Is "eyes on the street" all you really need to know about Jane Jacobs?

I was trying to explain this blogging endeavor to a friend. Showing polite interest, she said she’d ask a friend involved in city planning if she knew who Jane Jacobs was.

The response back: “It would be a sad state of affairs if I managed to get through two years of planning school without knowing Jane Jacobs. Eyes on the street!!”

Bravo! I’m pretty sure one could pass the AICP exam knowing only two things about Jacobs from The Death and Life of Great American Cities: 1) eyes on the street, and 2) mix uses. Of course, there’s plenty of other non-Jacobs material to be responsible for on that exam.

Yet, over three chapters and nearly 60 pages, Jacobs details the “uses of sidewalks.”

1. Safety
2. Contact
3. Assimilating Children

“Eyes on the street” is only one quality for a city street to offer safety as an asset. (p35)

In the best procataleptic form Jacobs first dispels two frequent errors, concerning safety by arguing that:

1. Police are not the primary keepers of the peace on city streets and sidewalks. It would take thousands upon thousands of police officers to supplant the network of self-policing citizens.
2. Spreading people out does not result in less crime. See - Los Angeles

(She throws “better lighting” in with these two bit later, too.)

So, it should be worth unpacking Jacobs’ observations concerning sidewalks a bit more over the next week.