Preface
The final essay in the book Reconsidering Jane Jacobs, by Thomas J. Campanella, identifies the legacies of the Jacobsian revolution and the factors that contributed to the decline of the planning profession.
As a planner in private practice for over forty years, I found Campanellas assessment to be accurate. I agree with the sad admission from members of his Chapel Hill planning faculty that our chosen field could be ranked as a trivial profession.
Campanella identifies a fundamental problem in Jacobss legacy that needs to be recognized and corrected. He writes:
The literature on grassroots planning tends to assume a citizenry of Gandhian humanists. In fact, most people are not motivated by altruism but by self-interest... This is why its a fools errand to rely upon citizens to guide the planning process. Forget for a moment that most folks lack the knowledge to make intelligent decisions about the future of our cities. Most people are simply too busy, too apathetic, or too focused on their jobs or kids to be moved to action over issues unless those issues are at their doorstep. And once an issue is at their doorstep, fear sets on and reason flies out the window. So the very citizens least able to make objective decisions end up dominating the process, often wielding near-veto power over proposals.
Campanella concludes with comments about where the planning profession is today. Planners have become jacks-of-all-trades and masters of none. Parochial interests shape and guide the planning process. Neglecting broader societal interests, the planners role has become that of umpire or schoolyard monitor. The courage and vision that once distinguished the planning profession has become a rarity. The role of the planner has been reduced by planners themselves to smallness and timidity.
Later in her life, Jacobs herself grew frustrated. In an April 1993 speech published in the Ontario Planning Journal, she stated, Our official planning departments seem to be brain-dead in the sense that we cannot depend on them in any way, shape, or form for providing intellectual leadership in addressing urgent problems involving the physical future of the city.
The consequence of the Jacobsian legacy is the creation of plans that sit on the shelf. In every city where I am retained to produce a plan, I hear the same refrain: We have been planning for years and nothing gets implemented. We dont want another shelf plan.
The problem is not public involvement per se. The problem is defective public involvement. Fixing Your City offers a practical, proven process for planning and public involvement that my firm has used successfully in dozens of towns and cities. Education and the presentation of viable options must inform public involvement. In my experience, an informed public will always make the right decisions.
It is my hope that the information in Fixing Your City will be helpful to the planning profession, enabling us to take our rightful place as professionals who can provide the leadership and direction that our ailing cities and country so badly need. In addition, my goal is to demystify the work of the profession and empower concerned citizens to become active participants in shaping their cities.
Introduction
Our cities can be fixed. They can flourish again. And you can make a difference.
On a cool spring day, after a sixty-year absence, I drove into my hometown of Sudbury, Ontario. My wife wanted to see where my Canadian bush stories came from, and I wanted to see my parents graves.
When Id left Sudbury, the town had a population of 56,000 people. Now it was over 160,000. The barren black-rock landscape surrounding the city, created by acid rain from the smelting of ore early in the last century, was as I remembered it. But I wasnt prepared for the destruction of the once-vibrant city center.
The friendly downtown I remembered from my childhood was nowhere to be found. Missing were the grocery store where I would pick up what my mother needed for the evening meal; the two movie theaters where I would spend Saturday afternoons sitting in the first row; the toy store where I had my first job assembling bicycles for Christmas shoppers; the menswear store where I proudly purchased a red plaid vest; the jewelry store where I bought my first wristwatch with part of my summer earnings; and the record store where my friends and I would listen to the latest hits. Everything was gone.
The downtown now had drive-through banks, buildings with blank walls at the street level, and surface parking lots. The few remaining historic buildings were diminished by large-scale office buildings with characterless facades. To accommodate the automobiles flooding the city, curbside parking had been removed. I was stunned. What I remembered as an intimate downtown had turned into an unpleasant, pedestrian-hostile environment.
But that wasnt all. The safe, convenient walk from my old neighborhood to downtown was no longer possible. A chain-link fence blocked the wayerected to eliminate a railroad crossing that was once used by both cars and pedestrians. Now cars traveled downtown on a road without sidewalks, under the railroad tracks. A narrow 300-foot tunnel was built for pedestrians. Poorly lit, damp, with crude public art, it was accessed by steep stairs. A sign at the entry read: WARNING! This underpass is monitored by electronic surveillance. Sudbury regional police service. Its not a place you would want to be on a dark night!
The downtown had lost its character. It was no longer a place to linger. It had become a place to drive through.
I had planned to spend a few days in Sudbury, visiting old haunts. Instead, I went to the cemetery, said my goodbyes, and left. I knew that I would never return. But even more importantly, I realized that my hometown was not unique. The tragedy is that my town exists everywhere.
This book provides practical advice about how to fix your city and help it thrive. It describes how change happens in cities and what you can do to become part of the process. It identifies what works and what doesnt in city transformation. It is not a book about city planning and urban theories. It is a go-to resource of innovative techniques that will guide you in responding to climate change and transforming your city, no matter what its size.
Fixing Your City: Creating Thriving Neighborhoods and Adapting to a Changing World was inspired by the publics frustration with the decline of its cities. As one citizen activist put it to me recently, Why do cities get screwed up, become worse and worse, and nobody does anything about it?
Fixing Your City answers that question and provides the information you need in order to become an effective advocate for change. By the time you finish this book, you will know that you, too, can make a difference. You will have the confidence to take effective action to make your city a more desirable place to live.
Wherever I travel across the United States, I hear the same concerns. Our downtown used to be a great place to visit and shop, residents say. Now it is a place to avoid. Buildings have been demolished and replaced with surface parking lots. Heavy traffic and competing big-box retail stores and shopping centers in the outskirts of town have sucked the life out of our city center. Our downtown is no longer friendly to pedestrians or shoppers. What can we do?
