WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.120 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are 00:00:02.120 --> 00:00:04.740 unpacking a story that honestly, it feels less 00:00:04.740 --> 00:00:07.099 like a biography and more like a battle for the 00:00:07.099 --> 00:00:09.599 soul of the modern world. It really does. It's 00:00:09.599 --> 00:00:12.599 the ultimate David versus Goliath tale. But, 00:00:12.599 --> 00:00:15.839 you know, instead of a slingshot, our hero wielded 00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:18.510 a typewriter. Right. And instead of giant. She 00:00:18.510 --> 00:00:20.850 faced the most powerful men in New York City, 00:00:20.910 --> 00:00:24.589 men who had the power to literally erase neighborhoods 00:00:24.589 --> 00:00:28.210 with like the stroke of a pen. It's a truly cinematic 00:00:28.210 --> 00:00:31.910 story. It's this battle between the top down 00:00:31.910 --> 00:00:35.289 master builder approach to cities. Right. Think 00:00:35.289 --> 00:00:37.810 massive highways, bulldozers, sterile concrete 00:00:37.810 --> 00:00:41.920 towers. Exactly. And on the other side. the organic, 00:00:41.979 --> 00:00:45.179 messy, vibrant reality of how human beings actually 00:00:45.179 --> 00:00:47.780 live together, it's a clash of philosophies that, 00:00:47.799 --> 00:00:49.799 I mean, it really determined how our world looks 00:00:49.799 --> 00:00:52.200 today. And the David in this whole scenario. 00:00:52.380 --> 00:00:54.500 She wasn't a trained architect. She wasn't a 00:00:54.500 --> 00:00:56.500 certified urban planner. Not at all. In fact, 00:00:56.500 --> 00:00:59.060 her opponents, these men with degrees from the 00:00:59.060 --> 00:01:01.200 finest universities, they love to dismiss her 00:01:01.200 --> 00:01:03.659 as just a housewife from Greenwich Village. Oh, 00:01:03.700 --> 00:01:06.519 that was your favorite line. A housewife. A militant 00:01:06.519 --> 00:01:08.900 dame. They thought she was just some local busybody. 00:01:09.530 --> 00:01:12.150 But she ended up dismantling their entire worldview. 00:01:12.849 --> 00:01:15.930 We are talking, of course, about Jane Jacobs. 00:01:16.109 --> 00:01:18.890 Jane Jacobs is such a singular figure because 00:01:18.890 --> 00:01:21.569 she didn't just win a few local arguments about, 00:01:21.629 --> 00:01:24.730 you know, where to put a park bench. She diagnosed 00:01:24.730 --> 00:01:27.390 the fundamental failure of modern urban renewal. 00:01:27.650 --> 00:01:30.670 She looked at all the experts and basically said 00:01:30.670 --> 00:01:34.680 the emperor has no clothes. And we have a massive 00:01:34.680 --> 00:01:36.500 stack of sources today. So we're going to cover 00:01:36.500 --> 00:01:39.060 her entire life, her most famous book, The Death 00:01:39.060 --> 00:01:41.939 and Life of Great American Cities. But crucially, 00:01:42.019 --> 00:01:44.260 we're also going to dig into her later work on 00:01:44.260 --> 00:01:46.719 economics. Yes. And that's so important. That's 00:01:46.719 --> 00:01:49.200 a key part of our mission today. Most people 00:01:49.200 --> 00:01:51.459 know her as the woman who stopped the bulldozer. 00:01:51.939 --> 00:01:54.340 But looking at these notes, she actually wanted 00:01:54.340 --> 00:01:56.420 to be remembered as an economic theorist. She 00:01:56.420 --> 00:01:58.739 did. She said that explicitly in interviews. 00:01:59.060 --> 00:02:00.680 She didn't just care about saving the neighborhood. 00:02:00.819 --> 00:02:02.659 She wanted to understand how the neighborhood 00:02:02.659 --> 00:02:06.340 made money. How it created wealth. Exactly. She 00:02:06.340 --> 00:02:08.919 felt her ideas on how cities generate wealth 00:02:08.919 --> 00:02:11.879 were her most important contribution. So today, 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:14.300 we're going to unpack how a woman with no college 00:02:14.300 --> 00:02:17.439 degree invented concepts like social capital 00:02:17.439 --> 00:02:20.960 and mixed use decades before they became buzzwords, 00:02:21.099 --> 00:02:23.800 and why her economic theories might be the real 00:02:23.800 --> 00:02:26.659 hidden masterpiece in her legacy. Okay, so to 00:02:26.659 --> 00:02:28.139 understand the theory, we have to understand 00:02:28.139 --> 00:02:31.039 the observer. And the vibe check here is important. 00:02:31.879 --> 00:02:34.259 Jane Jacobs wasn't born a New Yorker. No, she 00:02:34.259 --> 00:02:36.520 was a transplant. She chose the city, which I 00:02:36.520 --> 00:02:38.099 think gives her a totally different perspective 00:02:38.099 --> 00:02:40.199 than someone who just grew up there and, you 00:02:40.199 --> 00:02:42.620 know, took it all for granted. Absolutely. She 00:02:42.620 --> 00:02:44.719 was born Jane Butzner in Scranton, Pennsylvania 00:02:44.719 --> 00:02:47.639 in 1916. Her father was a doctor, her mother 00:02:47.639 --> 00:02:49.400 a nurse. So it was a solid, you know, middle 00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:52.539 class upbringing. Right. But in 1935, right in 00:02:52.539 --> 00:02:54.620 the thick of the Great Depression, she did what 00:02:54.620 --> 00:02:57.439 so many dreamers do. She packed her bags and 00:02:57.439 --> 00:02:59.520 moved to New York City with our sister. And this 00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:01.669 is where we see the first spark. of her specific 00:03:01.669 --> 00:03:06.789 genius, her refusal to follow the rules of efficiency. 00:03:07.189 --> 00:03:09.469 When she arrived in New York, the trend among 00:03:09.469 --> 00:03:12.430 intellectuals was all about order. Oh, totally. 00:03:12.550 --> 00:03:15.990 The grid. Clean lines. They loved the grid. But 00:03:15.990 --> 00:03:19.469 Jane, she didn't gravitate toward the grid. She 00:03:19.469 --> 00:03:21.370 went straight to Greenwich Village. She loved 00:03:21.370 --> 00:03:23.590 that the village deviated from the grid. She 00:03:23.590 --> 00:03:26.430 used that exact word. It was messy. The streets 00:03:26.430 --> 00:03:28.569 were crooked. It was confusing to an outsider, 00:03:28.710 --> 00:03:31.539 but to her, it felt human. And she just walked? 00:03:31.800 --> 00:03:34.460 She spent her early years just walking. And not 00:03:34.460 --> 00:03:36.620 just, you know, walking for exercise. She was 00:03:36.620 --> 00:03:38.659 observing. She was trying to figure out the logic 00:03:38.659 --> 00:03:41.439 of the chaos. She was working these odd jobs 00:03:41.439 --> 00:03:44.599 to survive, sonographer, freelance writer. But 00:03:44.599 --> 00:03:46.919 there's a detail in her work history that I think 00:03:46.919 --> 00:03:48.900 explains everything about her later economic 00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:51.960 theory. Oh, this is so key. She didn't just write 00:03:51.960 --> 00:03:54.520 fluff pieces. She wrote for trade magazines. 00:03:55.039 --> 00:03:57.139 This is a crucial detail that often gets overlooked. 00:03:57.620 --> 00:03:59.599 She wasn't writing high -minded architecture. 00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:02.759 She was writing for a magazine called Iron Age. 