 344 00:22:53,820 --> 00:22:56,133 She did what any good enterprising writer would do. 345 00:22:56,236 --> 00:22:58,618 She got freelance jobs. 346 00:22:58,722 --> 00:23:01,552 Her curiosity was so remarkable. 347 00:23:01,656 --> 00:23:03,174 She writes about specific 348 00:23:03,278 --> 00:23:05,245 economic districts in the city. 349 00:23:05,349 --> 00:23:06,833 She does the Jewelry District 350 00:23:06,937 --> 00:23:09,249 she does the Fur District, she does the Flower District 351 00:23:09,353 --> 00:23:10,734 and she develops a voice. 352 00:23:10,837 --> 00:23:11,735 And where does she sell them to? 353 00:23:11,838 --> 00:23:13,392 "Vogue" magazine. 354 00:23:15,290 --> 00:23:17,396 She was writing pieces 355 00:23:17,499 --> 00:23:20,088 about what she was observing and seeing in the city. 356 00:23:21,572 --> 00:23:24,610 "The best way to plan for Downtown 357 00:23:24,713 --> 00:23:27,095 "is to see how people use it today. 358 00:23:29,028 --> 00:23:30,409 "To look for its strengths 359 00:23:30,512 --> 00:23:33,342 "and to exploit and reinforce them. 360 00:23:33,446 --> 00:23:36,967 "There is no logic that can be superimposed on the city. 361 00:23:37,070 --> 00:23:39,418 "People make it. 362 00:23:39,521 --> 00:23:43,180 "And it is to them, not buildings 363 00:23:43,283 --> 00:23:45,182 that we must fit our plans." 364 00:23:47,460 --> 00:23:50,670 "Q Magazine" accepted one of her stories 365 00:23:50,774 --> 00:23:52,672 about manhole covers. 366 00:23:52,776 --> 00:23:55,641 She discovered that they had all kinds of interesting 367 00:23:55,744 --> 00:23:58,851 uh, patterns on them, interesting lettering. 368 00:23:58,954 --> 00:24:00,024 How many female journalists 369 00:24:00,128 --> 00:24:01,336 were writing about manhole covers? 370 00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:02,958 Nobody. But she was. 371 00:24:03,062 --> 00:24:05,720 She wanted to figure out how the sewer system was working. 372 00:24:05,823 --> 00:24:07,860 She's curious. She's got a really good craft. 373 00:24:07,963 --> 00:24:08,792 She knows how to write. 374 00:24:10,725 --> 00:24:12,451 And she finds herself in a staff job 375 00:24:12,554 --> 00:24:14,211 with "Architectural Forum." 376 00:24:23,254 --> 00:24:24,739 Mrs. Jacobs, an associate editor 377 00:24:24,842 --> 00:24:26,568 of the magazine "Architectural Forum" 378 00:24:26,672 --> 00:24:28,432 has been a New Yorker for 27 years 379 00:24:28,536 --> 00:24:30,538 and loves it, Mrs. Jane Jacobs. 380 00:24:30,641 --> 00:24:32,471 [applause] 381 00:24:32,574 --> 00:24:35,266 Thank you very much, Mr. Dolbier. 382 00:24:35,370 --> 00:24:39,374 One fine day, "Architectural Forum" put me on an assignment 383 00:24:39,478 --> 00:24:42,653 about some urban renewal projects that were being done. 384 00:24:44,586 --> 00:24:46,243 In Philadelphia, as a matter of fact. 385 00:24:51,455 --> 00:24:54,458 We have found, in our work in rebuilding Philadelphia 386 00:24:54,562 --> 00:24:57,357 that a central design idea, well-developed 387 00:24:57,461 --> 00:25:00,015 and clearly-expressed, can of itself 388 00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:02,259 become a major creative force 389 00:25:02,362 --> 00:25:03,605 and can make more meaningful 390 00:25:03,709 --> 00:25:05,400 the work of individual architects 391 00:25:05,504 --> 00:25:07,506 in various parts of an area. 392 00:25:07,609 --> 00:25:09,853 I found out what they had in mind 393 00:25:09,956 --> 00:25:11,268 and what they were planning to do 394 00:25:11,371 --> 00:25:12,407 and how it was going to look 395 00:25:12,511 --> 00:25:14,064 according to the drawings 396 00:25:14,167 --> 00:25:17,412 and what great things it was going to accomplish. 397 00:25:17,516 --> 00:25:18,620 I came back and wrote 398 00:25:18,724 --> 00:25:21,416 enthusiastic articles about this. 399 00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:24,143 All was well, I was in very cozy 400 00:25:24,246 --> 00:25:27,387 with the planners and the project builders. 401 00:25:27,491 --> 00:25:29,769 Anyhow, time passed 402 00:25:29,873 --> 00:25:32,600 and some of these things were actually built. 403 00:25:35,257 --> 00:25:36,983 Society Hill is residential. 404 00:25:37,087 --> 00:25:39,538 The oldest part of the city, it is the site 405 00:25:39,641 --> 00:25:41,263 of an intensive restoration project. 406 00:25:43,231 --> 00:25:46,165 Houses, many pre-dating the American Revolution 407 00:25:46,268 --> 00:25:48,132 slowly had grown dilapidated 408 00:25:48,236 --> 00:25:50,100 and had been converted to other uses. 409 00:25:53,413 --> 00:25:55,070 In addition, there was room for new 410 00:25:55,174 --> 00:25:58,660 dramatically contemporary apartment towers. 411 00:25:58,764 --> 00:26:00,006 Society Hill emerges 412 00:26:00,110 --> 00:26:02,422 as a combination of ancient and modern. 413 00:26:05,011 --> 00:26:08,636 But they didn't work at all the way they should've worked. 414 00:26:08,739 --> 00:26:11,639 The city around them didn't react the way 415 00:26:11,742 --> 00:26:13,779 uh, theoretically the city around them 416 00:26:13,882 --> 00:26:15,781 should have reacted. 417 00:26:15,884 --> 00:26:19,336 She is the hyper-sensitive antennae 418 00:26:19,439 --> 00:26:21,131 you know, that's picking up something here 419 00:26:21,234 --> 00:26:23,340 that no one else is seeing. 420 00:26:25,514 --> 00:26:29,173 Why did stores that looked very cheerful and posed 421 00:26:29,277 --> 00:26:33,522 to, uh, be doing a great booming business in the plans 422 00:26:33,626 --> 00:26:37,803 actually go empty or languish? 423 00:26:37,906 --> 00:26:39,943 Well, I would bring these questions up 424 00:26:40,046 --> 00:26:42,221 with the people who had been responsible 425 00:26:42,324 --> 00:26:44,292 for the, uh, planning of these places. 426 00:26:48,123 --> 00:26:51,195 And I got quite a lot of alibis 427 00:26:51,299 --> 00:26:53,784 boiling down to, uh, "People are stupid. 428 00:26:53,888 --> 00:26:56,166 They don't do what they're supposed to do." 429 00:26:59,307 --> 00:27:01,343 And this was a great shock to me. 430 00:27:02,724 --> 00:27:06,694 Never mind highfalutin theories and so forth. 431 00:27:06,797 --> 00:27:09,075 What are we looking at? What are we seeing? 432 00:27:09,179 --> 00:27:12,389 Do you wanna trust some theory 433 00:27:12,492 --> 00:27:15,910 that somebody figured out sitting in an office somewhere? 434 00:27:16,013 --> 00:27:17,981 Or do you wanna trust what you actually see 435 00:27:18,084 --> 00:27:20,155 out there with your own eyes? 436 00:27:20,259 --> 00:27:23,262 Maybe the experts didn't really know 437 00:27:23,365 --> 00:27:25,229 as much as they pretended to know. 438 00:27:33,444 --> 00:27:36,724 About this time, a gentleman came into the office 439 00:27:36,827 --> 00:27:39,623 of the "Architectural Forum." 440 00:27:39,727 --> 00:27:41,729 He was very much worried about East Harlem. 441 00:27:43,282 --> 00:27:46,561 About 300 million dollars 442 00:27:46,665 --> 00:27:48,356 uh, worth of city rebuilding money 443 00:27:48,459 --> 00:27:50,427 had been put to work. 444 00:27:51,842 --> 00:27:53,741 He could see that their problems 445 00:27:53,844 --> 00:27:56,951 were growing greater than they had ever been in the past. 446 00:28:00,402 --> 00:28:03,578 She goes up to Harlem and she was taken around 447 00:28:03,682 --> 00:28:08,617 by William Kirk of the Union Settlement House. 448 00:28:08,721 --> 00:28:11,379 And he's showing her all the things 449 00:28:11,482 --> 00:28:14,244 that are being lost in this community 450 00:28:14,347 --> 00:28:16,142 when it's being demolished. 451 00:28:17,730 --> 00:28:20,975 He would walk me around East Harlem. 452 00:28:21,078 --> 00:28:23,115 We would stop in at stores 453 00:28:23,218 --> 00:28:25,220 stop in at housing projects. 454 00:28:27,395 --> 00:28:29,431 I began to see the.. 455 00:28:29,535 --> 00:28:33,090 Just out of the accumulation of all of this 456 00:28:33,194 --> 00:28:36,715 I was beginning to understand how things worked. 457 00:28:38,751 --> 00:28:42,237 Many little details of cause and effect. 458 00:28:43,791 --> 00:28:45,931 She describes it as the very beginning. 459 00:28:46,034 --> 00:28:47,346 The sort of moment when the light bulb 460 00:28:47,449 --> 00:28:49,451 kind of went off in her head. 461 00:28:59,772 --> 00:29:02,741 What I was seeing, in fact, was, uh 462 00:29:02,844 --> 00:29:06,537 what makes the very intricate order of the city. 463 00:29:08,954 --> 00:29:10,852 This has to do with a quality 464 00:29:10,956 --> 00:29:13,096 that's called rather vaguely urbanism. 465 00:29:20,517 --> 00:29:23,002 Cities are extremely physical places. 466 00:29:23,106 --> 00:29:24,832 It's not an inert mass. 467 00:29:26,626 --> 00:29:28,042 It's enterprises and people 468 00:29:28,145 --> 00:29:30,734 reacting in certain ways to each other 469 00:29:30,838 --> 00:29:32,632 and mutually supporting each other. 470 00:29:35,152 --> 00:29:37,672 And wherever it worked properly 471 00:29:37,776 --> 00:29:40,226 there seemed to be an awful lot of diversity. 472 00:29:41,883 --> 00:29:43,816 Many different kinds of enterprises 473 00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:47,164 many different kinds of people 474 00:29:47,268 --> 00:29:49,684 mutually supporting and supplementing each other. 475 00:29:57,554 --> 00:30:00,591 Jane Jacobs is thinking about how does a neighborhood work? 476 00:30:00,695 --> 00:30:02,662 How does a street work? 477 00:30:02,766 --> 00:30:05,389 What function does a sidewalk play? 478 00:30:05,493 --> 00:30:08,323 But what she's really after is a new theory 479 00:30:08,427 --> 00:30:11,085 of how cities function. 480 00:30:11,188 --> 00:30:12,983 "In Death And Life Of Great American Cities" 481 00:30:13,087 --> 00:30:16,055 she's asking what is the problem of a city? 482 00:30:22,234 --> 00:30:24,408 She argues, "A city is a problem 483 00:30:24,512 --> 00:30:26,617 of organized complexity." 484 00:30:28,792 --> 00:30:31,899 Looks on the surface 485 00:30:32,002 --> 00:30:33,901 like it's complex and disorderly.. 486 00:30:35,868 --> 00:30:37,628 ...but in fact, there's an underlying structure. 487 00:30:40,079 --> 00:30:43,427 Looks like chaos, but in fact, there's a balance. 488 00:30:43,531 --> 00:30:45,257 There's a productive mix 489 00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:47,466 of different functions and organisms. 490 00:30:49,295 --> 00:30:51,850 She draws on ecological metaphors 491 00:30:51,953 --> 00:30:53,713 biological metaphors 492 00:30:53,817 --> 00:30:55,577 to suggest how it's really an ecosystem. 493 00:30:57,890 --> 00:30:59,478 She wrote.. 494 00:30:59,581 --> 00:31:02,067 "To see complex systems of functional order 495 00:31:02,170 --> 00:31:04,897 "as order and not as chaos 496 00:31:05,001 --> 00:31:07,244 takes understanding. 497 00:31:07,348 --> 00:31:10,972 "The leaves dropping from the trees in the autumn 498 00:31:11,076 --> 00:31:13,078 "the interior of an airplane engine.. 499 00:31:14,942 --> 00:31:16,909 "...the entrails of a dissected rabbit.. 