Self Appointed Public Characters

Every summer usually at vacation time, I pick out a book to read that I have not read in a while. This summer it is Jane Jacobs, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". I first read this book in college, probably required reading, and it is probably one of the primary reasons for my interest in the urban environment. I remember using it as a reference in the urban studies program at the University of Tulsa. Now it has been over 25 years since it's pages revealed the wonderful, vibrate and diverse world often centered around her neighborhood, people and places such as Joe Cornaccia's deli, Mr Lacey's locksmith shop, and as she describes (paraphased)- the lives of other self-appointed public characters that oversee the social structure of the neighborhood sidewalks. An environment mostly set in New York City, with bits and pieces from Boston, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Chicago and other cities across America. My copy of this book is a paperback copy and while the cover is only a bit worn, the interior pages are a light beige with a musty smell, an effect that takes over books of this age. During this summers reading, Part One of the book has completely come loose from the binding and I suspect as I proceed through the subsequent chapters more pages will lose their connection. My copy cost $4.95.

As Tulsa completes the Comprehensive Plan and adopts the Downtown Master Plan, the chapter on "The need for mixed primary uses" caught my attention. Jane Jacobs writes,

"I have been dwelling on downtowns for two reasons in particular. First, insufficient primary mixture is typically the principal fault in our downtowns, and often the only disastrous basic fault. Most big-city downtowns fulfill-or in the past did fulfill-all four of the necessary conditions for generating diversity. This is why they were able to become downtowns. Today, typically, they still do fulfill three of the conditions. But they have become...too predominately devoted to work and contain too few people after working hours. This condition has been more or less formalized in planning jargon, which no longer speaks of "downtowns" but instead of "CBD's - standing for Central Business district." 

I think this describes our downtown quite well, as we have certainly codified it with the zoning classification of "CBD". Yet, I am very glad that we continue to call the plan, The Downtown Master Plan and I think we are rapidly recovering our downtown. Finally, I will end with the next paragraph Jane Jacobs writes

"The second reason for emphasizing primary mixtures downtown is the direct effect on other parts of cities. Probably everyone is aware of certain general dependencies by a city on its heart. When a city heart stagnates or disintegrates, a city as a social neighborhood of the whole begins to suffer: People who ought to get together, by means of central activities that are failing, fail to get together. Ideas and money that ought to meet, and do so often on by happenstance in a place of central vitality, fail to meet. The networks of city public life develop gaps they cannot afford. Without a strong and inclusive central heart, a city tends to become a collection of interests isolated form one another. It falters at producing something greater, socially, culturally and economically, that the sum of its separated parts."

I love this city and think we all should become - self-appointed public characters that oversee the social, cultural, economic and physical structure of our neighborhood sidewalks.