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:05.020 She was writing about the flower district, the 00:04:05.020 --> 00:04:07.780 fur district, the leather district. Which sounds 00:04:07.780 --> 00:04:09.840 on the surface maybe a little boring writing 00:04:09.840 --> 00:04:13.939 about wholesale zippers or cast iron. But think 00:04:13.939 --> 00:04:15.939 about what that teaches you. You aren't looking 00:04:15.939 --> 00:04:17.120 at the building. You're looking at the business 00:04:17.120 --> 00:04:19.899 inside the building. Exactly. If you're reporting 00:04:19.899 --> 00:04:21.379 on the flower district, you're not just looking 00:04:21.379 --> 00:04:23.420 at bouquets. You're learning about supply chains. 00:04:23.699 --> 00:04:26.019 You're learning why the flower guys need to be 00:04:26.019 --> 00:04:28.259 next to the ribbon guys who need to be next to 00:04:28.259 --> 00:04:30.240 the trucking guys. You're learning that a city 00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:32.420 isn't just a collection of homes and offices. 00:04:32.839 --> 00:04:36.480 It's a complex economic ecosystem where proximity 00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:38.540 is everything. Yes, it's all about the connections. 00:04:39.060 --> 00:04:42.399 She later said these jobs taught her what work 00:04:42.399 --> 00:04:46.160 was like. So while the experts... In the planning 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:48.579 offices, we're looking at sanitized maps and 00:04:48.579 --> 00:04:52.259 little balsa wood models. She was on the ground 00:04:52.259 --> 00:04:55.040 looking at how the guy selling leather relied 00:04:55.040 --> 00:04:58.019 on the guy selling zippers next door. She saw 00:04:58.019 --> 00:05:00.300 the invisible threads that tied the whole economy 00:05:00.300 --> 00:05:02.420 together. And she saw them without the filter 00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:05.379 of a formal education. I mean, her academic path 00:05:05.379 --> 00:05:07.860 was very unconventional. She studied at Columbia 00:05:07.860 --> 00:05:10.199 University's School of General Studies for two 00:05:10.199 --> 00:05:14.699 years, took geology, law, economics. But she 00:05:14.699 --> 00:05:17.980 never got a degree. And the reason why is almost 00:05:17.980 --> 00:05:21.639 poetic, given her future status. She applied 00:05:21.639 --> 00:05:24.100 to Barnard College, which is the women's college 00:05:24.100 --> 00:05:27.379 at Columbia. Right. And they rejected her. Why? 00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:29.160 Because her high school grades were too low. 00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:31.959 It's just a delicious irony, isn't it? The woman 00:05:31.959 --> 00:05:34.500 who is now required reading in practically every 00:05:34.500 --> 00:05:37.160 urban planning master's program on the planet 00:05:37.160 --> 00:05:40.319 was told she wasn't academic enough. It's incredible. 00:05:40.379 --> 00:05:43.019 She was entirely self -taught. She followed her 00:05:43.019 --> 00:05:46.259 curiosity, not a syllabus. And I honestly think 00:05:46.259 --> 00:05:48.240 that lack of formal training was her superpower. 00:05:48.660 --> 00:05:51.220 She didn't know what she was supposed to see, 00:05:51.259 --> 00:05:53.240 so she just saw what was actually there. Okay, 00:05:53.279 --> 00:05:56.959 so before she becomes the icon Jane Jacobs, she 00:05:56.959 --> 00:06:00.079 had this brush with the geopolitical tension 00:06:00.079 --> 00:06:02.120 of the era. She worked for a State Department 00:06:02.120 --> 00:06:05.040 publication called America. Right, and this brings 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:07.620 us right into the McCarthy era. A scary time. 00:06:07.720 --> 00:06:09.939 A very scary time. And this is a moment that 00:06:09.939 --> 00:06:13.000 really reveals her spine. Because she was pro 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:15.220 -union and she had expressed admiration for the 00:06:15.220 --> 00:06:17.759 writer Saul Alinsky, she came under investigation 00:06:17.759 --> 00:06:20.990 by the Loyalty Security Board. And this was a 00:06:20.990 --> 00:06:23.449 time when just being labeled a communist could 00:06:23.449 --> 00:06:26.350 completely ruin your life. It was a terrifying 00:06:26.350 --> 00:06:29.029 witch hunt. And to be clear, Jacobs was anti 00:06:29.029 --> 00:06:31.509 -communist. She wasn't a radical in that sense 00:06:31.509 --> 00:06:34.490 at all. Right. But her defense wasn't just, I'm 00:06:34.490 --> 00:06:37.110 not a communist, please let me go. No, her response 00:06:37.110 --> 00:06:40.430 was incredibly bold. She told the board that 00:06:40.430 --> 00:06:42.730 the real threat to America wasn't radical ideas, 00:06:43.029 --> 00:06:46.610 but the fear of radical ideas. Wow. She argued 00:06:46.610 --> 00:06:48.970 that extremists on both sides should be allowed 00:06:48.970 --> 00:06:51.259 to... speak because the moment you start silencing 00:06:51.259 --> 00:06:53.819 people to protect freedom, you've already lost 00:06:53.819 --> 00:06:56.339 it. That is a seriously high stakes argument 00:06:56.339 --> 00:06:58.699 to make when your job is on the line. It shows 00:06:58.699 --> 00:07:00.920 she wasn't afraid to stand alone against a powerful 00:07:00.920 --> 00:07:03.550 committee. And she survived that investigation. 00:07:03.930 --> 00:07:07.170 Then in 1952, she lands the job that puts her 00:07:07.170 --> 00:07:09.129 in the belly of the beast. She gets hired at 00:07:09.129 --> 00:07:11.410 Architectural Forum. This is the Trojan horse 00:07:11.410 --> 00:07:14.149 moment. She's now working for a prestigious architectural 00:07:14.149 --> 00:07:16.430 magazine surrounded by the very people pushing 00:07:16.430 --> 00:07:18.889 urban renewal. And we really have to set the 00:07:18.889 --> 00:07:21.230 stage for what that term meant in the 1950s. 00:07:21.269 --> 00:07:23.569 Yeah, urban renewal sounds so nice. Who doesn't 00:07:23.569 --> 00:07:25.410 want to renew a city? It sounds like fresh paint 00:07:25.410 --> 00:07:28.779 and new windows. But in the 50s context, it was 00:07:28.779 --> 00:07:31.939 aggressive. The prevailing wisdom was that old 00:07:31.939 --> 00:07:34.879 neighborhoods were blight. They were dirty, crowded, 00:07:35.139 --> 00:07:37.199 inefficient. Problems to be solved. Exactly. 00:07:37.279 --> 00:07:41.399 And the solution was to bulldoze them. literally 00:07:41.399 --> 00:07:44.220 wipe them off the map and replace them with shiny, 00:07:44.319 --> 00:07:47.720 orderly high -rises surrounded by parks. It was 00:07:47.720 --> 00:07:50.459 the Tower in the Park concept, which was popularized 00:07:50.459 --> 00:07:52.899 by Le Corbusier. And Jacobs is supposed to be 00:07:52.899 --> 00:07:54.899 writing nice things about these projects. She's 00:07:54.899 --> 00:07:57.199 on the payroll. But then she gets assigned to 00:07:57.199 --> 00:07:59.199 cover a development in Philadelphia. Designed 00:07:59.199 --> 00:08:01.980 by Edmund Bacon, a legendary planner. So Bacon 00:08:01.980 --> 00:08:04.329 takes her on a tour. He's showing her this new 00:08:04.329 --> 00:08:07.970 revitalized area. It's clean. It's orderly. It's 00:08:07.970 --> 00:08:11.490 architectural perfection. Nice lawns, tall towers. 00:08:11.850 --> 00:08:15.050 And Jane just looks around and asks this simple 00:08:15.050 --> 00:08:18.230 but devastating question. Where are the people? 