500 00:31:18,911 --> 00:31:20,637 "...the city desk of a newspaper.. 501 00:31:22,846 --> 00:31:25,435 "all appear to be chaos 502 00:31:25,538 --> 00:31:27,264 "if they are seen without comprehension. 503 00:31:28,852 --> 00:31:31,268 "Once they are seen as systems of order 504 00:31:31,372 --> 00:31:33,443 they actually look different." 505 00:31:35,134 --> 00:31:38,517 Jacobs understood when cities really work 506 00:31:38,620 --> 00:31:42,003 they're phenomena that come from the bottom up. 507 00:31:42,107 --> 00:31:44,109 So a great neighborhood is what happens 508 00:31:44,212 --> 00:31:46,318 when thousands of different actors.. 509 00:31:48,423 --> 00:31:51,081 ...and that's the shopkeepers, the bar owners 510 00:31:51,185 --> 00:31:52,841 the people walking the streets 511 00:31:52,945 --> 00:31:55,085 they spontaneously come together 512 00:31:55,189 --> 00:31:58,157 in, in an uncoordinated but meaningful way 513 00:31:58,261 --> 00:32:00,470 to create the kind of flavor and personality 514 00:32:00,573 --> 00:32:02,990 of a distinct neighborhood. 515 00:32:03,093 --> 00:32:04,888 That's not planned. 516 00:32:04,992 --> 00:32:07,718 That's much more a question of organized complexity. 517 00:32:10,342 --> 00:32:13,690 Jane Jacobs understood that living cities are not pretty. 518 00:32:13,793 --> 00:32:16,658 They're messy, uh, chaotic 519 00:32:16,762 --> 00:32:19,385 dense with people interacting together. 520 00:32:21,008 --> 00:32:25,046 Dead cities are beautiful in a certain sense 521 00:32:25,150 --> 00:32:27,462 because they tend to look predictable. 522 00:32:27,566 --> 00:32:28,843 There aren't very many people. 523 00:32:30,810 --> 00:32:33,468 If you can understand a city, then that city is dead. 524 00:32:36,644 --> 00:32:39,060 Living cities are congested. 525 00:32:40,406 --> 00:32:42,995 They're frustrating. 526 00:32:43,099 --> 00:32:45,480 And at the same time, that's where your dreams come true. 527 00:32:54,420 --> 00:32:59,736 Planners, they don't see any of the wondrous human qualities 528 00:32:59,839 --> 00:33:02,014 that Jacobs is seeing. 529 00:33:02,118 --> 00:33:05,500 The very forms of urbanism that she wrote about 530 00:33:05,604 --> 00:33:08,538 the urban renewalists sought to destroy. 531 00:33:30,284 --> 00:33:31,802 What would you do for Harlem? 532 00:33:31,906 --> 00:33:34,012 - The slum corner of Harlem. - Yes. 533 00:33:34,115 --> 00:33:37,084 I'd take that and all the other similar slums. 534 00:33:37,187 --> 00:33:39,051 I'd tear 'em all out, every bit of 'em. 535 00:33:39,155 --> 00:33:40,397 It's a cancerous thing 536 00:33:40,501 --> 00:33:42,365 and you've just got to wipe them out. 537 00:33:44,988 --> 00:33:47,301 I say that you have a cancerous growth there 538 00:33:47,404 --> 00:33:48,750 that has to be carved out. 539 00:33:48,854 --> 00:33:50,028 Alright, you've carved it out 540 00:33:50,131 --> 00:33:51,477 and now you've replaced it with something new. 541 00:33:51,581 --> 00:33:52,651 Yes, that's right. 542 00:33:52,754 --> 00:33:54,135 With something that's decent 543 00:33:54,239 --> 00:33:57,138 something that involves light and air 544 00:33:57,242 --> 00:34:00,072 and, uh, new schools and playgrounds and parks. 545 00:34:00,176 --> 00:34:02,661 And I'd say that's a hell of a big contribution 546 00:34:02,764 --> 00:34:04,421 and certainly all the contribution 547 00:34:04,525 --> 00:34:06,078 that I would be able to make 548 00:34:06,182 --> 00:34:08,287 with all the people I can persuade to make it. 549 00:34:10,945 --> 00:34:12,671 Instead of following the natural way 550 00:34:12,774 --> 00:34:14,914 that people use space 551 00:34:15,018 --> 00:34:16,951 city planning in this post-war era 552 00:34:17,055 --> 00:34:18,987 and modern architecture created 553 00:34:19,091 --> 00:34:21,024 this abstract vision of what it should be. 554 00:34:22,646 --> 00:34:25,615 Concentrated on the utopian and the ideal. 555 00:34:39,870 --> 00:34:41,872 In the 1920s, you get the rise 556 00:34:41,976 --> 00:34:44,841 of this curious, mystical figure 557 00:34:44,944 --> 00:34:46,808 um, out of Switzerland 558 00:34:46,912 --> 00:34:49,190 uh, who calls himself Le Corbusier. 559 00:34:49,294 --> 00:34:52,193 He's done some architecture and he's bethinking himself 560 00:34:52,297 --> 00:34:54,989 not only an architect, but a great urban visionary. 561 00:34:57,164 --> 00:34:59,959 The real gestation of his ideas 562 00:35:00,063 --> 00:35:02,514 about modernist urbanism 563 00:35:02,617 --> 00:35:05,724 that came as a result of riding in an airplane over Paris. 564 00:35:07,967 --> 00:35:10,211 Seeing the city from up in the air 565 00:35:10,315 --> 00:35:13,180 looking down God-like on this diorama 566 00:35:13,283 --> 00:35:17,149 versus considering and knowing the city from the streets. 567 00:35:19,186 --> 00:35:22,223 Corb was enraptured by the airplane. 568 00:35:22,327 --> 00:35:25,295 He writes that the airplane indicts the mess 569 00:35:25,399 --> 00:35:27,125 we've made of our cities. 570 00:35:28,816 --> 00:35:30,542 Before the wheels hit the tarmac 571 00:35:30,645 --> 00:35:34,062 he's concluded that we need to sweep all this away 572 00:35:34,166 --> 00:35:35,926 and rebuild our cities. 573 00:35:38,308 --> 00:35:40,897 Le Corbusier envisioned tearing down 574 00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:43,002 huge sections of Paris.. 575 00:35:43,934 --> 00:35:47,110 ...and replacing it with slabs 576 00:35:47,214 --> 00:35:49,940 modern slabs, cruciform buildings. 577 00:35:51,839 --> 00:35:54,911 He proposed superhighways 578 00:35:55,014 --> 00:35:57,155 that went through green open space. 579 00:35:59,536 --> 00:36:02,953 And they were going to terminate in superblocks. 580 00:36:03,057 --> 00:36:05,784 And the superblocks had high-rise buildings 581 00:36:05,887 --> 00:36:07,441 and the high-rise buildings 582 00:36:07,544 --> 00:36:10,133 were so that people could have light and air 583 00:36:10,237 --> 00:36:11,962 and they could get out of the slums. 584 00:36:14,344 --> 00:36:15,966 He was thoroughly of the opinion 585 00:36:16,070 --> 00:36:18,383 that if you had, uh, good architecture 586 00:36:18,486 --> 00:36:20,039 the lives of people would be improved 587 00:36:20,143 --> 00:36:21,420 and that architecture would improve people 588 00:36:21,524 --> 00:36:22,870 and people would improve architecture 589 00:36:22,973 --> 00:36:25,528 until perfectibility would descend on us 590 00:36:25,631 --> 00:36:27,978 like The Holy Ghost and we'd be happy forever after. 591 00:36:29,739 --> 00:36:32,120 Corb did this plan and made his models 592 00:36:32,224 --> 00:36:35,296 and, uh, it excited a lot of people. 593 00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,610 But in France, they weren't so excited. 594 00:36:38,713 --> 00:36:42,303 The idea of the Ville Radieuse and the tower in a park 595 00:36:42,407 --> 00:36:45,099 ended up, uh, moving to America 596 00:36:45,203 --> 00:36:46,997 just like the rest of modernism did. 597 00:36:53,418 --> 00:36:55,834 To help us get a glimpse into the future 598 00:36:55,937 --> 00:36:58,319 of this unfinished world of ours 599 00:36:58,423 --> 00:37:01,771 there has been created for the New York World's Fair 600 00:37:01,874 --> 00:37:03,566 a thought-provoking exhibit 601 00:37:03,669 --> 00:37:06,431 of the developments ahead of us. 602 00:37:06,534 --> 00:37:10,469 In 1939, General Motors had an exhibition. 603 00:37:10,573 --> 00:37:12,575 The Futurama. 604 00:37:12,678 --> 00:37:14,680 It showed superhighways. 605 00:37:14,784 --> 00:37:18,097 And everybody in America wanted this. 606 00:37:18,201 --> 00:37:21,169 Here is an American city replanned 607 00:37:21,273 --> 00:37:24,483 around a highly-developed modern traffic system. 608 00:37:25,795 --> 00:37:28,107 Rebuilt and replanned. 609 00:37:29,454 --> 00:37:33,458 Residential, commercial and industrial areas 610 00:37:33,561 --> 00:37:35,770 all have been separated 611 00:37:35,874 --> 00:37:38,980 for greater efficiency and greater convenience. 612 00:37:50,854 --> 00:37:53,650 The '39 World's Fair in New York 613 00:37:53,754 --> 00:37:55,997 was a Corbusier event. 614 00:37:56,101 --> 00:37:58,379 It celebrated that style. 615 00:37:58,483 --> 00:38:02,452 And so we see some suggestion 616 00:38:02,556 --> 00:38:04,834 of the things to come. 617 00:38:04,937 --> 00:38:06,836 A world with a future 618 00:38:06,939 --> 00:38:11,150 in which all of us are tremendously interested 619 00:38:11,254 --> 00:38:14,326 because that is where we are going to spend 620 00:38:14,430 --> 00:38:16,224 the rest of our lives. 621 00:38:17,812 --> 00:38:20,884 In a future which can be whatever 622 00:38:20,988 --> 00:38:22,990 we propose to make it. 623 00:38:33,276 --> 00:38:37,487 Modernism moved into the mainstream 624 00:38:37,591 --> 00:38:41,733 of both American commercial architecture 625 00:38:41,836 --> 00:38:43,182 and urban renewal. 626 00:38:44,736 --> 00:38:47,877 The public housing model that we picked in the United States 627 00:38:47,980 --> 00:38:50,017 was a misinterpretation of Le Corbusier. 628 00:38:51,398 --> 00:38:54,573 The towers in his 1923 plan 629 00:38:54,677 --> 00:38:57,921 were for offices, and then around the towers 630 00:38:58,025 --> 00:39:02,754 were low 7 story buildings with generous balconies. 631 00:39:02,857 --> 00:39:05,032 He never called for people 632 00:39:05,135 --> 00:39:07,448 living in high-rise towers. 633 00:39:07,552 --> 00:39:10,313 It was one of those odd moments 634 00:39:10,417 --> 00:39:13,937 where a set of intellectual ideas 635 00:39:14,041 --> 00:39:16,906 could be corrupted very quickly and easily 636 00:39:17,009 --> 00:39:20,219 into something cheap and commercial. 637 00:39:20,323 --> 00:39:23,913 The simplest formula to make quick money is modernism. 638 00:39:24,016 --> 00:39:27,157 And it was very cheap, very quick to produce 639 00:39:27,261 --> 00:39:29,919 and could suddenly enable 640 00:39:30,022 --> 00:39:33,612 huge amounts of building to happen very quickly. 641 00:39:33,716 --> 00:39:35,959 And Robert Moses totally understood that. 642 00:39:39,791 --> 00:39:41,586 The one thing missing completely 643 00:39:41,689 --> 00:39:44,140 from that vision is streets. 644 00:39:44,243 --> 00:39:47,626 And the idea that a street is something you actually walk on 645 00:39:47,730 --> 00:39:50,629 and a street is a place where things happen. 646 00:39:50,733 --> 00:39:53,391 Jane Jacobs saw that at a time 647 00:39:53,494 --> 00:39:56,152 when everybody else was thinking the sidewalk 648 00:39:56,255 --> 00:39:59,742 was a kind of foolish leftover of another age. 649 00:40:06,024 --> 00:40:08,958 "This is something everyone already knows. 650 00:40:09,061 --> 00:40:12,789 "A well-used city street is apt to be a safe street. 651 00:40:12,893 --> 00:40:15,378 "A deserted city street is apt to be unsafe. 652 00:40:17,276 --> 00:40:18,588 "But how does this work really? 653 00:40:20,487 --> 00:40:23,593 "There must be eyes upon the street. 654 00:40:23,697 --> 00:40:25,423 "Eyes belonging to those we may call 655 00:40:25,526 --> 00:40:27,286 "the natural proprietors of the street. 