PSU Magazine Fall 2004

Renowned urbanist tells us what we're doing right-and wrong. The crowd fanned out 10 deep outside the doors where Jane Jacobs spoke in Smith Memo,ial Union. Jacobs, 88, one of North America's most influential urban– ists, was in town this past sp1ing promot– ing her eighth book, Dark Age Ahead. Telling us the right way to plan our cities and to live our lives responsibly is Jacobs' gift. More than 40 years ago she wrote her most famous work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New Yorker columnist Adam Gopnik recently wrote of that booh, "Her views, which then seemed wildly eccen– tric-basically, that New York's future depended less on tall buildings and big projects than on the preservation of small, old blochs and catch-as-catch-can retailing-have been vindicated so many Limes and in so many ways, that by now one can hardly think about this city without thinking about he,; and like her." A longtime resident of Toronto, Jacobs last visited Portland in 1970. Dwing her recent stop at Portland Stale, Jacobs participated in a public conversation with Ethan Seltzer; director of PSU's School of Urban Studies and Planning, and Randy Gragg, architecture cJitic at The Oregonian. What follows are some of that conversation's highlights. ~eltzer: A lot of Lime we use words like densification or growth as surro– gates for talking about how places mature. There is more to it than that , undoubtedly. How could we think about what it means for a place like Portland to mature? 8 PSU MAGAZINE FALL 2004 PHOTOS BY STEVE DIPAOLA Jacobs: l'm not sure l understand what is meant by mature. A city that is successful has to be forever young and forever creative. If getting mature means developing an establishment that rules everything and things do not change and young organizations do not supplant the dying ones-well, that is not something to look forward to. This is one of the troubles with what I call the vision thing. lt is an idea that somewhere or other in the future is a golden age that we should be working towards, and when we get it-boy won't that be great. t ltzer: Let me ask a little about the vision thing. For example, whenever we think about the future it does not include a road through Washington Square Park in New York City. We do have expectations, but are we really speaking of values7 Jacobs: 1 like it that you use that word value. Values don't go out of style as fast as visions do. Portland's value system is very true and obvious. I'm happy to be inside talking with you now, but l certainly hated to abandon that Farmer's market. It's such a nice use of space and in the right place. ln Toronto we just went through one of those expensive projects of making a new public square and doing away with a lot of small businesses-as usual-because apparently they don't qualify as public. Everybody hates this square. It's empty and unpopular for good reason-not abstract reasons. It was conceived by people who wanted LO take something away instead of adding something. You solve problems by adding whats missing, not by destroying what you don't like. What happened there was the opposite of what happens in Portland. lam sub– versively trying to spread through Toronto city government that the abominable square should be named after the councilman who was most responsible for its creation. ~ragg: ls there a role for government in keeping a city youthful and creative? l think in Portland we are struggling to figure out exactly what to do with the creative, youthful culture that is here, and how to grow it into some– thing that could become an economic force . Jacobs: l think the main thing govern– ment can do is to remove barriers to creative people and encourage experi– mentation, because all creative work includes a lot of trial and error. Look in any book and you will see that the acknowledgement section is getting longer and longer and longer. I'm guilty of this in my books. It's part of the constantly growing complexity of our culture. We need information from more kinds of people and achieve– ments from more kinds of people to understand our own kind. ~ragg: Do you think there is a poten– tial role for subsidies to be directed towards young, creative people and their enterprises? Jacobs: Yes I do. But subsidies are often subsidized by uncreative people. When there are gratuitous barriers in the way iL is counter productive and really a very mean way for a culture Lo treat its young people, who not only have the energy to contribute different and new ideas, but more importantly, they don't yet know how hard it is to achieve something. In much of the world women are barred from devel– oping their work. This takes half, maybe even more, of the potential population ouL of creatively affecting their society. lt's not an accident that the most macho societies in the world are the weakest economically. D