00:08:18.449 --> 00:08:21.129 It's the emperor has no clothes moment. She didn't 00:08:21.129 --> 00:08:22.769 care about the geometry. She cared about the 00:08:22.769 --> 00:08:24.870 humanity. The streets were totally empty. And 00:08:24.870 --> 00:08:28.490 Bacon's response. He just dismissed her. He said 00:08:28.490 --> 00:08:31.009 they don't appreciate these things. They don't 00:08:31.009 --> 00:08:33.269 appreciate it. I mean, that attitude perfectly 00:08:33.269 --> 00:08:35.470 encapsulates the top down mindset, doesn't it? 00:08:35.529 --> 00:08:37.570 It wasn't that the design was bad. It was that 00:08:37.570 --> 00:08:39.789 the people were using it wrong. Yeah. The arrogance 00:08:39.789 --> 00:08:42.529 is just staggering. That was the epiphany for 00:08:42.529 --> 00:08:45.179 Jacobs. She realized. These planners didn't care 00:08:45.179 --> 00:08:47.659 about how people actually lived. They cared about 00:08:47.659 --> 00:08:49.820 how the design looked from a helicopter. Right. 00:08:49.879 --> 00:08:51.779 They were designing for visual order, but they 00:08:51.779 --> 00:08:55.039 were creating social dead zones. Bacon showed 00:08:55.039 --> 00:08:57.700 her an undeveloped block nearby that was crowded 00:08:57.700 --> 00:09:00.340 and messy, and he saw it as a problem to be solved. 00:09:00.799 --> 00:09:03.899 Jacob saw it as life. She realized that revitalization 00:09:03.899 --> 00:09:06.440 was actually killing the street life that made 00:09:06.440 --> 00:09:08.500 the city work. And then she gets another dose 00:09:08.500 --> 00:09:11.039 of this in East Harlem, a minister named Mabel 00:09:11.039 --> 00:09:14.019 William Kirk. takes her on a tour. Right. And 00:09:14.019 --> 00:09:16.840 on paper, East Harlem was a slum. It was marked 00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:19.179 for clearance. The maps in City Hall probably 00:09:19.179 --> 00:09:21.419 had a big red X over the whole neighborhood. 00:09:21.659 --> 00:09:23.820 When she actually walked the streets. She saw 00:09:23.820 --> 00:09:26.159 a vibrant community. She saw people looking out 00:09:26.159 --> 00:09:28.600 for each other. She saw a social fabric that 00:09:28.600 --> 00:09:31.700 the planners were completely blind to. She realized 00:09:31.700 --> 00:09:35.000 that what looked like disorder to a rich planner 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:39.080 from a fancy office was actually a complex functioning 00:09:39.080 --> 00:09:42.309 society. So all of this culminates in her big 00:09:42.309 --> 00:09:45.149 debut, right? She gets asked to speak at Harvard 00:09:45.149 --> 00:09:48.429 in 1956, standing in for her boss. I can just 00:09:48.429 --> 00:09:50.830 picture the room. It's full of men in suits, 00:09:50.970 --> 00:09:53.049 these distinguished architects, all nodding at 00:09:53.049 --> 00:09:54.909 each other about order and highways. It's the 00:09:54.909 --> 00:09:57.450 establishment. And Jean gets up there. And she 00:09:57.450 --> 00:09:59.909 drops a bomb. She tells these leading architects 00:09:59.909 --> 00:10:01.830 that they need to respect, and this is a direct 00:10:01.830 --> 00:10:05.070 quote, strips of chaos that have a weird wisdom 00:10:05.070 --> 00:10:07.230 of their own. Strips of chaos that have a weird 00:10:07.230 --> 00:10:09.309 wisdom. That's such a powerful phrase. She's 00:10:09.309 --> 00:10:11.610 basically telling them, your order is stupid 00:10:11.610 --> 00:10:14.399 and this mess is smart. It was a direct attack 00:10:14.399 --> 00:10:16.659 on their entire philosophy. And surprisingly, 00:10:16.799 --> 00:10:19.340 it was a hit with some people who are starting 00:10:19.340 --> 00:10:21.659 to feel uneasy about the bulldozers. But for 00:10:21.659 --> 00:10:23.759 the establishment, it marked her as a dangerous 00:10:23.759 --> 00:10:25.759 thinker. It was the beginning of her transition 00:10:25.759 --> 00:10:28.740 from observer to revolutionary. Exactly. She 00:10:28.740 --> 00:10:30.700 wasn't just reporting anymore. She was fighting 00:10:30.700 --> 00:10:33.419 back. And that speech eventually leads to the 00:10:33.419 --> 00:10:37.200 book, the big one, The Death and Life of Great 00:10:37.200 --> 00:10:41.299 American Cities, published in 1961. This isn't 00:10:41.299 --> 00:10:43.200 just a book. It's a manifesto. It was funded 00:10:43.200 --> 00:10:45.340 by a Rockefeller Foundation grant. She spent 00:10:45.340 --> 00:10:47.679 years researching it. And when it came out, it 00:10:47.679 --> 00:10:50.320 wasn't just a critique. It was a demolition of 00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:53.779 city planning as a pseudoscience. A pseudoscience? 00:10:53.879 --> 00:10:56.779 Yes. She argued that city planning wasn't based 00:10:56.779 --> 00:10:59.559 on how cities actually work, but on how planners 00:10:59.559 --> 00:11:02.639 wish they worked. It was fantasy. So let's unpack 00:11:02.639 --> 00:11:05.200 the core concepts of this book. Because they're 00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:07.419 so ingrained in how we think now that we kind 00:11:07.419 --> 00:11:09.159 of forget how radical they were at the time. 00:11:09.450 --> 00:11:11.950 Let's start with eyes on the street. Okay. This 00:11:11.950 --> 00:11:13.830 is the phrase everyone knows. This is maybe her 00:11:13.830 --> 00:11:16.169 most famous concept. So the prevailing theory 00:11:16.169 --> 00:11:17.830 at the time was that you made a city safe by 00:11:17.830 --> 00:11:20.490 separating people, building towers in these vast 00:11:20.490 --> 00:11:23.190 empty parks, and then having police patrols. 00:11:23.190 --> 00:11:25.610 Right. Formal security. Jacobs argued the exact 00:11:25.610 --> 00:11:27.929 opposite. She said safety comes from natural 00:11:27.929 --> 00:11:30.690 surveillance. Meaning the grandmother in the 00:11:30.690 --> 00:11:33.299 window. is more effective than the cop on the 00:11:33.299 --> 00:11:36.860 beat. Precisely. If you have a street with shops 00:11:36.860 --> 00:11:39.679 on the ground floor and apartments above, there 00:11:39.679 --> 00:11:42.419 are always people around. The butcher is watching 00:11:42.419 --> 00:11:45.259 the sidewalk. The person in the apartment is 00:11:45.259 --> 00:11:47.759 watching the corner. The kids are playing on 00:11:47.759 --> 00:11:50.120 the stoop. She called it the sidewalk ballet, 00:11:50.299 --> 00:11:52.840 didn't she? Yes, the sidewalk ballet. It's this... 00:11:53.240 --> 00:11:56.360 intricate, unchoreographed dance of people going 00:11:56.360 --> 00:11:59.620 about their day. And that constant presence acts 00:11:59.620 --> 00:12:03.159 as a self -policing mechanism. Criminals don't 00:12:03.159 --> 00:12:05.580 like an audience. So an empty street is a dangerous 00:12:05.580 --> 00:12:07.620 street no matter how nice the architecture is. 00:12:07.659 --> 00:12:10.159 If no one is watching, anything can happen. Correct. 00:12:10.669 --> 00:12:12.789 But to get those eyes on the street, you need 00:12:12.789 --> 00:12:15.350 people there. And to get people there, she argued 00:12:15.350 --> 00:12:18.529 for what she called mixed primary uses. Right. 