656 00:40:28,874 --> 00:40:31,221 "The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers 657 00:40:31,325 --> 00:40:35,122 "and to ensure the safety of both residents and strangers 658 00:40:35,225 --> 00:40:37,814 "must be oriented to the street. 659 00:40:37,918 --> 00:40:40,368 "They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it 660 00:40:40,472 --> 00:40:42,198 and leave it blind." 661 00:40:44,649 --> 00:40:47,997 Philosophically, what she recognized was 662 00:40:48,100 --> 00:40:51,000 safety doesn't come from armed security guards 663 00:40:51,103 --> 00:40:53,036 or blocking the entrances. 664 00:40:54,900 --> 00:40:57,075 What makes a neighborhood great is precisely the fact 665 00:40:57,178 --> 00:40:59,905 that there are people on the street. 666 00:41:00,009 --> 00:41:03,495 "The sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously 667 00:41:03,599 --> 00:41:06,084 "both to add to the numbers of effective eyes on the street 668 00:41:06,187 --> 00:41:08,569 "and to induce the people in the buildings along the street 669 00:41:08,673 --> 00:41:11,089 "to watch the sidewalks in sufficient numbers. 670 00:41:14,437 --> 00:41:15,680 "Nobody enjoys sitting on a stoop 671 00:41:15,783 --> 00:41:17,647 "or looking out a window at an empty street. 672 00:41:19,546 --> 00:41:22,238 "Almost nobody does such a thing. 673 00:41:22,341 --> 00:41:25,241 "Large numbers of people entertain themselves off and on 674 00:41:25,344 --> 00:41:27,346 by watching street activity." 675 00:41:29,487 --> 00:41:30,936 She went out and looked at things. 676 00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:35,113 When she said that the doormen were paid eyes on the street 677 00:41:35,216 --> 00:41:37,287 and that the same thing could happen 678 00:41:37,391 --> 00:41:40,532 from bars on the street in West Village 679 00:41:40,636 --> 00:41:42,430 I understood what she was talking about. 680 00:41:42,534 --> 00:41:45,572 Nobody has to worry about things 681 00:41:45,675 --> 00:41:47,366 where there are a lot of people on the street. 682 00:41:51,094 --> 00:41:54,615 Jane Jacobs reverses the vantage point. 683 00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:57,204 What is it like actually to live in these places 684 00:41:57,307 --> 00:41:59,275 from street level? 685 00:41:59,378 --> 00:42:01,864 And it's that simple change of perspective 686 00:42:01,967 --> 00:42:04,418 that lead her away from the orthodoxy of the time. 687 00:42:09,734 --> 00:42:13,496 Robert Moses had no interest really in paying attention 688 00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:16,326 to what was there in neighborhoods. 689 00:42:16,430 --> 00:42:19,537 What was there, he viewed as simply an obstacle 690 00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:21,642 to what he wanted to make happen. 691 00:42:23,575 --> 00:42:26,958 People oppose Moses all the time. 692 00:42:27,061 --> 00:42:30,237 Whether he wanted Lincoln Center for the performing arts 693 00:42:30,340 --> 00:42:32,308 a bridge across the entrance to New York Harbor 694 00:42:32,411 --> 00:42:36,312 a parking lot where mothers air their babies in Central Park 695 00:42:36,415 --> 00:42:38,935 a highway down the spine of Fire Island 696 00:42:39,039 --> 00:42:41,593 or one through the middle of Washington Square 697 00:42:41,697 --> 00:42:43,906 vehement opposition was what he expected 698 00:42:44,009 --> 00:42:46,149 and what he got. 699 00:42:46,253 --> 00:42:48,255 Oh, there's opposition to everything 700 00:42:48,358 --> 00:42:50,464 that's, uh, progressive, everything that's new. 701 00:42:53,122 --> 00:42:55,780 The opinion of people who were activists 702 00:42:55,883 --> 00:42:57,782 as we were in the village 703 00:42:57,885 --> 00:43:01,440 were Robert Moses was terrible 704 00:43:01,544 --> 00:43:04,443 and Robert Moses was destroying the city 705 00:43:04,547 --> 00:43:06,825 and Robert Moses had to be stopped. 706 00:43:08,447 --> 00:43:10,346 Jane had got involved in several efforts 707 00:43:10,449 --> 00:43:13,867 to stop Robert Moses from ripping the city to pieces. 708 00:43:13,970 --> 00:43:15,593 Starting with the, uh, his attempt 709 00:43:15,696 --> 00:43:18,147 to run Fifth Avenue down through Washington Square. 710 00:43:24,118 --> 00:43:26,051 The first time I became aware 711 00:43:26,155 --> 00:43:30,228 of the threat of what the highways 712 00:43:30,331 --> 00:43:33,887 were doing and could do to New York 713 00:43:33,990 --> 00:43:36,683 was when along came the plan 714 00:43:36,786 --> 00:43:39,858 to push Fifth Avenue through Washington Square Park 715 00:43:39,962 --> 00:43:43,793 and down below it as a continuous street. 716 00:43:43,897 --> 00:43:47,486 They, uh, wanted to have the Fifth Avenue buses 717 00:43:47,590 --> 00:43:49,627 go through the park 718 00:43:49,730 --> 00:43:52,388 down into West Broadway 719 00:43:52,491 --> 00:43:54,183 and change the name of that 720 00:43:54,286 --> 00:43:57,220 to Fifth Avenue South 721 00:43:57,324 --> 00:43:59,637 so as to make it more valuable for rents. 722 00:43:59,740 --> 00:44:03,019 And that was a Robert Moses project. 723 00:44:03,123 --> 00:44:05,366 This wasn't in the abstract for Jane Jacobs. 724 00:44:05,470 --> 00:44:07,265 This was happening close to home. 725 00:44:07,368 --> 00:44:08,576 Right in her backyard. 726 00:44:10,095 --> 00:44:11,683 This was where she brought her kids 727 00:44:11,787 --> 00:44:13,720 in strollers to play in that park. 728 00:44:20,761 --> 00:44:24,040 It was the campus for a university. 729 00:44:24,144 --> 00:44:26,698 It was the front yard 730 00:44:26,802 --> 00:44:28,631 for neighborhood kids growing up. 731 00:44:31,254 --> 00:44:35,293 It was a true reflection of a diverse neighborhood. 732 00:44:39,435 --> 00:44:41,195 This is The Circle. 733 00:44:41,299 --> 00:44:44,612 On weekdays, it's a wading pool for village kids. 734 00:44:44,716 --> 00:44:47,477 But on Sundays, the water is turned off 735 00:44:47,581 --> 00:44:49,203 and the circle becomes a meeting place 736 00:44:49,307 --> 00:44:52,655 for guitarists, bongo and banjo players 737 00:44:52,759 --> 00:44:55,900 villagers on a stroll, folk singers and tourists. 738 00:44:58,592 --> 00:45:01,699 To me and to many others, we were outraged 739 00:45:01,871 --> 00:45:04,322 about a road going through Washington Square 740 00:45:04,425 --> 00:45:06,565 and we were going to save Washington Square Park. 741 00:45:10,017 --> 00:45:11,743 Washington Square was really Jane Jacobs' 742 00:45:11,847 --> 00:45:14,919 beginning as a civic activist. 743 00:45:15,022 --> 00:45:16,679 All of the activists, myself included 744 00:45:16,783 --> 00:45:19,682 were involved in trying to stop that. 745 00:45:19,786 --> 00:45:21,857 The leaders there 746 00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:25,067 included, uh, Jane Jacobs 747 00:45:25,170 --> 00:45:26,931 and Shirley Hayes. 748 00:45:27,034 --> 00:45:30,003 Shirley Hayes and Edith Lyons 749 00:45:30,106 --> 00:45:32,522 uh, were the 2 women 750 00:45:32,626 --> 00:45:36,457 who started the, the fight against the roadway 751 00:45:36,561 --> 00:45:38,287 in Washington Square Park. 752 00:45:50,057 --> 00:45:52,232 Jane was not deferential to power. 753 00:45:52,335 --> 00:45:55,200 So she ups the ante on that Washington Square fight 754 00:45:55,304 --> 00:45:56,650 and says, "I'm gonna write the mayor." 755 00:45:58,756 --> 00:46:03,243 "I have heard with alarm and almost with disbelief 756 00:46:03,346 --> 00:46:05,417 "the plans to run a sunken highway through the center 757 00:46:05,521 --> 00:46:06,487 "of Washington Square. 758 00:46:08,455 --> 00:46:10,422 "My husband and I are amongst the citizens 759 00:46:10,526 --> 00:46:12,424 "who truly believe in New York 760 00:46:12,528 --> 00:46:14,150 "to the extent that we have bought a home 761 00:46:14,254 --> 00:46:16,221 "in the heart of the city and remodeled it 762 00:46:16,325 --> 00:46:18,776 "with a lot of hard work. 763 00:46:18,879 --> 00:46:20,881 "It is very discouraging to do our best 764 00:46:20,985 --> 00:46:22,296 "to make the city more habitable 765 00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:24,505 "and then to learn that the city itself 766 00:46:24,609 --> 00:46:26,784 is thinking up schemes to make it uninhabitable." 767 00:46:30,891 --> 00:46:33,929 Jane's example that she set for herself 768 00:46:34,032 --> 00:46:37,656 is an example for other people to follow. 769 00:46:37,864 --> 00:46:40,176 If a highway is coming through 770 00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:41,833 that's going to be very destructive 771 00:46:41,937 --> 00:46:43,352 and you know it's an idiotic thing 772 00:46:43,455 --> 00:46:45,803 you fight that highway. 773 00:46:45,906 --> 00:46:49,082 Protest against stultification and the status quo 774 00:46:49,185 --> 00:46:50,980 and things that touch you and your neighborhood directly. 775 00:46:52,637 --> 00:46:53,845 I think she was effective 776 00:46:53,949 --> 00:46:56,158 because of the force of her personality 777 00:46:56,261 --> 00:46:58,643 and the fact that she was able to mobilize 778 00:46:58,746 --> 00:47:00,162 a lot of people. 779 00:47:00,265 --> 00:47:02,267 And Margaret Meade and Susan Sontag 780 00:47:02,371 --> 00:47:04,787 and all the various folks that Jane was involved with 781 00:47:04,891 --> 00:47:09,033 were drawn to the tangibility of this particular fight. 782 00:47:18,180 --> 00:47:19,560 They get too many critics. 783 00:47:19,664 --> 00:47:21,355 They get too many mud-throwers 784 00:47:21,459 --> 00:47:23,702 too many people who foul their nest and there we are. 785 00:47:23,806 --> 00:47:25,118 That's our trouble. 786 00:47:25,221 --> 00:47:26,498 Too many people sitting around 787 00:47:26,602 --> 00:47:28,569 calling names like Mumford. 788 00:47:28,673 --> 00:47:30,951 People that, what do they contribute? 789 00:47:31,055 --> 00:47:33,057 You have any problem to solve, any difficulty 790 00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:35,887 you'd never call upon them. 791 00:47:35,991 --> 00:47:38,027 Call upon them for four-letter words. 792 00:47:40,340 --> 00:47:43,377 They don't even have very good vocabulary in my book. 793 00:47:43,481 --> 00:47:46,553 Robert Moses wasn't used to anybody saying no to him. 794 00:47:46,656 --> 00:47:48,589 He'd fire off these letters 795 00:47:48,693 --> 00:47:50,660 to people of, uh, Greenwich Village. 796 00:47:53,353 --> 00:47:55,562 "I realized that in the process of rebuilding 797 00:47:55,665 --> 00:47:57,046 "south of Washington Square 798 00:47:57,150 --> 00:47:59,048 "there would be cries of anguish 799 00:47:59,152 --> 00:48:01,257 "from those who are honestly convinced 800 00:48:01,361 --> 00:48:03,881 "the Sistine Madonna was painted in the basement 801 00:48:03,984 --> 00:48:05,986 "of one of the old buildings there 802 00:48:06,090 --> 00:48:08,678 "not presently occupied by a cabaret or speakeasy. 803 00:48:10,784 --> 00:48:12,855 "That Michelangelo's David was fashioned 804 00:48:12,959 --> 00:48:15,616 "in a garret in the same neighborhood. 