How Jane Jacobs Took On New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City
May 25, 2009
Former Boston Globe
reporter Flint recounts how activist and writer Jane Jacobs stopped the seemingly unstoppable master builder Robert Moses. Beginning in the 1930s, Moses consolidated his enormous power through the administrations of various mayors and governors, revamping the city parks network and constructing a mind-boggling array of projects including bridges, highways, Shea Stadium, Lincoln Center and 10 giant public swimming pools. Although highly skilled at crushing opponents, Moses was eventually outmaneuvered in the 1950s and '60s by Jacobs, whose landmark The Death and Life of Great American Cities
was a war cry against urban renewal projects that destroyed existing neighborhoods. Jacobs derailed Moses's plans to run two highways through lower Manhattan (one in what would become trendy SoHo). But, says Flint (This Land: The Battle Over Sprawl and the Future of America
), who is now at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Moses's tarnished reputation has been undergoing rehabilitation recently as cities realize the value of reliable infrastructure. Lucid and articulate, Flint's account will appeal more to urban planners, policy wonks and community organizers than the general reader. Photos.
June 1, 2009
Scrappy neighborhood activist Jane Jacobs faces off against notorious"power broker" Robert Moses in this history of mid-20th-century New York City urban planning.
Jacobs made her name in 1961 with the publication of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a withering critique of that era's modernist, rationalist approach to urban planning. Her nemesis, the bureaucratically savvy commissioner Moses, has become a symbol of that approach. Moses razed whole neighborhoods in the name of efficiency and progress to build—among other things—hundreds of drab high-rises and more than 600 miles of highways in and around New York City. Longtime urban-policy journalist Flint (This Land: The Battle Over Sprawl and the Future of America, 2006) effectively chronicles Jacobs's life and career, her emergence as an activist and the development of her philosophy that cities should be eclectic and organic and that urban planning must have a light touch rather than a heavy hand. In accessible prose, the author explains the forces that shaped modern-day New York, through the lens of the key battles between Jacobs and Moses—Washington Square Park, Greenwich Village and the Lower Manhattan Expressway. However, as factually precise as Flint's portraits of both Jacobs and Moses are, it's too clear from the start where the author's loyalties lie. Since history has effectively proven Jacobs"right"—her vision for pedestrian-friendly mixed-use neighborhoods is now the gold standard for urban planners—it seems too easy to play her as the quixotic hero against a power-grabbing, heartless Moses. Jacobs is indeed more likable than Moses—and her populism is a more appealing motivation than his paternalism—but both were complicated human beings with worthwhile ideas, and it's not until the epilogue that Flint concedes as much.
A one-sided treatment, but a fun read for lovers of cities in general, New York in particular.
(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)
August 15, 2009
Flint (Lincoln Inst. of Land Policy; "This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America") writes about the battle between Robert Moses, New York's master urban planner of the 1920s60s, and urban renewal activist Jane Jacobs. While covering the careers of both Moses and Jacobs, Flint focuses on two events: Moses's plans to extend Fifth Avenue through Washington Square Park (1950s) and to build a massive Manhattan highway, the Lower Manhattan Expressway (early 1960s). Jacobs ("The Death and Life of Great American Cities") believed that neighborhood characterits people and buildingsmust be preserved. She and other West Village activists used political smarts (e.g., strategic media coverage, having children canvass for petition signatures) to outmaneuver Moses, the powerful government official. The book concludes with current examplessuch as how cities are now improving mass transit instead of building more highwaysto show how Jacobs's legacy and ideas have held up over time. The jury is still out on Robert Moses's legacy, dealt a hard blow by Robert Caro's "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York". VERDICT Recommended for readers interested in urban planning, preservation, or architectural history.Leigh Mihlrad, Albany Medical Coll., NY
Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
June 1, 2009
In the 1950s, Jane Jacobs, lover of the dynamics of city neighborhoods, was a writer for Architectural Forum, challenging the conventions of architects and planners inspired by Le Corbusier and supported by federal urban-renewal programs. When the mercurial master builder Robert Moses planned a roadway through famous Washington Square Park, where Jacobs brought her children to play, she butted heads with the most powerful man in the city. Moses, who built the Lincoln Center and numerous bridges, was a man whose plans and visions had gone unchallenged by mayors, governors, and presidents. Sitting on numerous commissions, Moses wrote the regulations affecting urban planning in New York. But Jacobs fought plans by Moses and others that threatened vibrant Greenwich Village and other communities, forging coalitions and devising strategies that eventually lead to neighborhood-based nonprofit development corporations. She wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which came to be a major resource for community activists. Reporter Flint offers a fascinating history of the two combatants as well as an architectural history of New York City.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)