00:12:18.610 --> 00:12:20.509 You can't just have a residential district that 00:12:20.509 --> 00:12:22.169 empties out during the day when everyone goes 00:12:22.169 --> 00:12:24.370 to work or a business district that's a ghost 00:12:24.370 --> 00:12:26.370 town at night. You need a mix. You need a mix 00:12:26.370 --> 00:12:29.610 work, dwell, play so that the street is active, 00:12:29.870 --> 00:12:33.210 you know, 18 hours a day. She laid out four specific 00:12:33.210 --> 00:12:36.509 conditions for this diversity to happen. We have 00:12:36.509 --> 00:12:38.990 mixed uses. What are the others? The second is 00:12:38.990 --> 00:12:42.250 short blocks. Why do short blocks matter? It 00:12:42.250 --> 00:12:44.490 seems like such a minor detail. Who cares how 00:12:44.490 --> 00:12:46.950 long the block is? It's actually huge for pedestrian 00:12:46.950 --> 00:12:50.809 flow. Long blocks isolate people. They turn the 00:12:50.809 --> 00:12:53.269 street into a chute or a corridor. Just a way 00:12:53.269 --> 00:12:56.250 to get from A to B. Right. But short blocks create 00:12:56.250 --> 00:12:59.330 corners. And corners are where people turn, where 00:12:59.330 --> 00:13:01.309 they meet, where they decide to go down a different 00:13:01.309 --> 00:13:03.990 street. It increases the opportunities for interaction, 00:13:04.190 --> 00:13:07.179 and it supports more retail. That makes a lot 00:13:07.179 --> 00:13:09.360 of sense. If you have to walk 800 feet to cross 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:11.700 the street, you probably won't. But if you can 00:13:11.700 --> 00:13:13.919 cross every 200 feet, the whole neighborhood 00:13:13.919 --> 00:13:17.379 becomes a web. Exactly. More corners, more storefronts, 00:13:17.379 --> 00:13:19.259 more flow. Okay, so what's the third condition? 00:13:19.500 --> 00:13:23.289 The third is aged buildings. She argued that 00:13:23.289 --> 00:13:26.210 a city needs a good supply of old, rundown buildings 00:13:26.210 --> 00:13:28.549 mingled with the new ones. Now, this is the one 00:13:28.549 --> 00:13:30.409 that really must have annoyed the developers. 00:13:30.690 --> 00:13:32.750 Why would we need rundown buildings? Isn't new 00:13:32.750 --> 00:13:36.090 always better? Well, not for economics. New buildings 00:13:36.090 --> 00:13:39.250 are expensive to build. High construction costs 00:13:39.250 --> 00:13:42.350 mean the landlord has to charge really high rent 00:13:42.350 --> 00:13:44.730 to make a profit. Sure. So if a neighborhood 00:13:44.730 --> 00:13:46.870 only has new buildings, the only tenants who 00:13:46.870 --> 00:13:49.450 can afford it are chain stores, banks, or high 00:13:49.450 --> 00:13:52.039 -end luxury brands. Right. You get a sterile 00:13:52.039 --> 00:13:53.980 outdoor mall. You get the same five stores in 00:13:53.980 --> 00:13:57.159 every city. Exactly. But old buildings, their 00:13:57.159 --> 00:13:59.259 capital costs have been paid off. The rent can 00:13:59.259 --> 00:14:02.000 be lower. And that allows for what she called 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:04.600 the diversity of businesses. You know, the bookstores, 00:14:04.600 --> 00:14:06.940 the art studios, the cheap restaurants, the startups, 00:14:07.100 --> 00:14:09.559 the experimental theaters. She famously wrote, 00:14:09.740 --> 00:14:12.879 new ideas must use old buildings. One of her 00:14:12.879 --> 00:14:16.100 best lines. I love that. The cool creative stuff 00:14:16.100 --> 00:14:18.620 almost always starts in the gritty part of town 00:14:18.620 --> 00:14:21.340 because that's where the rent is cheap. If you 00:14:21.340 --> 00:14:23.419 bulldoze the gritty part to build a shiny new 00:14:23.419 --> 00:14:27.019 complex, you've just evicted the innovation. 00:14:27.039 --> 00:14:30.100 You've killed the incubator. That's it. And the 00:14:30.100 --> 00:14:32.799 fourth condition is pretty straightforward. Density. 00:14:33.299 --> 00:14:36.059 You need a dense concentration of people to support 00:14:36.059 --> 00:14:38.980 all that diversity of businesses. You can't have 00:14:38.980 --> 00:14:42.799 a vibrant sidewalk ballet in a suburb where houses 00:14:42.799 --> 00:14:44.779 are an acre apart. You need enough customers. 00:14:44.980 --> 00:14:47.100 You need enough people to keep the butcher, the 00:14:47.100 --> 00:14:50.259 baker, and the bookstore in business. So she 00:14:50.259 --> 00:14:53.360 releases this manifesto. The public finds it 00:14:53.360 --> 00:14:55.559 refreshing because it validates what they see 00:14:55.559 --> 00:14:57.759 with their own eyes. They read it and go, yes, 00:14:57.820 --> 00:14:59.980 that's why I like my neighborhood. Yeah. But 00:14:59.980 --> 00:15:01.879 the establishment, I'm guessing they didn't take 00:15:01.879 --> 00:15:04.259 it so well. Oh, far from it. The planners were 00:15:04.259 --> 00:15:07.019 absolutely furious. They felt attacked. And the 00:15:07.019 --> 00:15:09.659 criticism was often incredibly sexist. Back to 00:15:09.659 --> 00:15:11.840 the housewife thing. Exactly. They dismissed 00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:15.059 her as a militant dame or just a housewife. One 00:15:15.059 --> 00:15:17.860 critic called the book bitter coffeehouse rambling. 00:15:18.440 --> 00:15:19.980 They just couldn't believe an amateur was telling 00:15:19.980 --> 00:15:21.779 them how to do their jobs. Now we have to talk 00:15:21.779 --> 00:15:24.519 about Robert Moses, the power broker, the man 00:15:24.519 --> 00:15:27.980 who built modern New York. Bridges, the tunnels, 00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:31.139 the parkways. What did he think of this housewife? 00:15:31.419 --> 00:15:34.259 Oh, it was personal. Robert Moses got the copy 00:15:34.259 --> 00:15:36.059 of the book that was sent to him and he returned 00:15:36.059 --> 00:15:38.549 it. He sent it back. Sent it back. and said it 00:15:38.549 --> 00:15:41.850 was intemperate and also libelous, and told the 00:15:41.850 --> 00:15:44.769 publisher to sell this junk to someone else. 00:15:44.990 --> 00:15:47.909 He refused to even engage with the ideas. Sell 00:15:47.909 --> 00:15:50.009 this junk to someone else. Well, the joke's on 00:15:50.009 --> 00:15:51.789 him, because people are still buying it today. 00:15:52.029 --> 00:15:54.769 Yeah. But this wasn't just a war of words, was 00:15:54.769 --> 00:15:56.809 it? It became a literal battle for the physical 00:15:56.809 --> 00:15:59.370 streets of New York. This is when she enters 00:15:59.370 --> 00:16:01.450 her activist phase. Yeah, she had to put her 00:16:01.450 --> 00:16:04.190 body where her mouth was. And it started in her 00:16:04.190 --> 00:16:07.750 own backyard, Washington Square Park. In 1958, 00:16:08.190 --> 00:16:10.809 Robert Moses had a plan to extend Fifth Avenue 00:16:10.809 --> 00:16:13.549 right through the park. Wait, drive cars through 00:16:13.549 --> 00:16:15.509 the middle of Washington Square Park? Where the 00:16:15.509 --> 00:16:17.950 fountain and the arch are? I mean, that's iconic 00:16:17.950 --> 00:16:21.129 public space. Yes. He wanted to turn this iconic 00:16:21.129 --> 00:16:24.289 gathering space into a roadway to improve traffic 00:16:24.289 --> 00:16:27.870 flow. To him, the park was just vacant land that 00:16:27.870 --> 00:16:30.509 was in the way of efficiency. His logic was, 00:16:30.629 --> 00:16:32.889 why go around