805 00:48:15,720 --> 00:48:17,515 "And that anyone who lays hands 806 00:48:17,618 --> 00:48:20,587 "on these sacred landmarks will be executed 807 00:48:20,690 --> 00:48:22,900 "if he has not already been struck down 808 00:48:23,003 --> 00:48:24,763 by a bolt from heaven." 809 00:48:26,248 --> 00:48:30,183 They managed to show Moses as this bully 810 00:48:30,286 --> 00:48:33,117 and they, they got a lot of important people 811 00:48:33,220 --> 00:48:35,636 on their side, including Eleanor Roosevelt. 812 00:48:35,740 --> 00:48:38,570 I would feel very strongly 813 00:48:38,674 --> 00:48:41,642 that destroying the Square 814 00:48:41,746 --> 00:48:45,267 by putting a large artery 815 00:48:45,370 --> 00:48:47,821 for traffic through the Square 816 00:48:47,925 --> 00:48:51,549 would harm not only the Square itself 817 00:48:51,652 --> 00:48:53,482 but the whole neighborhood 818 00:48:53,585 --> 00:48:56,105 and really the city. 819 00:48:56,209 --> 00:48:58,970 I'm not opposed to change. 820 00:48:59,074 --> 00:49:01,731 In fact, I believe in change. 821 00:49:01,835 --> 00:49:04,424 But I think that good tradition 822 00:49:04,527 --> 00:49:06,944 has to be preserved. 823 00:49:09,429 --> 00:49:11,914 Jacobs was a brilliant strategist 824 00:49:12,018 --> 00:49:14,986 when it came to civil action. 825 00:49:15,090 --> 00:49:17,609 She had a real sense for the photo op. 826 00:49:17,713 --> 00:49:19,577 In Washington Square Park 827 00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:22,407 she arranged for her daughter and another girl 828 00:49:22,511 --> 00:49:26,066 to conduct a ribbon-tying ceremony. 829 00:49:26,170 --> 00:49:27,343 This, of course, was the opposite of 830 00:49:27,447 --> 00:49:28,966 the ribbon cutting ceremony 831 00:49:29,069 --> 00:49:31,106 the politicians loved to, uh, celebrate 832 00:49:31,209 --> 00:49:32,417 with public works. 833 00:49:34,247 --> 00:49:36,145 It was at one of the hearings 834 00:49:36,249 --> 00:49:39,459 where Moses was foolish enough to say that 835 00:49:39,562 --> 00:49:42,669 nobody's against us except a bunch of mothers. 836 00:49:42,772 --> 00:49:45,292 How could he be so tactless? 837 00:49:45,396 --> 00:49:46,949 Only if you think that people don't matter at all 838 00:49:47,053 --> 00:49:49,710 could you make a statement like that. 839 00:49:49,814 --> 00:49:52,817 She was a housewife. That's how they treated her. 840 00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:55,509 I mean, of course, she was a professional journalist. 841 00:49:55,613 --> 00:49:57,304 That was not somehow.. 842 00:49:57,408 --> 00:49:59,272 When you want to dismiss her, you just say 843 00:49:59,375 --> 00:50:01,481 there was this housewife from Hudson Street. 844 00:50:03,552 --> 00:50:05,209 Try to mess with a bunch of mothers. 845 00:50:05,312 --> 00:50:06,865 Uh, I think that 846 00:50:06,969 --> 00:50:09,282 he underestimated what the, uh 847 00:50:09,385 --> 00:50:12,043 effectiveness of these mothers might in fact be. 848 00:50:12,147 --> 00:50:15,702 Literally thousands of people turned to 849 00:50:15,805 --> 00:50:20,465 and it took quite a few years, but did save it. 850 00:50:20,569 --> 00:50:22,295 It ended up being an extraordinarily 851 00:50:22,398 --> 00:50:25,298 potent opposition, which he'd never met before. 852 00:50:25,401 --> 00:50:28,370 Moses had never met this before. 853 00:50:28,473 --> 00:50:30,199 He had his, he had it coming. 854 00:50:33,064 --> 00:50:34,514 Washington Square Park was certainly 855 00:50:34,617 --> 00:50:38,656 the first, uh, public defeat for Robert Moses 856 00:50:38,759 --> 00:50:41,521 and it was a, uh, uh, a major chink in his armor. 857 00:50:44,765 --> 00:50:46,940 The battle over Washington Square 858 00:50:47,044 --> 00:50:49,080 is, is Jane's first taste of victory. 859 00:50:52,428 --> 00:50:55,431 Not long after the Washington Square victory 860 00:50:55,535 --> 00:50:57,847 "Death And Life" is published. 861 00:50:57,951 --> 00:51:01,782 And Bennett Cerf, head of Random House 862 00:51:01,886 --> 00:51:04,682 sends a copy to Robert Moses. 863 00:51:06,235 --> 00:51:08,375 And Moses sends it back. 864 00:51:10,791 --> 00:51:13,760 "I am returning the book you sent me. 865 00:51:13,863 --> 00:51:16,590 "Aside from the fact that it is intemperate 866 00:51:16,694 --> 00:51:18,075 "and inaccurate.. 867 00:51:19,904 --> 00:51:22,389 "...it is also libelous. 868 00:51:22,493 --> 00:51:25,220 I call your attention, for example, to page 131." 869 00:51:28,464 --> 00:51:31,088 "Robert Moses has made an art of using control 870 00:51:31,191 --> 00:51:33,573 "of public money to get his way 871 00:51:33,676 --> 00:51:36,541 "with those whom the voters elect and depend on 872 00:51:36,645 --> 00:51:38,957 "to represent their frequently opposing interests. 873 00:51:41,098 --> 00:51:44,653 "This is, of course, in other guises 874 00:51:44,756 --> 00:51:47,897 an old, sad story of democratic government." 875 00:51:50,176 --> 00:51:52,212 He didn't even wanna recognize 876 00:51:52,316 --> 00:51:55,112 the existence of the book or of Jane. 877 00:51:57,907 --> 00:52:01,911 Others, uh, were also, uh, not charitable 878 00:52:02,015 --> 00:52:04,259 including Lewis Mumford. 879 00:52:04,362 --> 00:52:07,124 Lewis Mumford, the great architectural critic 880 00:52:07,227 --> 00:52:10,230 for "The New Yorker," his famous review of her book 881 00:52:10,334 --> 00:52:14,476 had the title Mother Jacobs' Home Remedies. 882 00:52:14,579 --> 00:52:15,960 He's immediately telling you 883 00:52:16,063 --> 00:52:17,927 Jane Jacobs was just this sweet, old lady 884 00:52:18,031 --> 00:52:21,345 trying to get some homeopathic medicine into the city 885 00:52:21,448 --> 00:52:23,347 instead of doing the serious surgery 886 00:52:23,450 --> 00:52:25,314 that a real doctor would do. 887 00:52:28,697 --> 00:52:29,974 Right around the time 888 00:52:30,077 --> 00:52:32,701 of "Death and Life of Great American Cities" 889 00:52:32,804 --> 00:52:35,255 ironically, her own neighborhood 890 00:52:35,359 --> 00:52:37,119 of the West Village, the very neighborhood 891 00:52:37,223 --> 00:52:41,158 that she had, had proclaimed as a model 892 00:52:41,261 --> 00:52:43,436 for what neighborhoods could be 893 00:52:43,539 --> 00:52:45,438 was earmarked for urban renewal. 894 00:52:50,788 --> 00:52:53,515 Moses was commissioner of, uh, housing 895 00:52:53,618 --> 00:52:56,449 in the urban renewal effort to build more public housing 896 00:52:56,552 --> 00:52:58,175 in New York City. 897 00:52:58,278 --> 00:53:00,556 He actually stepped down from that position 898 00:53:00,660 --> 00:53:02,282 but before he did 899 00:53:02,386 --> 00:53:04,802 he designated the West Village 900 00:53:04,905 --> 00:53:08,150 as eligible for slum designation. 901 00:53:16,262 --> 00:53:19,196 I got the book finished finally 902 00:53:19,299 --> 00:53:23,683 and thought, ah, now I can think about something else. 903 00:53:23,786 --> 00:53:25,857 And for 3 weeks 904 00:53:25,961 --> 00:53:28,722 I did think about other things. 905 00:53:28,826 --> 00:53:32,519 Then I opened the "New York Times" one morning 906 00:53:32,623 --> 00:53:36,385 and found that our own area of the West Village 907 00:53:36,489 --> 00:53:40,527 was going to have an urban renewal project in it. 908 00:53:40,631 --> 00:53:43,220 She really didn't think of herself as a community organizer 909 00:53:43,323 --> 00:53:45,118 as a, a street fighter or that sort. 910 00:53:45,222 --> 00:53:46,568 She was a writer. 911 00:53:46,671 --> 00:53:49,605 She did not appreciate the distraction. 912 00:53:49,709 --> 00:53:52,401 She really didn't, but she knew she had to do it. 913 00:53:52,505 --> 00:53:54,852 She was sad. I mean, she would shrug her shoulders. 914 00:53:54,955 --> 00:53:56,923 What can I, what can I do? 915 00:54:01,617 --> 00:54:04,344 You know that thing about an inert object? 916 00:54:04,448 --> 00:54:06,070 Well, there is nothing more inert 917 00:54:06,173 --> 00:54:07,934 than a government bureau. 918 00:54:08,037 --> 00:54:10,730 There's nothing more inert than a planning office. 919 00:54:10,833 --> 00:54:12,801 It gets going in one direction 920 00:54:12,904 --> 00:54:16,805 and it is never going to change of its own accord. 921 00:54:16,908 --> 00:54:21,154 So I suddenly had to put into practice my own premises 922 00:54:21,258 --> 00:54:25,538 that if anything was going to happen to reverse 923 00:54:25,641 --> 00:54:27,954 the way things were being done 924 00:54:28,057 --> 00:54:30,163 then the citizens had to take some initiative 925 00:54:30,267 --> 00:54:33,787 and the citizens had to frustrate the planners. 926 00:54:33,891 --> 00:54:36,238 I thereupon began to devote myself 927 00:54:36,342 --> 00:54:38,240 to frustrating planners. 928 00:54:41,347 --> 00:54:43,556 And so did the whole neighborhood. 929 00:54:45,385 --> 00:54:47,801 Jane calls a meeting of local residents 930 00:54:47,905 --> 00:54:49,734 at The Lion's Head 931 00:54:49,838 --> 00:54:51,978 a favorite neighborhood hangout. 932 00:54:52,081 --> 00:54:56,776 Organizes people to speak at public meetings 933 00:54:56,879 --> 00:55:01,470 and gets everybody to wear sunglasses 934 00:55:01,574 --> 00:55:03,817 with an X painted on them. 935 00:55:09,927 --> 00:55:11,411 They were fairly sophisticated 936 00:55:11,515 --> 00:55:13,310 I think, in the tactics that they would employ 937 00:55:13,413 --> 00:55:15,415 and they're tackling somebody who's been writing 938 00:55:15,519 --> 00:55:16,692 for a living for a couple of decades 939 00:55:16,796 --> 00:55:19,695 and knows how to make an argument. 940 00:55:19,799 --> 00:55:23,630 We all knew one another and were constantly planning 941 00:55:23,734 --> 00:55:26,840 on how to, uh, get the mayor on our side 942 00:55:26,944 --> 00:55:28,808 and how to threaten him. And we did. 943 00:55:28,911 --> 00:55:30,810 We got him on our side. 944 00:55:30,913 --> 00:55:34,331 She filed a lawsuit against the city of New York 945 00:55:34,434 --> 00:55:36,850 to try to block the urban renewal plan. 946 00:55:40,613 --> 00:55:42,235 "I think that the time has come 947 00:55:42,339 --> 00:55:43,478 "to put the West Village 948 00:55:43,581 --> 00:55:45,134 "urban renewal proposal to rest. 949 00:55:46,826 --> 00:55:49,138 "Promptly remove the West Village designation. 950 00:55:51,348 --> 00:55:54,316 Cordially, Robert F. Wagner." 951 00:55:54,420 --> 00:55:57,043 They prevailed and, uh, at the end of the day 952 00:55:57,146 --> 00:56:00,391 the slum designation never happened in the West Village. 953 00:56:03,083 --> 00:56:07,191 She effectively showed the people of Greenwich Village 954 00:56:07,294 --> 00:56:09,366 that they could fight city hall 955 00:56:09,469 --> 00:56:12,507 that they did not have to accept 956 00:56:12,610 --> 00:56:16,545 the plans of the planners at their drafting tables 957 00:56:16,649 --> 00:56:20,342 and that they could reject those lines 958 00:56:20,446 --> 00:56:22,413 being drawn around their homes. 