Jane Jacobs spies spirals

Accounts of breakdowns are tedious. Seen from a distance—historical, geographic, administrative, or emotional distance—they make succinct stories. But in close-up view, they consist of too many details, none sufficient in itself; the pieces make sense only when considered together. “Unwinding vicious spirals,” Dark Age Ahead (p152)

Jacobs masterfully weaves the story, pulling the thread through the many facts—the only way to unwind such interlocked problems to begin to understand the mistakes and misfortunes that sparked and spurred them on.

I’d already remarked on her storytelling skill concerning When Streetcars Ruled the Streets and pretty much any description of a system of organized complexity.

In “Unwinding vicious spirals,” she begins with the Great Depression, leading us down the rest of the 20th century spiral into worse homelessness and unaffordable housing. That prolem is interlocked with many others, of course.

I can’t do her summary narrative justice in a blog post. This is the one chapter, so far, that I will claim is a must read. It’s a must read.

Then again, I’m biased, because she’s taking to task some of the unscientific thought of the zoners in my profession, as I did earlier this month.

I’m one of those strange folk who enjoy working with (and reworking) zoning codes. Jacobs shies away from solutions that are pure abstraction, like densification or smart growth. It’s in the details. Zoning deals with some of these details, wrongly, based on three assumptions:

High ground coverages are bad.

High densities (numbers of people or numbers of households per acre) are bad.

The mingling of commercial or other work uses with residences is bad.

“Unwinding vicious spirals,” Dark Age Ahead (p153)

Based on these assumptions, we wound up governing land use primarily. That’s the “primary key” to borrow from database organization terminology, around which we organize our zoning districts. I’ve mentioned movements to put form in that spot with form-based zoning. I’ve worked on form-based zoning for small portions of Grandview Heights and Grove City, here in Central Ohio. I’m well aware of some of the strengths and drawbacks to such a solution.

Jacobs advocates organizing our code around performance with a strong form component - linked almost as a visual performance standard. I’m ready for that work when it comes. I’m ready to tell you all about it. I’m just not sure anyone’s ready to listen. Maybe soon…

Projecting forward is a bit more dangerous than connecting the threads of the past, but Jacobs identifies how the pressures on single-family homeowners to get something out of their greatest asset—their homes—may mirror the path of many farm families selling out to suburban sprawl. What this looks like: turning fallow parts of homes and lots into revenue generators: renting rooms, new structures on their lots, businesses in former residences, etc. So, so little of this is allowable today.

Organized Complexity - Processes

The processes that occur in cities are not arcane, capable of being understood only by experts. “The kind of problem a city is,” The Death and Life of Great American Cities (p441)

If you google Jay Forrester of MIT, you might come across his connection to the computer game, SimCity. In 1969, he added Urban Dynamics to his canon on system dynamics. It’s all about modeling feedback loops, coefficients, and the like. I found an example in the creative commons concerning life insurance sales:

It’s a bit much, eh?

These are NOT the kind of processes to which Jacobs is referring. Forrester tacks on an 84 page appendix to 128 pages just to explain the model in further detail - truly arcane. The stuff for experts - in math, not cities.

SimCity works well with Forrester’s model because it dumbs the city down: the system simplified. If you want to insult a city planner, reduce their job to that game. It’s like telling a guitarist that their job is as simple as playing Guitar Hero.

Some of the parameters Forrester must hold constant in his model are fundamental parts of urban processes, such as technological innovation. Think of what changes in elevator technology did to building heights, the air conditioner, the car… Short of a crystal ball for anticipating future change, there’s no way to completely model a complex system like the city.

While you might not be a guitar expert, given a few minutes, you could probably become expert in a single chord. The processes Jacobs wants us to look at are smaller than understanding the entire city. In the past week we’ve looked at the process of “slumming.” Inspecting the process of “unslumming” can’t wait much longer. I also took my first stab at explaining the diverse uses that require older buildings and the cheaper rents they might provide.

Jacobs wants us to get in the habit of looking at these processes. Look at local history. Listen to other people. Look around! I don’t need to understand the entire city as a system to explain the process by which garages in my neighborhood are in higher disrepair than the houses, on average.

If I look at a house in Victorian Village, just north of downtown Columbus, and another in my neighborhood, Clintonville, they may be subject to some of the same processes - but many may be specific, localized, differing. Each is embedded in its own set of processes - its own story.

Tomorrow I’ll look at inductive reasoning as a way to ferret out such stories.