it when we can go through it? That 00:16:32.889 --> 00:16:35.850 sounds completely insane to modern ears. It would 00:16:35.850 --> 00:16:38.929 just destroy the park. So Jacobs joined the opposition, 00:16:39.269 --> 00:16:42.149 the Joint Emergency Committee, to close Washington 00:16:42.149 --> 00:16:45.679 Square to traffic. And she was savvy. She knew 00:16:45.679 --> 00:16:47.659 she couldn't win on engineering terms. Moses 00:16:47.659 --> 00:16:50.220 had all the engineers. So she won on PR. She 00:16:50.220 --> 00:16:53.899 won on public relations. She leveraged the village 00:16:53.899 --> 00:16:56.360 voice against the New York Times, which initially 00:16:56.360 --> 00:16:59.659 supported Moses. She got Eleanor Roosevelt involved, 00:17:00.139 --> 00:17:03.419 Margaret Mead. She made it a cultural war. And 00:17:03.419 --> 00:17:06.200 they had this specific ceremony that I think 00:17:06.200 --> 00:17:09.460 is just brilliant. symbolism it wasn't a ribbon 00:17:09.460 --> 00:17:12.400 cutting no usually when a public project opens 00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:14.940 you have a ribbon cutting jacobs and her group 00:17:14.940 --> 00:17:18.220 held a ribbon tying they tied a ribbon to symbolize 00:17:18.220 --> 00:17:21.140 uniting the park keeping it whole rather than 00:17:21.140 --> 00:17:23.420 cutting it for a road it was just a perfect visual 00:17:23.420 --> 00:17:25.559 for the media and they won they stopped the road 00:17:25.900 --> 00:17:27.500 But that was just the warm -up, right? The biggest 00:17:27.500 --> 00:17:30.119 boss fight was yet to come. Yes. The Lower Manhattan 00:17:30.119 --> 00:17:33.000 Expressway, or LOMEX, this was the heavyweight 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:35.039 title match. And this is the one that's terrifying 00:17:35.039 --> 00:17:37.880 to think about. If LOMEX had been built, Manhattan 00:17:37.880 --> 00:17:41.339 would look completely different today. Oh, unrecognizable. 00:17:41.619 --> 00:17:45.779 Imagine a massive 10 -lane elevated highway cutting 00:17:45.779 --> 00:17:47.920 clear across the island. It would have wiped 00:17:47.920 --> 00:17:51.299 out what is now Soho, Little Italy, and Chinatown. 00:17:51.380 --> 00:17:54.539 Soho, the whole cast -iron district. gone gone 00:17:54.539 --> 00:17:57.839 hundreds of buildings thousands of families and 00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:00.920 businesses evicted, Moses argued it was necessary 00:18:00.920 --> 00:18:03.400 to connect the Holland Tunnel to the Manhattan 00:18:03.400 --> 00:18:06.420 and Williamsburg bridges. He saw the city as 00:18:06.420 --> 00:18:08.619 a machine for moving cars. That's all it was 00:18:08.619 --> 00:18:11.900 to him. A machine for moving cars, not a habitat 00:18:11.900 --> 00:18:14.640 for people. He called it slum clearance, but 00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:16.960 Jacobs knew it was community destruction. And 00:18:16.960 --> 00:18:19.160 she chaired the opposition committee. She was 00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:21.839 the face of the resistance. And it got intense. 00:18:21.900 --> 00:18:23.740 This wasn't just about writing letters to the 00:18:23.740 --> 00:18:26.839 editor anymore. In 1968, At a public hearing, 00:18:27.019 --> 00:18:29.460 the tension just boiled over. What happened? 00:18:29.740 --> 00:18:32.319 The crowd actually charged the stage and they 00:18:32.319 --> 00:18:34.220 destroyed the stenographer's notes so there would 00:18:34.220 --> 00:18:36.099 be no official record of the meeting approving 00:18:36.099 --> 00:18:38.339 the plan. That is anarchic. And Jacobs was there. 00:18:38.380 --> 00:18:40.420 She wasn't just there. She was leading it. She 00:18:40.420 --> 00:18:42.859 was arrested. She was charged with inciting a 00:18:42.859 --> 00:18:45.359 riot, criminal mischief, and obstructing public 00:18:45.359 --> 00:18:48.400 administration. A 52 -year -old journalist and 00:18:48.400 --> 00:18:51.269 mother getting arrested. for inciting a riot 00:18:51.269 --> 00:18:54.210 to save a neighborhood. That is hardcore. It 00:18:54.210 --> 00:18:56.549 really shows how desperate the situation was. 00:18:56.960 --> 00:18:58.740 It is. And ultimately, the political pressure 00:18:58.740 --> 00:19:01.819 became too much. Lomax was killed. She is credited 00:19:01.819 --> 00:19:04.940 with saving Soho. If you walk through those cobblestone 00:19:04.940 --> 00:19:07.559 streets today, past the boutiques and the lofts 00:19:07.559 --> 00:19:09.240 and all the tourists, you are walking through 00:19:09.240 --> 00:19:11.940 Jane Jacobs's victory. That neighborhood exists 00:19:11.940 --> 00:19:14.079 because she fought for it. It's interesting, 00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:16.240 though. There's a note here about Robert Carra. 00:19:16.259 --> 00:19:19.160 He wrote The Power Broker, which is the definitive 00:19:19.160 --> 00:19:21.500 biography of Robert Moses. It's like a thousand 00:19:21.500 --> 00:19:23.819 pages long. It's a doorstop. But apparently he 00:19:23.819 --> 00:19:26.859 barely mentions Jacobs. It's a massive, massive 00:19:26.859 --> 00:19:30.119 omission in the historical record. Caro initially 00:19:30.119 --> 00:19:32.099 wrote a chapter on her, but it was cut for length. 00:19:32.319 --> 00:19:34.779 He has since said he feels sick every time someone 00:19:34.779 --> 00:19:37.220 asks him about it. Because you really can't tell 00:19:37.220 --> 00:19:39.480 the story of Moses' fall without the story of 00:19:39.480 --> 00:19:42.519 Jacobs' rise. She was the immovable object that 00:19:42.519 --> 00:19:45.440 stopped his irresistible force. Robert Moses 00:19:45.440 --> 00:19:48.200 had never lost a public fight before he met Jane 00:19:48.200 --> 00:19:50.480 Jacobs. So she wins the battle for New York. 00:19:50.599 --> 00:19:55.960 She slays the giant. But then, in 1968, She leaves. 00:19:56.140 --> 00:19:59.599 She moves to Toronto. Why? Did she feel like 00:19:59.599 --> 00:20:01.500 her work was done? It wasn't about retirement. 00:20:01.619 --> 00:20:04.799 It was about principles and family. She was deeply 00:20:04.799 --> 00:20:07.920 opposed to the Vietnam War. She had two draft 00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:10.359 -age sons, and she feared they would be drafted 00:20:10.359 --> 00:20:13.299 into a war she considered unjust. So the family 00:20:13.299 --> 00:20:15.539 packed up and moved to Canada. They did. She 00:20:15.539 --> 00:20:18.240 settled in a neighborhood called the Annex. Right. 00:20:18.299 --> 00:20:21.180 And at the time... That area had so many American 00:20:21.180 --> 00:20:23.519 draft dodgers, it was sometimes called the American 00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:26.039 ghetto. Yes, it was a haven for people fleeing 00:20:26.039 --> 00:20:27.839 the political climate in the U .S. But she didn't 00:20:27.839 --> 00:20:30.640 retire from activism, did she? I feel like Jane 00:20:30.640 --> 00:20:32.519 Jacobs couldn't stop fighting if she tried. It 00:20:32.519 --> 00:20:34.799 was just in her blood. Not at all. Almost immediately 00:20:34.799 --> 00:20:37.079 upon arriving in Toronto, she found herself in, 00:20:37.180 --> 00:20:40.420 you guessed it, another highway fight. Of course. 