959 00:56:25,692 --> 00:56:27,107 We need to understand Greenwich Village 960 00:56:27,211 --> 00:56:30,490 is a proxy here for a wave 961 00:56:30,594 --> 00:56:32,423 that was starting to take hold in the United States 962 00:56:32,527 --> 00:56:35,012 where there was increasing resistance 963 00:56:35,115 --> 00:56:36,876 to centralized authority. 964 00:56:40,431 --> 00:56:42,709 Her strategy was certainly informed 965 00:56:42,813 --> 00:56:46,506 by other struggles that were going on at the time. 966 00:56:46,610 --> 00:56:48,577 Within 3 years of each other 967 00:56:48,681 --> 00:56:50,786 Jacobs published her book. 968 00:56:50,890 --> 00:56:53,893 Uh, Betty Friedan published "The Feminine Mystique." 969 00:56:53,996 --> 00:56:57,137 Rachel Carson published "Silent Spring." 970 00:56:57,241 --> 00:56:58,553 The Environmental Movement. 971 00:57:00,037 --> 00:57:02,557 Civil Rights. 972 00:57:02,660 --> 00:57:05,767 The movement for decent cities 973 00:57:05,870 --> 00:57:07,458 feminism, you know 974 00:57:07,562 --> 00:57:09,909 all were being born at once 975 00:57:10,012 --> 00:57:12,429 and all were sharing tools 976 00:57:12,532 --> 00:57:15,052 of propaganda, of local organizing 977 00:57:15,155 --> 00:57:16,778 of civil disobedience. 978 00:57:18,504 --> 00:57:21,748 Jane Jacobs was perhaps the most articulate voice 979 00:57:21,852 --> 00:57:24,648 of a movement that now seems 980 00:57:24,751 --> 00:57:26,132 merely common sense. 981 00:57:29,584 --> 00:57:32,932 Any city that's tearing down its buildings 982 00:57:33,035 --> 00:57:35,452 just to make money for a development 983 00:57:35,555 --> 00:57:39,248 or, uh, just to have novelty 984 00:57:39,352 --> 00:57:41,630 is doing something criminal. 985 00:57:53,124 --> 00:57:55,023 A fella who gets up in the upper stories 986 00:57:55,126 --> 00:57:57,577 of a, of a public housing project 987 00:57:57,681 --> 00:58:00,580 where he has a view, what's the matter with him? 988 00:58:00,684 --> 00:58:02,479 He's got a nice place to live, hasn't he? 989 00:58:05,171 --> 00:58:07,587 I think that the objection that some might have 990 00:58:07,691 --> 00:58:10,176 was that the view is just of another housing development 991 00:58:10,279 --> 00:58:11,591 and another highway. 992 00:58:13,973 --> 00:58:15,975 No, I don't concede that. 993 00:58:21,981 --> 00:58:24,397 It wasn't just that they wanted 994 00:58:24,501 --> 00:58:25,778 new housing in place of the old. 995 00:58:25,881 --> 00:58:28,401 They wanted an entirely different-looking city. 996 00:58:34,407 --> 00:58:37,824 Robert Moses and his constituency 997 00:58:37,928 --> 00:58:40,413 wanted it all to be very simplified 998 00:58:40,517 --> 00:58:42,001 very sterilized. 999 00:58:43,899 --> 00:58:46,868 It was the hubris of Moses and his ilk. 1000 00:58:48,594 --> 00:58:51,873 The idea that we're gonna rearrange the spaces 1001 00:58:51,976 --> 00:58:55,393 and therefore, we're gonna rearrange the social relations. 1002 00:58:55,497 --> 00:58:58,707 It had to do with this towers-in-the-park mentality. 1003 00:58:58,811 --> 00:59:01,089 It had to do with the creation 1004 00:59:01,192 --> 00:59:02,987 of a new form of ghetto. 1005 00:59:07,060 --> 00:59:09,718 Whole downtowns were being bulldozed 1006 00:59:09,822 --> 00:59:12,410 in the name of people, but not for the people. 1007 00:59:12,514 --> 00:59:14,689 They were destroying lives 1008 00:59:14,792 --> 00:59:17,761 and replacing them with these housing projects. 1009 00:59:19,245 --> 00:59:20,695 And why? 1010 00:59:20,798 --> 00:59:22,559 Because it was making a lot of people 1011 00:59:22,662 --> 00:59:24,077 a lot of money. 1012 00:59:24,181 --> 00:59:27,667 It was making developers a lot of money 1013 00:59:27,771 --> 00:59:30,290 politicians a lot of money 1014 00:59:30,394 --> 00:59:32,430 and it was fast money. 1015 00:59:34,122 --> 00:59:36,573 So they kept doing it over and over and over again 1016 00:59:36,676 --> 00:59:38,471 in cities all over the country. 1017 00:59:40,128 --> 00:59:41,785 It was several years 1018 00:59:41,888 --> 00:59:45,582 after Robert Moses had begun building these projects 1019 00:59:45,685 --> 00:59:47,584 that the other cities caught up. 1020 01:00:03,116 --> 01:00:06,706 What they were building was the Corbusier model. 1021 01:00:06,810 --> 01:00:08,950 You saw the kind of building of these 1022 01:00:09,053 --> 01:00:11,884 uh, these housing projects across the United States. 1023 01:00:11,987 --> 01:00:15,646 You know, 25 story block apartment buildings 1024 01:00:15,750 --> 01:00:18,097 with playgrounds and gardens around them 1025 01:00:18,200 --> 01:00:20,582 that looked great in all the drawings. 1026 01:00:20,686 --> 01:00:22,446 Here in bright, new buildings 1027 01:00:22,549 --> 01:00:25,829 with spacious grounds, they can live. 1028 01:00:25,932 --> 01:00:29,177 Live with indoor plumbing, electric lights 1029 01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:31,904 fresh plastered walls and the rest of the conveniences 1030 01:00:32,007 --> 01:00:34,113 that are expected in the 20th century. 1031 01:00:35,839 --> 01:00:38,496 In these projects, children can play in safety 1032 01:00:38,600 --> 01:00:41,016 on the wide lawns 1033 01:00:41,120 --> 01:00:43,156 not in the littered alleys and vacant lots. 1034 01:00:45,469 --> 01:00:49,507 We must make sure that every family in America 1035 01:00:49,611 --> 01:00:53,132 lives in a home of dignity 1036 01:00:53,235 --> 01:00:55,617 in a neighborhood of pride 1037 01:00:55,721 --> 01:00:58,275 and a community of opportunity 1038 01:00:58,378 --> 01:01:01,347 and a city of promise and hope. 1039 01:01:03,038 --> 01:01:05,869 But what ended up happening is nobody ever hung out 1040 01:01:05,972 --> 01:01:08,768 on, uh, in the kind of public space around these 1041 01:01:08,872 --> 01:01:11,357 uh, projects and so they became 1042 01:01:11,460 --> 01:01:13,221 these under-populated places. 1043 01:01:13,324 --> 01:01:15,050 And they actually very quickly became 1044 01:01:15,154 --> 01:01:17,466 some of the most dangerous places in the world. 1045 01:01:19,572 --> 01:01:21,298 Concentrated poverty. 1046 01:01:21,401 --> 01:01:23,196 This was a, you know, the really 1047 01:01:23,300 --> 01:01:26,683 the worst thing about, uh, the projects 1048 01:01:26,786 --> 01:01:30,410 and therefore, amplified all of the pathological 1049 01:01:30,514 --> 01:01:33,034 and antisocial elements of poverty. 1050 01:01:35,692 --> 01:01:37,694 These institutions became fortressed. 1051 01:01:37,797 --> 01:01:39,972 You become cornered. You feel cornered. 1052 01:01:40,075 --> 01:01:41,698 You feel trapped. 1053 01:01:41,801 --> 01:01:44,045 They left people more vulnerable. 1054 01:01:44,148 --> 01:01:46,703 Public housing became places of fear. 1055 01:01:51,155 --> 01:01:53,054 High-rise fortresses like these 1056 01:01:53,157 --> 01:01:55,056 were built this way to save money. 1057 01:01:55,159 --> 01:01:57,886 In the long run, they didn't even do that. 1058 01:01:57,990 --> 01:01:59,716 The problem was that they were all wrong 1059 01:01:59,819 --> 01:02:02,235 for the people who wound up living in them. 1060 01:02:02,339 --> 01:02:05,066 Rural blacks, broken families 1061 01:02:05,169 --> 01:02:06,999 allowed in and to stay in 1062 01:02:07,102 --> 01:02:08,828 only if their incomes were low enough. 1063 01:02:13,591 --> 01:02:15,732 Most cities now are engaged 1064 01:02:15,835 --> 01:02:17,941 in something called urban renewal 1065 01:02:18,044 --> 01:02:19,528 which means moving the Negroes out. 1066 01:02:19,632 --> 01:02:21,738 It means Negro removal. That is what it means. 1067 01:02:21,841 --> 01:02:24,292 And the federal government is an accomplice to this fact. 1068 01:02:25,845 --> 01:02:27,778 Now this, we are talking about human beings. 1069 01:02:27,882 --> 01:02:30,919 There's not such a thing as a monolithic wall 1070 01:02:31,023 --> 01:02:32,472 or, you know, some abstraction called Negro problem. 1071 01:02:32,576 --> 01:02:34,474 These Negro boys and girls 1072 01:02:34,578 --> 01:02:36,269 who at 16 and 17 don't believe 1073 01:02:36,373 --> 01:02:37,650 the country means anything that it says 1074 01:02:37,754 --> 01:02:40,101 and don't feel that they have any place here. 1075 01:02:40,204 --> 01:02:42,793 The phrase, Urban renewal is Negro removal 1076 01:02:42,897 --> 01:02:45,762 was an acknowledgement by African-Americans 1077 01:02:45,865 --> 01:02:47,798 that, that this was an assault. 1078 01:02:47,902 --> 01:02:50,767 Removal is in the sense of 1079 01:02:50,870 --> 01:02:53,735 out, over there, away, far away. 1080 01:02:53,839 --> 01:02:57,601 Some place inhospitable where you can just die. 1081 01:02:57,704 --> 01:02:59,810 And a huge part of what happened to people was 1082 01:02:59,914 --> 01:03:01,916 that they were put in inhospitable places. 1083 01:03:02,019 --> 01:03:05,436 And African-Americans were put in at the margins of the city 1084 01:03:05,540 --> 01:03:08,785 in places that were, could barely support 1085 01:03:08,888 --> 01:03:11,270 the vital kind of life that people need to prosper. 1086 01:03:13,410 --> 01:03:15,688 It's as though the builders have not realized 1087 01:03:15,792 --> 01:03:17,586 that children would be living there 1088 01:03:17,690 --> 01:03:20,106 nor did they foresee the crime 1089 01:03:20,210 --> 01:03:22,971 the vandalism, which is really the acting out of rage 1090 01:03:23,075 --> 01:03:25,180 and self-loathing that can make people want 1091 01:03:25,284 --> 01:03:27,596 to destroy their own property. 1092 01:03:27,700 --> 01:03:29,012 People had lived in communities 1093 01:03:29,115 --> 01:03:30,979 that were messy, but they worked. 1094 01:03:31,083 --> 01:03:33,602 People had social capitals, people watched 1095 01:03:33,706 --> 01:03:36,813 each other's child when somebody was not there. 1096 01:03:36,916 --> 01:03:39,539 All this was actually taken away. 1097 01:03:39,643 --> 01:03:43,095 People had no investment emotionally. 1098 01:03:43,198 --> 01:03:46,374 People resented these projects that had been built for them 1099 01:03:46,477 --> 01:03:48,203 because they were poor. 1100 01:03:51,448 --> 01:03:53,001 So you see a lot of windows broken out. 1101 01:03:53,105 --> 01:03:54,796 They all were broken out by children throwing rocks. 1102 01:03:54,900 --> 01:03:57,834 And, uh, what's more natural than children throwing rocks? 1103 01:03:57,937 --> 01:03:59,836 They don't have nothing else to do. 1104 01:03:59,939 --> 01:04:02,839 There's absolutely no recreation facilities here. 1105 01:04:02,942 --> 01:04:04,702 And, uh, the playground like this 1106 01:04:04,806 --> 01:04:07,636 is a mockery for thousands of children. 1107 01:04:09,466 --> 01:04:12,158 Tenants had no input as to what they wanted. 1108 01:04:12,262 --> 01:04:14,851 Uh, it was built because somebody said 1109 01:04:14,954 --> 01:04:16,680 this would be good for children to play on. 1110 01:04:18,475 --> 01:04:20,822 There were graffiti everywhere 1111 01:04:20,926 --> 01:04:23,998 and there were drug problems and all the problems 1112 01:04:24,101 --> 01:04:26,000 that you can imagine come from 1113 01:04:26,103 --> 01:04:28,830 when you uproot people without their will. 1114 01:04:31,315 --> 01:04:33,593 And what do you expect, that they will love these projects? 