For centuries, the development of cities has centered on some sense of organization. There are not only questions of living spaces but also access to goods and services. As though offerings and needs have grown more individual over time, many of those in charge of city planning shifted their aesthetic design to promote life for the "greater good."
There is a problem inherent within this system. Rome must have functioned as "the strongest city" in the empire to serve as an example. Ancient Rome needed not only the most artistic and functional buildings but also roads and infrastructure as the veins and arteries that maintained its status as the heart of the Roman Empire. Beyond Alexandria's libraries, Constantinople's alignment to trade paths to Europe and Asia, and Londonium's monopolization of the trade moving through the burgeoning far end of the Empire, every iteration of the prototypical Roman city sought to improve upon those facets already in existence and incorporate everything functional with previous generations.
Where did we lose this bead of development? As Civil Engineering grew to incorporate elements of many other disciplines (geography, politics, architecture) it seems to have fallen into the hands of developers who may/may not have larger agendas otherwise.
Fast forward to the 20th Century and the most populous city in Northeastern Pennsylvania, Scranton. The 19th Century was good for Scranton. The discovery of anthracite coal to the north and south of the system of villages brought in revenue. The coal they mined would need to be moved out of town on trains. In the 1880s, Scranton even became the first city with electric streetcars. Jane Butzner grew up in this well-organized series of boroughs (now around 40) as the coal industry was waning. So when the city started attracting immigrants for labor and digging up city streets to find coal, Butzner saw firsthand how a pressing need could damage city life.
During the Great Depression, Butzner moved to Greenwich Village and was immediately taken with how its winding streets and short blocks differed from the grid-like design of the rest of Manhattan Island. As she took different jobs in different parts of the city, Butzner absorbed the conveniences of their layout. Years later after marrying the warplane designer, Robert Hyde Jacobs, Jr, Jane Jacobs got a job for "Architectural Forum." Assigned to write about urban blight, Jacobs put her observations and self-education to work. Covering building projects and meeting with their developers, Jacobs built a reputation as a "harsh critic."
In 1956, Jacobs was asked to stand in for editor Douglas Haskell and give a speech to urban planners, architects, and students at Harvard. Jacobs urged all in attendance to have "better respect for those living in the facilities and neighborhoods they were designing." While this made her several very famous enemies, William H.Whyte of Fortune magazine took notice. Whyte published several thought-provoking critiques of New York life. This exposure led Jacobs to the Rockefeller Foundation which funded her research into the perils of modern urban planning.
During her research sojourn, Jacobs wrote what might be the most important book on city design, 1961's "The Death and Life of American Cities."
Despite its academic-sounding title, Jacobs' prose and research are eminently straightforward. The work opens plainly as Jacobs states "This book is an attack on current city planning and rebuilding." It is not a screed or even a well-composed "hate" letter to modern design. Jacobs only wishes to make the case, that nearly everything these professionals have been taught is 180 degrees away from what should be available.
It is bold to say "You are all wrong." However, to purport that nearly every move is the opposite of what would reap the most benefits is revolutionary. Jacobs explains her examples with enough understanding that you never feel like an academic is talking down to you. Jacobs seems to regularly support the notion that the people who live in these developments are the ones who truly know best. Every good idea of a "cultural center" being opened, is "unable to support a good bookstore." In fact, academics in general are not safe from her critique as the minds of Columbia University, Union Theological Seminary, and Juilliard cannot save their upscale neighborhood of Morningside Heights. While over in Boston, "the old low-rent" waterfront community on its North End rose from being Boston's worst slum to welcoming the "highest concentration of dwelling units in the United States."
So, Jacobs with The North End as her shining example of how people are the power proceeds to lay out a simple formula for success: sidewalks, parks, short blocks, and the diverse combination of commercial and residential entities. At first, it feels anachronistic. However, Jacobs offers short precis-size explanations of previous Utopian-style entries like The Garden City, The Radiant City, and The City Beautiful - all of which she keenly points out incorporate elements of one another. As Jacobs writes about it from the lens of history, it is easy to feel enthused about their design potential from the level of abstraction of "moving toys around." Yet Jacobs and her General Studies education see these examples "merging" into one. For Jacobs, the ground-level view of design is everything.
The sidewalks are the most important, as Jacobs beautifully expresses: "the stage for an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole." The city sidewalk is where everyone is seen. Children see each other to size each other up and perhaps find a playmate. Families take comfort in seeing other families on those same sidewalks. However, the linchpin of the city sidewalk is the sight of strangers. Jacobs says that being seen, nodded at simply, is welcoming enough to deter most from pursuing criminal activity. Planners must pay attention to sidewalk life.
Jacobs not only believed what she wrote, she lived by it. She was the first to publicly criticize New York's transit and design guru Robert Moses. While Moses had enormous success with Jones Beach and the implementation of tunnels and bridges in the city to relieve traffic, Jacobs did not want to see her beloved West Village neighborhood and Washington Square Park mowed down as part of "slum clearance" to make way for the Lower Manhattan Expressway (LOMEX.) With Moses having all the major support (even William H.Whyte) via the New York Times, Jacobs spent most of the Sixties duking it out with the commission (even though there was only coverage in The Village Voice.) The LOMEX became a point of contention even in the mayoral race of 1965. The city narrowly elected Republican John Lindsay to the post. Even though Lindsay campaigned on being against LOMEX, he and Governor Nelson Rockefeller greenlighted it in April 1968. That same month, Jacobs was in attendance at a public hearing where the crowd charged the stage. Jacobs was arrested, but after months of trials, the charge was reduced to disorderly conduct. By this time, Jacobs and her family had moved out of their beloved New York City to Toronto (where she also protested the eradication of working neighborhoods for expressways.) Jacobs was not around to see John Lindsay pronounce the LOMEX "dead for all time" on July 17, 1969.