00:20:40.539 --> 00:20:42.880 The Spadina Expressway. It was basically the 00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:45.119 same script as New York. The city wanted to blast 00:20:45.119 --> 00:20:47.000 a highway through established neighborhoods to 00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:48.880 bring commuters downtown. And she jumped right 00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:51.569 in. Hello, I'm new here, but you really need 00:20:51.569 --> 00:20:54.049 to stop this highway. Pretty much. She became 00:20:54.049 --> 00:20:56.789 a leading figure. The theme was always the same. 00:20:57.009 --> 00:21:01.549 Are cities built for people or for cars? She 00:21:01.549 --> 00:21:04.029 brought her New York tactics to Toronto. She 00:21:04.029 --> 00:21:06.609 was arrested twice in Toronto during these demonstrations. 00:21:06.990 --> 00:21:09.230 Arrested again. And once again, the expressway 00:21:09.230 --> 00:21:11.309 was stopped. She saved the Spadina neighborhood. 00:21:11.710 --> 00:21:14.069 It's incredible. She goes two for two in major 00:21:14.069 --> 00:21:16.430 North American cities. She's the highway slayer. 00:21:17.069 --> 00:21:19.269 But her influence in Toronto went even deeper. 00:21:19.369 --> 00:21:21.509 She started getting into local politics in a 00:21:21.509 --> 00:21:24.349 way that sort of leads us toward her economic 00:21:24.349 --> 00:21:27.609 theories. She did. She advocated for the separation 00:21:27.609 --> 00:21:30.369 of the city of Toronto from the province of Ontario, 00:21:30.549 --> 00:21:32.690 calling for a province of Toronto. Wait, she 00:21:32.690 --> 00:21:34.809 wanted the city to be its own province. That's 00:21:34.809 --> 00:21:36.869 a huge structural change. That's like New York 00:21:36.869 --> 00:21:39.690 City seceding from New York State. Exactly. She 00:21:39.690 --> 00:21:41.829 felt that cities function so differently from 00:21:41.829 --> 00:21:44.529 the wider regions that they need political sovereignty 00:21:44.529 --> 00:21:47.390 to manage their own economies. And this is the 00:21:47.390 --> 00:21:49.809 perfect bridge to talk about her economic work, 00:21:49.990 --> 00:21:52.910 which is really the hidden gem of this deep dive. 00:21:53.130 --> 00:21:56.509 Right. As we mentioned, she told Reason magazine 00:21:56.509 --> 00:21:58.569 she wanted to be remembered for her economic 00:21:58.569 --> 00:22:01.809 theories, not just for stopping bulldozers. Her 00:22:01.809 --> 00:22:04.190 book, The Economy of Cities, challenges basically 00:22:04.190 --> 00:22:06.410 everything we think we know about how wealth 00:22:06.410 --> 00:22:09.539 is created. Her central thesis is a concept called 00:22:09.539 --> 00:22:12.500 import replacement. And it really challenges 00:22:12.500 --> 00:22:14.880 the traditional idea that nations are the drivers 00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:17.779 of economic growth. Jacob said, no, look at the 00:22:17.779 --> 00:22:21.000 city. The city is the engine. The nation is just 00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:23.359 a collection of cities. OK, can you break down 00:22:23.359 --> 00:22:25.380 import replacement for us? How does it actually 00:22:25.380 --> 00:22:27.960 work in practice? The outline mentions a bicycle 00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:30.339 example. The bicycle example is perfect. OK, 00:22:30.400 --> 00:22:33.210 so imagine a city. Let's use her example, Tokyo 00:22:33.210 --> 00:22:36.670 in the late 1800s. It imports bicycles. It buys 00:22:36.670 --> 00:22:39.150 them from somewhere else like Britain. So money 00:22:39.150 --> 00:22:41.190 leaves the city to pay for them. Eventually, 00:22:41.670 --> 00:22:43.869 a local mechanic starts fixing those imported 00:22:43.869 --> 00:22:46.150 bicycles. They learn how they work. They learn 00:22:46.150 --> 00:22:48.029 the engineering. So they develop the skills locally. 00:22:48.480 --> 00:22:51.519 Right. Then maybe a local metal shop starts making 00:22:51.519 --> 00:22:54.039 parts for them. Spare handlebars, new chains, 00:22:54.180 --> 00:22:55.960 and eventually the city starts manufacturing 00:22:55.960 --> 00:22:58.579 the entire bicycle themselves. They don't need 00:22:58.579 --> 00:23:00.599 to import them anymore. So they stop importing 00:23:00.599 --> 00:23:02.279 them. They keep that money in the local economy. 00:23:02.460 --> 00:23:05.740 That's step one. They replace the import with 00:23:05.740 --> 00:23:08.740 local production. But here is the magic trick, 00:23:08.859 --> 00:23:11.400 and this is the key to her whole theory. They 00:23:11.400 --> 00:23:13.599 don't just put that saved money under a mattress. 00:23:13.799 --> 00:23:16.480 They take the wealth they saved and the new skills 00:23:16.480 --> 00:23:19.460 they learned, and they use it to import new things. 00:23:19.559 --> 00:23:22.140 More complex things. More complex things. Maybe 00:23:22.140 --> 00:23:24.700 now they import sophisticated gears or motors 00:23:24.700 --> 00:23:26.880 they can't make yet. Then they learn to make 00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:29.140 those. It's a ladder. It's a cycle of learning 00:23:29.140 --> 00:23:32.440 and expanding. So the city's constantly replacing 00:23:32.440 --> 00:23:35.579 its imports with local work, only to import even 00:23:35.579 --> 00:23:38.670 more advanced stuff. She argued this is how civilization 00:23:38.670 --> 00:23:41.750 advances. It's not about natural resources. It's 00:23:41.750 --> 00:23:44.869 about human ingenuity clustering in cities. The 00:23:44.869 --> 00:23:46.829 city isn't just a container for people. It's 00:23:46.829 --> 00:23:49.329 an incubator for skills. It's a learning machine. 00:23:49.589 --> 00:23:52.160 Which leads to her later book. Cities and the 00:23:52.160 --> 00:23:55.279 Wealth of Nations, where she argued that macroeconomics 00:23:55.279 --> 00:23:58.119 is flawed because it treats the nation state 00:23:58.119 --> 00:24:01.180 as the basic economic unit. Exactly. She believed 00:24:01.180 --> 00:24:04.819 the real economic unit is the city region. She 00:24:04.819 --> 00:24:06.579 even proposed that cities should have their own 00:24:06.579 --> 00:24:08.779 currencies. Their own currencies, like a New 00:24:08.779 --> 00:24:11.079 York dollar or a Toronto dollar. That sounds 00:24:11.079 --> 00:24:13.200 chaotic. Why would you want that? It does sound 00:24:13.200 --> 00:24:16.859 chaotic, but her logic was fascinating. She argued 00:24:16.859 --> 00:24:19.980 that a single national currency acts as a mask. 00:24:20.559 --> 00:24:23.359 If you have one currency for a huge, diverse 00:24:23.359 --> 00:24:26.859 country, it averages out the booming cities and 00:24:26.859 --> 00:24:28.700 the struggling ones. Can you give an example 00:24:28.700 --> 00:24:31.019 of that? Sure. Let's take, say, Detroit and San 00:24:31.019 --> 00:24:33.200 Francisco. They both use the U .S. dollar. San 00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:35.240 Francisco is booming with tech money, so the 00:24:35.240 --> 00:24:38.119 dollar stays strong. But Detroit might be struggling 00:24:38.119 --> 00:24:40.619 with manufacturing decline. Okay. If Detroit 00:24:40.619 --> 00:24:42.839 had its own currency, the Detroit dollar would 00:24:42.839 --> 00:24:45.099 drop in value because its economy is weak. Which 00:24:45.099 --> 00:24:46.859 sounds bad, right? You don't want your money 00:24:46.859 --> 00:24:49.420 to drop in value. But it's actually a feedback 00:24:49.420 --> 00:24:52.630 loop. A cheaper currency makes Detroit's exports 00:24:52.630 --> 00:24:55.170 cheaper to the rest of the world. It means people 00:24:55.170 --> 00:24:57.950 buy more Detroit cars because they're a bargain. 