1115 01:04:33,697 --> 01:04:35,768 No, that wasn't gonna happen. 1116 01:04:42,016 --> 01:04:44,087 Pruitt-Igoe, if you really see 1117 01:04:44,190 --> 01:04:46,434 an, uh, an aerial view of it 1118 01:04:46,537 --> 01:04:49,540 those buildings were spaced quite a distance apart. 1119 01:04:49,644 --> 01:04:52,509 If you took them and threw them on their faces 1120 01:04:52,612 --> 01:04:55,063 which is where they should've fallen 1121 01:04:55,167 --> 01:04:58,584 you will get lovely housing 20 feet high. 1122 01:04:58,687 --> 01:05:01,069 You can take a look at a little exercise here 1123 01:05:01,173 --> 01:05:04,901 that if these towers, these slabs 1124 01:05:05,004 --> 01:05:07,386 are removed from the towers 1125 01:05:07,489 --> 01:05:10,216 you begin to see a different attitude 1126 01:05:10,320 --> 01:05:11,769 of what is visible. 1127 01:05:11,873 --> 01:05:14,013 You begin to see through the site 1128 01:05:14,117 --> 01:05:17,775 as opposed to looking at a slab of buildings running. 1129 01:05:17,879 --> 01:05:20,364 One thing, the tenants are really stressing 1130 01:05:20,468 --> 01:05:23,057 is for a low-rise building 1131 01:05:23,160 --> 01:05:26,129 closer to a home. 1132 01:05:26,232 --> 01:05:28,303 Something that they can relate to. 1133 01:05:28,407 --> 01:05:30,719 What we are trying to do here 1134 01:05:30,823 --> 01:05:32,721 is to take a given situation 1135 01:05:32,825 --> 01:05:36,070 and try to bring it back 1136 01:05:36,173 --> 01:05:39,383 to a community where people would want to live. 1137 01:05:58,989 --> 01:06:00,922 After thinking about the problem 1138 01:06:01,026 --> 01:06:03,235 of the Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project 1139 01:06:03,338 --> 01:06:05,306 the city planners blew it up. 1140 01:06:05,409 --> 01:06:07,411 [explosion] 1141 01:06:12,623 --> 01:06:14,763 Just dynamited it away. 1142 01:06:22,116 --> 01:06:24,981 The projects end up being tremendous failures. 1143 01:06:25,084 --> 01:06:27,811 You know, we know all about that failure now. 1144 01:06:27,914 --> 01:06:30,020 And everywhere they existed 1145 01:06:30,124 --> 01:06:31,953 30, 40 years later 1146 01:06:32,057 --> 01:06:33,782 they're all being torn down. 1147 01:06:49,177 --> 01:06:52,008 You can't put streets back where you took them out. 1148 01:06:52,111 --> 01:06:53,802 You can't put stores back. 1149 01:06:53,906 --> 01:06:57,323 You can't put the daily life and all the institutions. 1150 01:06:57,427 --> 01:07:00,809 It takes generations to build up those institutions. 1151 01:07:04,710 --> 01:07:07,368 That's what was eliminated by these projects. 1152 01:07:07,471 --> 01:07:09,473 [explosion] 1153 01:07:21,244 --> 01:07:24,730 The superblock urbanism of the modernist ilk 1154 01:07:24,833 --> 01:07:26,870 that Jane Jacobs, uh, writes about 1155 01:07:26,973 --> 01:07:28,837 is, is destroying cities. 1156 01:07:28,941 --> 01:07:30,770 You also have, at the very same time 1157 01:07:30,874 --> 01:07:32,910 the automobile being rammed through. 1158 01:07:35,948 --> 01:07:38,709 This causes as many problems 1159 01:07:38,813 --> 01:07:40,884 as the urban renewal projects. 1160 01:07:43,852 --> 01:07:46,786 The most profound influence 1161 01:07:46,890 --> 01:07:49,237 on the city in the last hundred years 1162 01:07:49,341 --> 01:07:51,067 has been the automobile. 1163 01:07:54,415 --> 01:07:57,349 The decision made almost inevitable 1164 01:07:57,452 --> 01:07:59,972 was to drive the freeways, the interstates in some 1165 01:08:00,076 --> 01:08:03,079 right through the cities and through neighborhoods 1166 01:08:03,182 --> 01:08:05,702 whose value city elites and developers 1167 01:08:05,805 --> 01:08:08,256 wanted to ultimately reclaim. 1168 01:08:11,363 --> 01:08:13,296 We wouldn't have any American economy 1169 01:08:13,399 --> 01:08:14,952 without the automobile business. 1170 01:08:15,056 --> 01:08:16,816 That's literally true. 1171 01:08:16,920 --> 01:08:19,405 I believe that that this is a great industry 1172 01:08:19,509 --> 01:08:21,787 that has to go on and has to keep on turning out 1173 01:08:21,890 --> 01:08:23,582 cars and trucks and buses 1174 01:08:23,685 --> 01:08:25,653 and there have to be places for them to run. 1175 01:08:25,756 --> 01:08:28,104 There have to be modern roads. 1176 01:08:28,207 --> 01:08:30,589 The first of Moses' commandments for progress 1177 01:08:30,692 --> 01:08:32,832 is thou shalt drive. 1178 01:08:39,460 --> 01:08:41,807 Jane Jacobs was one of the very first people 1179 01:08:41,910 --> 01:08:44,637 to say the car is not supreme. 1180 01:08:44,741 --> 01:08:46,639 The people who walk on the sidewalk 1181 01:08:46,743 --> 01:08:49,125 are what makes the city. 1182 01:08:49,228 --> 01:08:51,403 It isn't hard to understand 1183 01:08:51,506 --> 01:08:53,819 that producing and consuming automobiles 1184 01:08:53,922 --> 01:08:57,305 might seem all-important to the management of Ford 1185 01:08:57,409 --> 01:09:00,308 and Chrysler and General Motors. 1186 01:09:00,412 --> 01:09:03,173 But it's harder to understand why the production 1187 01:09:03,277 --> 01:09:06,245 and consumption of automobiles should be the purpose of life 1188 01:09:06,349 --> 01:09:08,109 for all the rest of us. 1189 01:09:11,112 --> 01:09:13,873 Moses was about realizing 1190 01:09:13,977 --> 01:09:17,325 a very particular vision of the American dream. 1191 01:09:17,429 --> 01:09:19,776 That was, you know, what's good for General Motors 1192 01:09:19,879 --> 01:09:22,019 is good for the United States of America. 1193 01:09:22,123 --> 01:09:23,849 I'm privileged to present 1194 01:09:23,952 --> 01:09:25,954 the winner of the Grand National Award. 1195 01:09:26,058 --> 01:09:28,025 Robert Moses of New York. 1196 01:09:31,857 --> 01:09:35,274 Robert Moses, New York City Construction Coordinator 1197 01:09:35,378 --> 01:09:37,897 is a world-famous highway planner. 1198 01:09:38,001 --> 01:09:40,037 A man who knows his business. 1199 01:09:44,352 --> 01:09:46,734 What he was really doing was tearing up vital neighborhoods. 1200 01:09:46,837 --> 01:09:49,185 For example, in the South Bronx 1201 01:09:49,288 --> 01:09:51,359 where he built the Cross Bronx Expressway. 1202 01:10:01,921 --> 01:10:04,855 This was the single most destructive decision 1203 01:10:04,959 --> 01:10:06,823 ever made about US cities. 1204 01:10:06,926 --> 01:10:08,687 The Cross Bronx Expressway 1205 01:10:08,790 --> 01:10:10,758 an artery whose history was marked by 1206 01:10:10,861 --> 01:10:14,382 such gigantic problems of construction, financing 1207 01:10:14,486 --> 01:10:17,109 relocation and organized obstruction 1208 01:10:17,213 --> 01:10:19,836 that it took 17 years to complete. 1209 01:10:30,364 --> 01:10:33,850 The Cross Bronx Expressway ripped through the heart 1210 01:10:33,953 --> 01:10:35,231 and the middle of the Bronx 1211 01:10:35,334 --> 01:10:37,888 creating what was a wall between 1212 01:10:37,992 --> 01:10:39,545 what eventually was known as 1213 01:10:39,649 --> 01:10:41,582 the northern and the southern part of the Bronx. 1214 01:10:44,378 --> 01:10:46,207 Robert Moses thought he'd get away with anything. 1215 01:10:46,311 --> 01:10:47,553 Who's gonna stop him? 1216 01:10:47,657 --> 01:10:49,624 He's got all the city politicians on his side 1217 01:10:49,728 --> 01:10:52,248 because he's bringing a lot of federal money 1218 01:10:52,351 --> 01:10:53,973 from the federal highway program. 1219 01:10:57,045 --> 01:10:59,220 And that gets passed around. 1220 01:11:00,359 --> 01:11:03,224 Today our greatest 1221 01:11:03,328 --> 01:11:06,986 single problem is tenant removal. 1222 01:11:07,090 --> 01:11:09,403 The, uh, tendency on the part 1223 01:11:09,506 --> 01:11:11,439 of people in politics 1224 01:11:11,543 --> 01:11:14,408 as well as those who are living on these 1225 01:11:14,511 --> 01:11:17,756 rights-of-way who are immediately affected 1226 01:11:17,859 --> 01:11:20,897 is to assume that the people who are doing this job 1227 01:11:21,000 --> 01:11:22,830 are unsympathetic. 1228 01:11:22,933 --> 01:11:25,108 They're even sadistic. 1229 01:11:27,386 --> 01:11:29,285 Well, of course, that isn't the truth at all. 1230 01:11:29,388 --> 01:11:32,909 When Moses would ram the Cross Bronx Expressway through 1231 01:11:33,012 --> 01:11:36,775 it was not just breaking down the physical structure 1232 01:11:36,878 --> 01:11:38,328 of that borough literally 1233 01:11:38,432 --> 01:11:40,848 so south and north become different 1234 01:11:40,951 --> 01:11:42,194 but the community. 1235 01:11:43,851 --> 01:11:46,440 When you remove the daily life 1236 01:11:46,543 --> 01:11:49,615 when you remove the stores, you remove the places 1237 01:11:49,719 --> 01:11:53,101 that constitute where they spend time 1238 01:11:53,205 --> 01:11:55,311 what we would call the public realm 1239 01:11:55,414 --> 01:11:58,831 the sidewalks, the bars, the grocery stores 1240 01:11:58,935 --> 01:12:01,109 you remove the city. 1241 01:12:01,213 --> 01:12:03,008 And that's what Jane Jacobs says. 1242 01:12:03,111 --> 01:12:06,770 You draw away the people with a prescription 1243 01:12:06,874 --> 01:12:09,808 that is guaranteed to hurt cities. 1244 01:12:09,911 --> 01:12:12,155 Well, you have to bull it through. You've gotta do it. 1245 01:12:12,258 --> 01:12:15,296 It's like all these, these things that have opposition. 1246 01:12:15,400 --> 01:12:17,505 The fact that 2000 people come and agitate 1247 01:12:17,609 --> 01:12:20,439 against the extension of an expressway 1248 01:12:20,543 --> 01:12:22,614 doesn't prove that you're not gonna build the expressway. 1249 01:12:24,961 --> 01:12:29,241 So many of the problems of the South Bronx grew directly 1250 01:12:29,345 --> 01:12:32,831 out of the devastation caused by building that expressway. 1251 01:12:35,799 --> 01:12:37,836 Which, of course, became totally gridlocked 1252 01:12:37,939 --> 01:12:39,734 15 minutes after it was open. 1253 01:12:42,254 --> 01:12:44,981 I mean, Moses thought he was improving the city 1254 01:12:45,084 --> 01:12:46,741 by bringing it up-to-date 1255 01:12:46,845 --> 01:12:48,640 by making it work for the automobile. 1256 01:12:50,435 --> 01:12:52,368 And as it became clear 1257 01:12:52,471 --> 01:12:55,888 that urban highways were, in fact 1258 01:12:55,992 --> 01:12:58,995 uh, profoundly destructive 1259 01:12:59,098 --> 01:13:02,826 it really became a battle between opposing forces. 1260 01:13:06,382 --> 01:13:08,349 Of course, in Lower Manhattan 1261 01:13:08,453 --> 01:13:11,283 uh, Moses, uh, wanted to build a road 1262 01:13:11,387 --> 01:13:14,251 right across, um, uh, the city there. 1263 01:13:14,355 --> 01:13:15,770 The Whole Cast Iron District 1264 01:13:15,874 --> 01:13:17,841 would've been basically obliterated. 