Jacobs's time in Canada was also fruitful. Her design ethos crowned her "the mother of Vancouverism." She became an unsung hero for years. In 1996, Jacobs was awarded The Order of Canada for her writing. By the time of her passing in 2006, Jacobs (and Lewis Mumford) were recognized as the leaders of their own architectural/urban planning movement - New Urbanist.
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Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
NEW MUSIC This Week
CHARLI XCX - BRAT [CLEAR LP/CD/CS](Atlantic) • A premiere of several tracks from the Pop star's new Underground Dance album at the London club "The Boiler Room," merited non-fans to comment on how "aggressive" and "tough" the cuts were. Those two adjectives are simply not associated with Charli, even if she once encouraged Icona Pop to drive their car off of a bridge. "BRAT" is Charli going back to her introduction to Dance Music, sneaking into clubs as a teenager. Working with A.G. Cook, Hudson Mohawke, and George Daniel, "BRAT" is far, far away from "Boom Clap" or even "Speed Drive" from the "Barbie" soundtrack. Charli wants to become a different brand of Pop star. Her gifts of songwriting (especially synesthesia) are just good enough to make us all into brats.
ACTRESS - Statik [LP/CD](Smalltown Supersound NOR) • Actress a/k/a Darren Cunningham has cultivated a reputation for sparkling yet minimalism Electronic music for nine albums. The fact is Actress has survived through Dance Music going overground in 2008, morphing into Dubstep in the mid 2010s, and yet still, "Statik" approaches composition as if no boundaries ever existed or frequencies have already been tested. "Dolphin Spray" is an Eno-esque synth loop blended with early 80s Synthpop simplicity. "Static" on the other hand manages to produce a transcendental feeling from bursts of noise (think Burial - who just scraped on to the Apple 100 list.) There is something totally unnatural about all the sounds that Cunningham is manipulating here - which makes it feel natural given his track record.
BON JOVI - Forever [LP/CD](Island) • I would like to say that Bon Jovi who has been a hitmaker since 1984 is worth a documentary and another "comeback" album. Given their business problems and how well they solved to them to save the band (and brand,) I vote Yes on the documentary. However, co-op'ing your own talkbox-guitar part (not Richie by the way) circa another "Living" on "Living Proof" and the faux anthemic trailer-ready Boss-ian drive of "Legendary" shows that the band has still made no significant changes in their sound. Jon Bon Jovi's newly raspy voice, however, is a welcome addition that needs less calculated songs.
BONNY LIGHT HORSEMAN - Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free [2LP/CD](Jagjaguwar/Secretly/AMPED) • Given their lineage, (Josh Kaufman, producer and collaborator for The Hold Steady, The National, and Taylor Swift's "folklore,") Eric D. Johnson (Fruit Bats, touring member of The Shins,) and Anais Mitchell (Grammy and Tony winner for composing "Hadestown") cannot find their way on to the AAA chart. They have brilliant singles that have both the acoustic snap and a low hippie-esque rumble. Even their smart covers of Folk standards ("Green Rocky Road") are updated to match their voices and intent. So, why not just lay all their talents, feelings, and emotions over a mammoth 20 songs? "Old Dutch" purrs along with its Fleetwood Mac-ish pull, and "I Know You Know" hearkens back to their ongoing love of the rustic early Band recordings. However, it is the brilliant and heartbreaking "When I Was Younger" that richly deserves a second shot at single-hood. Three minutes of solid drama and a master class in how emoting your lyrics make them speak volumes. In short, it is music that feels good about events in life that do not really feel so good.
GOAT GIRL - Below The Waste [LP/CD](Rough Trade) • UK group Goat Girl live on the outer edges of Post-Punk (especially in Britain.) After adopting a warmer sound on 2021's "On All Fours" (witness the still-stellar "Sad Cowboy" - one of the best singles of the last five years,) the now-trio are back with some dangerous Pop-leaning songs. "Ride Around" is a bit like PJ Harvey playing with Blur. The band's typical cool detachment is tested as this one shifts time signatures and unearths the harmonies of a hidden chorus. The more beat-driven "Motorway" is closer to "Fours" but yet farther away in its obscuring the riff in samples and infectious beats.
REISSUES THIS WEEK
JIMMY BUFFETT - Living and Dying in 3/4 Time [LP](Geffen) • On his second album for Dunhill, Jimmy Buffett actually turned away from the Folk fun of his island life (1973's "A White Sport Coat and A Pink Crustacean') toward music that united Key West with Nashville. Buffett proved he was a writer on this album, as the Dean of All Music Critics Robert Christgau brilliantly points out a possessor of "covert nostalgia, reverse preciousness, and brain-proud know-nothingism." Since that elegant parlance still applies today, we will leave it at that. "3/4 Time" was Buffett's first Billboard 200 Albums entry and provided his first Top 40 hit ("Come Monday, #30.)
THE CURE - Japanese Whispers Nov 82-April 83 [2LP](Fiction/Rhino) • How do you redefine your band when you no longer have a band? Down to Robert Smith and Lol Tolhurst (Simon Gallup left after the tumultuous but classic "Pornography,") diverted into spritely SynthPop. "Let's Go To Bed" and "The Walk" blossomed into hit singles. While the wild circus-like atmosphere of the swinging "The Lovecats" was their biggest hit ever. Beneath the singles, "Japanese Whispers" launched quite the pivot for The Cure. The edgy "Three Imaginary Boys," and their grim downward spiral trilogy over, it is still enjoyable to hear their unintentional discovery of synth sounds leading them in the direction of the overblown but underappreciated "The Top."