00:24:58.430 --> 00:25:01.589 It also makes imports expensive for Detroiters 00:25:01.589 --> 00:25:03.650 which encourages them to make things themselves. 00:25:04.029 --> 00:25:06.410 Which brings it right back to import replacement. 00:25:06.569 --> 00:25:08.829 Back to import replacement. It's a self -correcting 00:25:08.829 --> 00:25:11.450 mechanism. She compared it to a pain signal in 00:25:11.450 --> 00:25:13.910 the body. If you numb the pain with a national 00:25:13.910 --> 00:25:15.890 currency you don't know you're injured and you 00:25:15.890 --> 00:25:19.500 don't heal. Ah, I see. So without that, the struggling 00:25:19.500 --> 00:25:22.059 city just gets stuck. It's propped up or it just 00:25:22.059 --> 00:25:24.380 withers away because it can't compete. That was 00:25:24.380 --> 00:25:26.440 her argument. That is a radical way to look at 00:25:26.440 --> 00:25:29.019 national economics. She really viewed everything 00:25:29.019 --> 00:25:31.099 as an ecosystem, whether it was a street corner 00:25:31.099 --> 00:25:33.920 or a global trade network. She saw feedback loops 00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:36.299 everywhere. That is the key word, ecosystem. 00:25:36.680 --> 00:25:38.960 Her book, The Nature of Economies, literally 00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:41.619 argues that economies follow the same rules as 00:25:41.619 --> 00:25:44.700 biological nature. Differentiation, feedback 00:25:44.700 --> 00:25:48.769 loops, adaptation. She didn't see a city as a 00:25:48.769 --> 00:25:51.829 machine to be fixed. She saw it as a living organism 00:25:51.829 --> 00:25:54.769 to be nurtured. And she also had this philosophical 00:25:54.769 --> 00:25:57.910 framework, moral syndromes, in her book Systems 00:25:57.910 --> 00:26:00.829 of Survival. This feels a bit different from 00:26:00.829 --> 00:26:02.930 the street -level stuff, but it also feels really 00:26:02.930 --> 00:26:05.930 relevant to how we govern ourselves. It is, but 00:26:05.930 --> 00:26:08.289 it explains so much about corruption and societal 00:26:08.289 --> 00:26:11.630 friction. She identified two distinct ways humans 00:26:11.630 --> 00:26:13.970 organize themselves. The commercial syndrome. 00:26:14.619 --> 00:26:16.740 and the guardian syndrome okay break those down 00:26:16.740 --> 00:26:18.460 what is the commercial syndrome the commercial 00:26:18.460 --> 00:26:21.839 syndrome is for traders scientists business people 00:26:21.839 --> 00:26:25.160 it governs how we exchange goods and ideas it 00:26:25.160 --> 00:26:27.680 values honesty because you can't trade if you 00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:30.220 lie industriousness efficiency and voluntary 00:26:30.220 --> 00:26:33.059 agreement it's about the deal it shuns force 00:26:33.059 --> 00:26:35.099 yeah the guardian syndrome the guardian syndrome 00:26:35.099 --> 00:26:38.539 is for government police the army it values loyalty 00:26:38.539 --> 00:26:42.460 obedience tradition and um ostentatious display 00:26:42.460 --> 00:26:45.039 it's about protection uses force to maintain 00:26:45.039 --> 00:26:48.279 order. Okay, so merchants versus knights, basically. 00:26:48.460 --> 00:26:50.599 We need both of those, right? A society needs 00:26:50.599 --> 00:26:52.880 both. You absolutely need both. But her crucial 00:26:52.880 --> 00:26:54.859 insight was that you must keep them separate. 00:26:54.980 --> 00:26:57.440 The danger comes when you mix them. What happens 00:26:57.440 --> 00:27:00.009 when you mix them? You get what she called monstrous 00:27:00.009 --> 00:27:03.650 hybrids, corruption. If the police, who are guardians, 00:27:03.809 --> 00:27:05.789 start acting like businesses, the commercial 00:27:05.789 --> 00:27:08.150 syndrome, you get bribery and the mafia. They 00:27:08.150 --> 00:27:10.690 are literally selling protection, which should 00:27:10.690 --> 00:27:13.329 be a reaction. Conversely, if the government, 00:27:13.529 --> 00:27:15.529 the guardians, tries to run the economy like 00:27:15.529 --> 00:27:18.630 an army, you get the inefficiencies of communism 00:27:18.630 --> 00:27:22.289 or state corporatism. You get rigid five -year 00:27:22.289 --> 00:27:25.390 plans that ignore reality on the ground. She 00:27:25.390 --> 00:27:27.529 argued that maintaining the integrity of these 00:27:27.529 --> 00:27:30.250 separate systems is crucial for a healthy society. 00:27:30.549 --> 00:27:33.009 That is surprisingly deep for someone who is 00:27:33.009 --> 00:27:35.910 constantly being labeled a housewife by her critics. 00:27:36.009 --> 00:27:37.630 It seems like she was always looking at the underlying 00:27:37.630 --> 00:27:40.410 systems. However, we do have to look at the other 00:27:40.410 --> 00:27:42.690 side of the coin. Her ideas have been dominant 00:27:42.690 --> 00:27:45.329 for decades now. Are there valid criticisms? 00:27:45.349 --> 00:27:46.970 Because, I mean, if you look at the West Village 00:27:46.970 --> 00:27:49.650 today, it's not exactly a place for the working 00:27:49.650 --> 00:27:52.450 class anymore. It's Millionaire Row. This is 00:27:52.450 --> 00:27:55.230 the big one, the gentrification paradox. The 00:27:55.230 --> 00:27:57.410 very neighborhoods she fought to save Greenwich 00:27:57.410 --> 00:28:00.710 Village in New York, the annex in Toronto, are 00:28:00.710 --> 00:28:03.190 now some of the most expensive real estate on 00:28:03.190 --> 00:28:06.210 planet Earth. Her own house, the one she converted 00:28:06.210 --> 00:28:08.950 from a candy store, would be worth millions of 00:28:08.950 --> 00:28:11.589 dollars today. It's completely unattainable for 00:28:11.589 --> 00:28:13.730 the kind of people she wrote about. So did she 00:28:13.730 --> 00:28:16.710 kill the village by saving it? Critics ask exactly 00:28:16.710 --> 00:28:19.500 that. Did her success in making these places 00:28:19.500 --> 00:28:22.819 desirable eventually price out the very diversity 00:28:22.819 --> 00:28:25.859 she cherished? The old buildings and the cobblestones 00:28:25.859 --> 00:28:28.579 attract the wealthy, who then price out the artists 00:28:28.579 --> 00:28:30.339 and the small businesses that made it cool in 00:28:30.339 --> 00:28:32.180 the first place. Did she have a defense against 00:28:32.180 --> 00:28:34.740 that? Did she foresee it happening? She did. 00:28:34.940 --> 00:28:37.000 And she argued it wasn't the fault of her ideas, 00:28:37.059 --> 00:28:40.019 but of scarcity. She said, we have too few neighborhoods 00:28:40.019 --> 00:28:42.440 like Greenwich Village. Everyone wants to live 00:28:42.440 --> 00:28:44.480 there because the alternatives, the soulless 00:28:44.480 --> 00:28:47.799 suburbs or the sterile high rises are so unappealing 00:28:47.799 --> 00:28:50.559 to so many people. So demand just massively exceeds 00:28:50.559 --> 00:28:54.170 supply. Exactly. If we built more dense, mixed 00:28:54.170 --> 00:28:57.490 use, walkable neighborhoods, the demand wouldn't 00:28:57.490 --> 00:28:59.829 be concentrated on just the few that exist. The 00:28:59.829 --> 00:29:01.970 problem isn't that the village is good. It's 00:29:01.970 --> 00:29:03.990 that we stopped building more villages. We need 00:29:03.990 --> 00:29:06.509 to clone the model, not just preserve the museum 00:29:06.509 --> 00:29:09.210 pieces. That was her stance. Scarcity drives 00:29:09.210 --> 00:29:11.720 the price up. But there are other critiques. 