1265 01:13:21,258 --> 01:13:23,260 The Lower Manhattan Expressway 1266 01:13:23,364 --> 01:13:27,748 was to have connected the Holland Tunnel 1267 01:13:27,851 --> 01:13:30,233 with the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges. 1268 01:13:32,546 --> 01:13:34,306 It would've destroyed most of SoHo. 1269 01:13:34,410 --> 01:13:38,724 We would've lost one of the greatest inventories 1270 01:13:38,828 --> 01:13:40,968 of 19th century buildings, not just in New York 1271 01:13:41,071 --> 01:13:42,245 but in the world. 1272 01:13:43,936 --> 01:13:45,973 The highways, of course 1273 01:13:46,076 --> 01:13:47,595 destroyed the neighborhoods 1274 01:13:47,699 --> 01:13:49,114 that they went through. 1275 01:13:49,217 --> 01:13:51,979 Where was this going to end? 1276 01:13:52,082 --> 01:13:55,810 The whole place was going to be laced with highways. 1277 01:13:55,914 --> 01:13:58,054 What would we have left of Manhattan? 1278 01:14:01,333 --> 01:14:05,786 On any day of the week, if you walk along Canal Street 1279 01:14:05,889 --> 01:14:07,891 and it's often faster than riding 1280 01:14:07,995 --> 01:14:09,721 this is what you'll see. 1281 01:14:09,824 --> 01:14:12,448 The crush of endless waiting traffic. 1282 01:14:13,725 --> 01:14:15,554 Now look at the solution. 1283 01:14:15,658 --> 01:14:18,454 A Lower Manhattan Expressway 1284 01:14:18,557 --> 01:14:20,317 only practical highway crossing 1285 01:14:20,421 --> 01:14:21,457 serving the Lower Manhattan 1286 01:14:21,560 --> 01:14:24,252 commercial and business districts. 1287 01:14:24,356 --> 01:14:27,152 Can we afford to let one section of our city 1288 01:14:27,255 --> 01:14:30,086 slowly strangle in hopeless traffic congestion? 1289 01:14:31,812 --> 01:14:34,090 There was an awful campaign against that neighborhood. 1290 01:14:34,193 --> 01:14:36,472 It was called Hell's Hundred Acres. 1291 01:14:36,575 --> 01:14:39,751 A bottled-up, stagnating section of the city. 1292 01:14:39,854 --> 01:14:43,030 No new private buildings erected in 30 years. 1293 01:14:44,583 --> 01:14:47,759 A valley of economic depression. 1294 01:14:47,862 --> 01:14:50,313 The need is urgent. 1295 01:14:50,416 --> 01:14:54,213 We must have a Lower Manhattan Expressway now. 1296 01:14:56,940 --> 01:15:00,116 The local priest in a church on Broom Street 1297 01:15:00,219 --> 01:15:02,290 had heard about Jane's 1298 01:15:02,394 --> 01:15:05,052 successful defenses fighting Moses 1299 01:15:05,155 --> 01:15:06,881 and asked if she could help. 1300 01:15:06,985 --> 01:15:08,607 Father, what effect do you feel 1301 01:15:08,711 --> 01:15:10,367 that the expressway will have on the neighborhood? 1302 01:15:12,542 --> 01:15:15,372 Well, the expressway will, will destroy the neighborhood. 1303 01:15:26,038 --> 01:15:28,524 This is the worst thing about these monumental plans. 1304 01:15:30,629 --> 01:15:32,320 There is no way there 1305 01:15:32,424 --> 01:15:34,875 that old buildings can easily be torn down 1306 01:15:34,978 --> 01:15:36,393 and new ones put up. 1307 01:15:36,497 --> 01:15:38,223 Old things adapted to different use. 1308 01:15:41,019 --> 01:15:42,330 It's settled. 1309 01:15:42,434 --> 01:15:44,160 Well, that's not planning for the future. 1310 01:15:47,922 --> 01:15:49,855 Reminded of some of the opposition 1311 01:15:49,959 --> 01:15:51,995 to his longtime dream for an expressway 1312 01:15:52,099 --> 01:15:53,859 across Lower Manhattan 1313 01:15:53,963 --> 01:15:56,275 Moses was specific about what it takes 1314 01:15:56,379 --> 01:15:59,071 to override the inevitable roadblocks. 1315 01:15:59,175 --> 01:16:00,694 You gotta move people. 1316 01:16:00,797 --> 01:16:03,179 And that, the political leaders 1317 01:16:03,282 --> 01:16:05,353 naturally, if they have people ticketed 1318 01:16:05,457 --> 01:16:07,597 and they know where they are and they vote right 1319 01:16:07,701 --> 01:16:10,462 they don't wanna move 'em and have 'em go somewhere else. 1320 01:16:10,566 --> 01:16:12,429 What I try to do, uh, in New York 1321 01:16:12,533 --> 01:16:14,880 what we've done successfully in other places 1322 01:16:14,984 --> 01:16:18,194 which is to pay more money to people in cash. 1323 01:16:18,297 --> 01:16:20,576 Come take the money and go away. 1324 01:16:20,679 --> 01:16:22,198 You got people who rent. They don't own anything. 1325 01:16:22,301 --> 01:16:23,924 So what different does it make 1326 01:16:24,027 --> 01:16:26,616 when you're talking about a, uh, an expressway 1327 01:16:26,720 --> 01:16:29,861 that costs 84 million dollars? 1328 01:16:29,964 --> 01:16:31,690 Stop being victims. 1329 01:16:31,794 --> 01:16:33,140 I think it's wicked 1330 01:16:33,243 --> 01:16:35,591 in a way, to be a victim. 1331 01:16:35,694 --> 01:16:37,627 It's even wickeder to be a predator 1332 01:16:37,731 --> 01:16:41,217 but it's wicked to be a victim and allow it. 1333 01:16:43,564 --> 01:16:46,118 You can't, as an individual, you can't do anything 1334 01:16:46,222 --> 01:16:48,776 but you can organize. 1335 01:16:48,880 --> 01:16:51,779 If you're being victimized by an expressway 1336 01:16:51,883 --> 01:16:54,230 that a bureaucracy is putting through 1337 01:16:54,333 --> 01:16:56,888 for the benefit of the automobile people 1338 01:16:56,991 --> 01:16:59,822 then you fight that you refuse to be a victim of that. 1339 01:17:01,444 --> 01:17:02,618 What effect do you think this will have 1340 01:17:02,721 --> 01:17:03,895 on the neighborhood itself? 1341 01:17:03,998 --> 01:17:05,413 It will destroy the neighborhood. 1342 01:17:05,517 --> 01:17:07,001 It's one of the few neighborhoods that you can.. 1343 01:17:07,105 --> 01:17:09,279 A woman can go down the streets at night and be safe. 1344 01:17:09,383 --> 01:17:10,936 And the women know it and I know it. 1345 01:17:11,040 --> 01:17:12,524 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning 1346 01:17:12,628 --> 01:17:14,077 the men are sitting in the cafes 1347 01:17:14,181 --> 01:17:15,769 and they're watching you, taking care of you. 1348 01:17:15,872 --> 01:17:17,425 You wanna build up neighborhoods like this. 1349 01:17:17,529 --> 01:17:19,807 They say let's get back to the old, safe neighborhoods. 1350 01:17:19,911 --> 01:17:21,084 This is it! 1351 01:17:25,641 --> 01:17:28,609 Memorandum to Arthur Hodgkiss from Robert Moses. 1352 01:17:31,094 --> 01:17:34,477 "The Lower Manhattan will move very soon. 1353 01:17:34,580 --> 01:17:36,306 Please keep an eye on it." 1354 01:17:39,758 --> 01:17:41,139 Mr. Simon, are you saying that 1355 01:17:41,242 --> 01:17:42,519 they're trying to sneak it through? 1356 01:17:42,623 --> 01:17:44,660 I would say it's a sleeper. 1357 01:17:44,763 --> 01:17:46,662 If this thing is passed, uh 1358 01:17:46,765 --> 01:17:48,767 these are how these things happen. 1359 01:17:48,871 --> 01:17:51,667 If they're not watched, uh, it's a sleeper. 1360 01:17:51,770 --> 01:17:53,392 Who do you think is pushing this? 1361 01:17:53,496 --> 01:17:55,705 Well, uh, there's only one man 1362 01:17:55,809 --> 01:17:58,639 that I can think of that can be pushing. 1363 01:17:58,743 --> 01:18:00,537 They seem to think that they have a choice. 1364 01:18:00,641 --> 01:18:02,367 That they'd rather stay in the houses 1365 01:18:02,470 --> 01:18:03,644 that they've lived in all this time. 1366 01:18:03,748 --> 01:18:07,061 The whole federal arterial aid program 1367 01:18:07,165 --> 01:18:08,684 running into billions of dollars 1368 01:18:08,787 --> 01:18:10,720 depend upon the votes of a few 1369 01:18:10,824 --> 01:18:12,549 a very few people in one section. 1370 01:18:12,653 --> 01:18:15,414 We wouldn't build anything. Nothing would be built. 1371 01:18:15,518 --> 01:18:18,348 There'd be no highways, there'd be no -- no housing. 1372 01:18:18,452 --> 01:18:20,523 There, there'd be no public improvements. 1373 01:18:20,626 --> 01:18:23,871 Please do not build this express highway. 1374 01:18:23,975 --> 01:18:26,080 Most of these people consider automobiles 1375 01:18:26,184 --> 01:18:27,841 more than the human being. 1376 01:18:27,944 --> 01:18:29,152 It is not right! 1377 01:18:29,256 --> 01:18:30,671 I think it's awful. 1378 01:18:30,775 --> 01:18:32,500 I don't think it's fair. 1379 01:18:32,604 --> 01:18:34,710 I don't think it's very good 1380 01:18:34,813 --> 01:18:37,678 'cause I live there, I look out my window. 1381 01:18:37,782 --> 01:18:39,404 The truck, the car and everything. 1382 01:18:39,507 --> 01:18:42,027 They don't need expressway. 1383 01:18:42,131 --> 01:18:44,409 What they gonna do, throw me in the street? 1384 01:18:44,512 --> 01:18:47,826 After 51 years, I'm citizen and everything? 1385 01:18:47,930 --> 01:18:50,380 There's something awful to think every day 1386 01:18:50,484 --> 01:18:52,072 they gonna throw you out. 1387 01:18:52,175 --> 01:18:54,730 I think it's awful thing. They make me sick. 1388 01:18:54,833 --> 01:18:57,560 I hope God they have to be damn sick. 1389 01:18:57,663 --> 01:19:00,045 That's what I hope. Goodbye. 1390 01:19:00,149 --> 01:19:01,357 Thank you. 1391 01:19:03,531 --> 01:19:06,742 It was gonna be a defining hearing 1392 01:19:06,845 --> 01:19:10,849 in which they would approve the expressway. 1393 01:19:10,953 --> 01:19:13,714 And Jane said, when they discuss this issue 1394 01:19:13,818 --> 01:19:17,373 I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna speak against it. 1395 01:19:17,476 --> 01:19:20,238 I went up, uh, to the microphone. 1396 01:19:20,341 --> 01:19:23,068 I was very angry. They weren't listening to us. 1397 01:19:23,172 --> 01:19:25,761 They had made their decision. That was clear. 1398 01:19:25,864 --> 01:19:27,935 They were really only errand boys 1399 01:19:28,039 --> 01:19:30,766 who had no power to make decisions. 1400 01:19:30,869 --> 01:19:34,666 So we had better let them take back a message. 1401 01:19:34,770 --> 01:19:37,807 We would never stand for this expressway. 1402 01:19:37,911 --> 01:19:41,155 I intended just to climb up to their level 1403 01:19:41,259 --> 01:19:43,675 and walk across the stage. 1404 01:19:43,779 --> 01:19:45,919 There was a stenotypist 1405 01:19:46,022 --> 01:19:48,473 who had a new machine. 1406 01:19:48,576 --> 01:19:50,130 She was frightened 1407 01:19:50,233 --> 01:19:53,305 and she picked up her stenotype machine 1408 01:19:53,409 --> 01:19:55,791 and clasped it to her bosom. 1409 01:19:55,894 --> 01:19:58,794 The tapes fell out of the machine 1410 01:19:58,897 --> 01:20:01,935 and ran across the floor like confetti. 1411 01:20:02,038 --> 01:20:04,627 People began tossing it in the air. 1412 01:20:04,730 --> 01:20:06,940 I knew it had to be brought to an end 1413 01:20:07,043 --> 01:20:09,666 so an inspiration struck me. 1414 01:20:09,770 --> 01:20:12,911 I said, "There is no hearing 1415 01:20:13,015 --> 01:20:15,327 "because the record is gone. 1416 01:20:15,431 --> 01:20:17,709 And without a record, there can't be a hearing." 1417 01:20:19,469 --> 01:20:22,990 The chief state person was saying 1418 01:20:23,094 --> 01:20:25,821 "Arrest that woman. Arrest that woman." 1419 01:20:25,924 --> 01:20:29,376 As I went out, police captain told me that 1420 01:20:29,479 --> 01:20:31,688 uh, I was arrested. 1421 01:20:34,105 --> 01:20:35,969 The police were very apologetic. 