00:29:11.799 --> 00:29:14.319 The economist Tyler Cowen questions the issue 00:29:14.319 --> 00:29:17.240 of scale. Right. Jacobs' ideas work great for 00:29:17.240 --> 00:29:19.099 a neighborhood in New York. But do they work 00:29:19.099 --> 00:29:22.240 for a rapidly urbanizing city of 10 million people 00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:25.160 in a developing nation? Can you rely on eyes 00:29:25.160 --> 00:29:28.420 on the street and short blocks when you need 00:29:28.420 --> 00:29:32.059 to house millions of people? Like. That's the 00:29:32.059 --> 00:29:34.579 question. Sometimes you might actually need the 00:29:34.579 --> 00:29:37.019 master builder to put in the subway lines and 00:29:37.019 --> 00:29:39.700 the sewage systems on a massive scale. You can't 00:29:39.700 --> 00:29:42.039 just wait for the neighborhood to evolve organically 00:29:42.039 --> 00:29:45.019 if you have a massive housing crisis. Some problems 00:29:45.019 --> 00:29:47.319 might require the top -down approach she hated. 00:29:47.420 --> 00:29:49.240 And there was critique from the left, too, right? 00:29:49.359 --> 00:29:52.359 Yes. Some argued that in Death and Life, she 00:29:52.359 --> 00:29:56.279 ignored race. She wrote about unslumming. which 00:29:56.279 --> 00:29:59.039 was her word for improving a neighborhood. But 00:29:59.039 --> 00:30:01.099 critics pointed out she didn't fully grapple 00:30:01.099 --> 00:30:03.980 with the systemic racism, like redlining, that 00:30:03.980 --> 00:30:05.779 prevented black communities from getting the 00:30:05.779 --> 00:30:09.119 loans or mortgages to do that unslumming. That's 00:30:09.119 --> 00:30:12.119 a fair point. Her experience was very much centered 00:30:12.119 --> 00:30:15.279 on a specific type of white, working -to -middle 00:30:15.279 --> 00:30:18.299 -class urban experience. She assumed that if 00:30:18.299 --> 00:30:19.660 the government just got out of the way, people 00:30:19.660 --> 00:30:22.059 would fix their own neighborhoods. But that assumes 00:30:22.059 --> 00:30:24.380 everyone has equal access to capital to begin 00:30:24.380 --> 00:30:26.740 with. It was a blind spot. And it's worth noting 00:30:26.740 --> 00:30:28.359 that toward the end of her life, she got quite 00:30:28.359 --> 00:30:31.140 pessimistic. Her final book, published in 2004, 00:30:31.319 --> 00:30:33.700 was titled Dark Age Ahead. It's not exactly a 00:30:33.700 --> 00:30:35.940 cheerful title. Sounds like a sci -fi dystopia. 00:30:36.019 --> 00:30:37.980 No, she saw signs of cultural collapse right 00:30:37.980 --> 00:30:40.359 here in North America. She worried about the 00:30:40.359 --> 00:30:42.920 decline of the family and community, the commercialization 00:30:42.920 --> 00:30:45.559 of education, and a lack of accountability in 00:30:45.559 --> 00:30:47.640 the professions. She felt we were forgetting 00:30:47.640 --> 00:30:50.099 how things actually worked, forgetting the weird 00:30:50.099 --> 00:30:52.660 wisdom she championed. She thought we were losing 00:30:52.660 --> 00:30:55.579 the ability to self -correct. That's it. It's 00:30:55.579 --> 00:30:58.559 interesting that someone who championed the resilience 00:30:58.559 --> 00:31:01.539 of cities ended on such a warning note. It's 00:31:01.539 --> 00:31:05.079 a reminder that progress isn't guaranteed. I 00:31:05.079 --> 00:31:07.200 think it comes back to her belief in the fragility 00:31:07.200 --> 00:31:10.420 of these ecosystems. They're strong. But if you 00:31:10.420 --> 00:31:12.900 chip away at the foundations, the social capital, 00:31:13.059 --> 00:31:17.079 the trust, the local economy, they can crumble. 00:31:17.529 --> 00:31:19.730 You can't take them for granted. So as we wrap 00:31:19.730 --> 00:31:21.930 this up, what is the ultimate legacy here? We 00:31:21.930 --> 00:31:23.710 have the books, the saved neighborhoods, the 00:31:23.710 --> 00:31:26.170 economic theories. But what is the big takeaway? 00:31:26.369 --> 00:31:29.250 I think her legacy is the validation of the citizen's 00:31:29.250 --> 00:31:32.670 intuition. Before Jacobs, the expert with the 00:31:32.670 --> 00:31:35.210 blueprint was God. the master builder knew best. 00:31:35.950 --> 00:31:38.410 After Jacobs, we understood that the person living 00:31:38.410 --> 00:31:40.329 on the block knows more about that block than 00:31:40.329 --> 00:31:42.650 the planner in the office. She gave us the language 00:31:42.650 --> 00:31:44.670 to understand why we feel good in some places 00:31:44.670 --> 00:31:46.829 and anxious in others. She taught us about social 00:31:46.829 --> 00:31:49.430 capital, that the casual hello to your neighbor 00:31:49.430 --> 00:31:51.910 is actually the glue holding society together. 00:31:52.109 --> 00:31:54.589 And her legacy is literally alive in the streets 00:31:54.589 --> 00:31:58.029 through Jane's walks, right? Yes. Every year, 00:31:58.049 --> 00:32:01.140 around her birthday in May, Thousands of people 00:32:01.140 --> 00:32:04.220 in hundreds of cities worldwide organize these 00:32:04.220 --> 00:32:07.700 free walking tours. And they aren't about famous 00:32:07.700 --> 00:32:10.420 monuments or history lessons. No, they're about 00:32:10.420 --> 00:32:13.019 observing the neighborhood, walking, looking, 00:32:13.259 --> 00:32:15.500 talking, just doing what Jane did when she first 00:32:15.500 --> 00:32:17.480 arrived in New York. It's such a cool way to 00:32:17.480 --> 00:32:20.480 honor her, not with a static statue, but with 00:32:20.480 --> 00:32:22.940 people actually using the city. It fits her perfectly. 00:32:23.119 --> 00:32:24.759 She didn't want to be put on a pedestal. She 00:32:24.759 --> 00:32:27.099 wanted to be on the sidewalk. So here is the 00:32:27.099 --> 00:32:30.029 final thought for you listening. Jane Jacobs 00:32:30.029 --> 00:32:32.750 believes cities were habitats we co -create. 00:32:33.190 --> 00:32:35.809 And she once asked, when was the last time you 00:32:35.809 --> 00:32:38.069 really looked at your block? Right. Not just 00:32:38.069 --> 00:32:39.849 walked down it to get to the subway, but really 00:32:39.849 --> 00:32:43.309 looked at it. Who's talking to whom? Which stores 00:32:43.309 --> 00:32:45.950 are busy? Where do people stop to tie their shoe? 00:32:46.190 --> 00:32:48.289 The answers to those questions might tell you 00:32:48.289 --> 00:32:50.109 more about your local economy and your local 00:32:50.109 --> 00:32:52.490 safety than any government report ever could. 00:32:52.710 --> 00:32:55.009 That's it for this deep dive into the eyes on 00:32:55.009 --> 00:32:57.809 the street. Thanks for listening and keep looking. 00:32:58.009 --> 00:32:58.269 Goodbye.