1422 01:20:36,072 --> 01:20:37,971 They knew who she was and what was going on. 1423 01:20:41,837 --> 01:20:44,046 She was charged with 3 felonies 1424 01:20:44,149 --> 01:20:46,980 which is pretty rotten for what she did. 1425 01:20:47,083 --> 01:20:48,809 What did she do? She didn't hurt anybody. 1426 01:20:50,846 --> 01:20:53,124 She became the hero. 1427 01:20:53,227 --> 01:20:56,644 And the politics did shift at that point. 1428 01:20:56,748 --> 01:21:00,200 The Board of Estimate in an executive session today 1429 01:21:00,303 --> 01:21:03,030 voted unanimously to turn down the proposal 1430 01:21:03,134 --> 01:21:05,550 for a Lower Manhattan Expressway. 1431 01:21:05,653 --> 01:21:07,655 The board -- Please. 1432 01:21:07,759 --> 01:21:09,726 [applause] 1433 01:21:17,251 --> 01:21:19,771 That was the decisive moment. 1434 01:21:19,875 --> 01:21:21,048 And Moses couldn't do anything. 1435 01:21:21,152 --> 01:21:22,601 He was just a pure villain. 1436 01:21:22,705 --> 01:21:23,982 The politicians were villains. 1437 01:21:25,742 --> 01:21:28,090 At that point, it was clear that no politicians 1438 01:21:28,193 --> 01:21:29,885 were gonna get away with this. 1439 01:21:32,715 --> 01:21:34,372 The Lower Manhattan Expressway 1440 01:21:34,475 --> 01:21:37,754 was really the beginning of the end for Robert Moses. 1441 01:21:41,413 --> 01:21:44,175 Robert Moses was finally squeezed out 1442 01:21:44,278 --> 01:21:47,523 by Nelson Rockefeller, who as Governor of New York 1443 01:21:47,626 --> 01:21:49,939 might have been the first public official 1444 01:21:50,043 --> 01:21:53,115 powerful enough to call his bluff. 1445 01:21:53,218 --> 01:21:55,531 Moses was famous for threatening to resign 1446 01:21:55,634 --> 01:21:56,946 when he was unhappy with something. 1447 01:21:57,050 --> 01:22:00,363 Rockefeller said at one point okay 1448 01:22:00,467 --> 01:22:02,296 and Moses had no choice. 1449 01:22:02,400 --> 01:22:05,782 He couldn't back down and he was gone. 1450 01:22:08,613 --> 01:22:12,134 After the Moses' expressway situation was finally settled 1451 01:22:12,237 --> 01:22:14,895 Jane felt she could go to Canada with her typewriter 1452 01:22:14,999 --> 01:22:16,759 and become a writer again. 1453 01:22:16,862 --> 01:22:18,416 Her husband, who was an architect 1454 01:22:18,519 --> 01:22:20,452 was building hospitals up there. 1455 01:22:20,556 --> 01:22:22,627 And their sons were there be, to keep out of the 1456 01:22:22,730 --> 01:22:25,043 that awful Vietnam War. 1457 01:22:25,147 --> 01:22:27,080 Of course, as soon as she got to Toronto 1458 01:22:27,183 --> 01:22:29,668 she, she saw there was another expressway 1459 01:22:29,772 --> 01:22:31,153 heading right for her house 1460 01:22:31,256 --> 01:22:32,982 the Spadina Expressway. 1461 01:22:33,086 --> 01:22:34,225 She stopped that too. 1462 01:22:35,778 --> 01:22:37,953 And then got to work. 1463 01:22:38,056 --> 01:22:39,506 The Lower Manhattan Expressway 1464 01:22:39,609 --> 01:22:43,475 was officially dead in the year 1970. 1465 01:22:43,579 --> 01:22:45,443 Meanwhile, across the country 1466 01:22:45,546 --> 01:22:48,446 these kinds of freeway revolts were taking place 1467 01:22:48,549 --> 01:22:52,657 and similar roadways were being defeated. 1468 01:22:52,760 --> 01:22:54,348 But the Lower Manhattan Expressway 1469 01:22:54,452 --> 01:22:56,661 was really the leading example. 1470 01:22:59,698 --> 01:23:02,494 If that had happened, there would be no SoHo. 1471 01:23:02,598 --> 01:23:05,532 The entire history of development 1472 01:23:05,635 --> 01:23:08,880 and redevelopment and adaptive reuse in the city 1473 01:23:08,984 --> 01:23:10,364 would've played out in a different way. 1474 01:23:11,883 --> 01:23:15,507 It would've been the single most 1475 01:23:15,611 --> 01:23:18,476 damaging intervention in the urban fabric 1476 01:23:18,579 --> 01:23:21,099 in Manhattan in the 20th century, period. 1477 01:23:34,319 --> 01:23:37,219 A city is not just a physical object. 1478 01:23:41,085 --> 01:23:42,845 The city is a living thing. 1479 01:23:44,467 --> 01:23:46,814 It will always morph and change. 1480 01:23:48,540 --> 01:23:52,337 Our goal has to be to manage change well 1481 01:23:52,441 --> 01:23:54,546 not to freeze it in time. 1482 01:23:58,171 --> 01:24:01,070 As cities around the world are obliged to house 1483 01:24:01,174 --> 01:24:04,142 this dramatically increasing population 1484 01:24:04,246 --> 01:24:07,042 we still have the conversation in terms of 1485 01:24:07,145 --> 01:24:09,527 top down versus bottom up 1486 01:24:09,630 --> 01:24:12,047 formality versus informality. 1487 01:24:12,150 --> 01:24:14,152 These are the eternal polarities 1488 01:24:14,256 --> 01:24:16,051 of thinking about the city. 1489 01:24:22,367 --> 01:24:24,783 If you go to China, you see huge swathes 1490 01:24:24,887 --> 01:24:27,855 of farmland that are now being urbanized 1491 01:24:27,959 --> 01:24:32,239 in exactly the model that America used in 1950s 1492 01:24:32,343 --> 01:24:34,172 and we know that it failed. 1493 01:24:37,175 --> 01:24:40,247 China today is Moses on steroids, you know. 1494 01:24:40,351 --> 01:24:45,045 And the notion that Moses could not have conceived 1495 01:24:45,149 --> 01:24:49,636 of this extraordinary scaling up 1496 01:24:49,739 --> 01:24:51,569 of what it means to build. 1497 01:24:53,433 --> 01:24:55,883 In that sense, history has outdone him. 1498 01:24:58,576 --> 01:25:01,613 These isolated developments 1499 01:25:01,717 --> 01:25:04,099 with hundreds of similar-looking blocks 1500 01:25:04,202 --> 01:25:06,618 with no urbanism, no street 1501 01:25:06,722 --> 01:25:10,208 who can live in them and how would you live in them? 1502 01:25:10,312 --> 01:25:12,728 What they are building today, I think.. 1503 01:25:14,143 --> 01:25:15,903 ...is the slums of the future. 1504 01:25:19,735 --> 01:25:21,012 And they're made in concrete. 1505 01:25:21,116 --> 01:25:23,463 They're gonna last at least 60 years. 1506 01:25:23,566 --> 01:25:26,259 We are condemning future generations 1507 01:25:26,362 --> 01:25:28,606 to an absolute world without hope. 1508 01:25:33,162 --> 01:25:36,165 Given the scale of the problem we have 1509 01:25:36,269 --> 01:25:39,168 that makes a completely different context.. 1510 01:25:40,790 --> 01:25:43,828 ...in which Jane Jacobs' ideas again now 1511 01:25:43,931 --> 01:25:45,933 have a new incarnation. 1512 01:25:52,008 --> 01:25:54,114 "It is so easy to blame the decay of cities 1513 01:25:54,218 --> 01:25:56,634 "on traffic or immigrants.. 1514 01:25:58,808 --> 01:26:01,880 "...or the whimsies of the middle class. 1515 01:26:01,984 --> 01:26:04,538 "The decay of cities goes deeper and is more complicated. 1516 01:26:06,644 --> 01:26:09,164 "It goes right down to what we think we want 1517 01:26:09,267 --> 01:26:11,269 and to our ignorance about how cities work." 1518 01:26:14,790 --> 01:26:17,379 With the amount of people who now need to live in cities 1519 01:26:17,482 --> 01:26:21,521 you have to accept that you're going to need more density. 1520 01:26:21,624 --> 01:26:24,351 But a lot of densely built up terrain.. 1521 01:26:26,284 --> 01:26:27,872 ...is not a city. 1522 01:26:31,703 --> 01:26:33,843 If, when we're to build a city 1523 01:26:33,947 --> 01:26:36,674 no matter how fast it is 1524 01:26:36,777 --> 01:26:38,883 without building a great public realm 1525 01:26:38,986 --> 01:26:40,505 you don't have a city. 1526 01:26:40,609 --> 01:26:42,507 That's what Jane Jacobs talks about. 1527 01:26:42,611 --> 01:26:46,028 Historically, solutions to city problems 1528 01:26:46,131 --> 01:26:47,995 have very seldom come from the top. 1529 01:26:51,827 --> 01:26:52,931 They come from people 1530 01:26:53,035 --> 01:26:56,349 who understand the problems firsthand 1531 01:26:56,452 --> 01:26:57,695 'cause they're living with them 1532 01:26:57,798 --> 01:27:00,698 and who have new and ingenious 1533 01:27:00,801 --> 01:27:04,702 and often very offbeat ideas of how to solve them. 1534 01:27:12,572 --> 01:27:15,264 The creativity and the concern 1535 01:27:15,368 --> 01:27:18,923 and the ideas down there in city neighborhoods 1536 01:27:19,026 --> 01:27:22,202 and city communities has to be given a chance 1537 01:27:22,306 --> 01:27:23,341 has to be released. 1538 01:27:23,445 --> 01:27:25,585 People have to insist on government 1539 01:27:25,688 --> 01:27:28,104 trying things their way. 1540 01:27:31,107 --> 01:27:32,730 If you gave people an environment 1541 01:27:32,833 --> 01:27:34,732 that they could shape themselves 1542 01:27:34,835 --> 01:27:36,423 they would not only be happier.. 1543 01:27:38,770 --> 01:27:40,047 ...but you would have a completely 1544 01:27:40,151 --> 01:27:41,601 different kind of city. 1545 01:27:45,467 --> 01:27:48,401 The problem for people who are planning 1546 01:27:48,504 --> 01:27:52,370 and designing and thinking about all this new urban tissue 1547 01:27:52,474 --> 01:27:55,787 that's being created is how to take some of these 1548 01:27:55,891 --> 01:27:59,274 incredibly valuable lessons that Jane Jacobs teaches 1549 01:27:59,377 --> 01:28:01,793 um, and apply them to the project of creating 1550 01:28:01,897 --> 01:28:04,451 the places where, uh, all of these 1551 01:28:04,555 --> 01:28:06,419 billions of people are going to live. 1552 01:28:09,353 --> 01:28:11,803 The key thing about Jane Jacobs 1553 01:28:11,907 --> 01:28:15,462 much more important than loving stoops and streets and stuff 1554 01:28:15,566 --> 01:28:18,603 was a willingness to be skeptical 1555 01:28:18,707 --> 01:28:21,986 a willingness to doubt the received wisdom.. 1556 01:28:23,436 --> 01:28:26,024 ...and to trust our eyes instead. 1557 01:28:35,655 --> 01:28:39,417 "Under the seeming disorder of the old city 1558 01:28:39,521 --> 01:28:41,971 "wherever the old city is working successfully.. 1559 01:28:44,215 --> 01:28:46,666 "...is a marvelous order for maintaining the safety 1560 01:28:46,769 --> 01:28:48,633 "of the street 1561 01:28:48,737 --> 01:28:50,773 "and the freedom of the city. 1562 01:28:53,811 --> 01:28:55,640 "It is a complex order. 1563 01:28:58,402 --> 01:29:01,059 "This order is all composed of movement and change. 1564 01:29:02,854 --> 01:29:04,649 "And although it is life, not art.. 1565 01:29:06,617 --> 01:29:09,067 "...we may fancifully call it the art form of the city.. 1566 01:29:11,242 --> 01:29:13,486 "...and liken it to the dance. 1567 01:29:13,589 --> 01:29:17,179 "Not to a simpleminded precision dance 1568 01:29:17,282 --> 01:29:20,009 "with everyone kicking up at the same time 1569 01:29:20,113 --> 01:29:22,736 "twirling in unison and bowing off en masse.. 1570 01:29:25,049 --> 01:29:28,086 "...but to an intricate ballet 1571 01:29:28,190 --> 01:29:30,744 "in which the individual dancers and ensembles 1572 01:29:30,848 --> 01:29:32,746 "all have distinctive parts.. 1573 01:29:34,852 --> 01:29:37,233 "...which miraculously reinforce each other.. 1574 01:29:39,477 --> 01:29:41,755 ...and compose an orderly whole." 1575 01:29:50,454 --> 01:29:53,215 [instrumental music] 114687

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