0:00:27 > 0:00:29Cities are, in many ways,
0:00:29 > 0:00:32the greatest invention that human beings have brought the world.
0:00:37 > 0:00:41Cities have been expanding and urbanisation has been expanding on
0:00:41 > 0:00:44the globe in an exponential fashion.
0:00:49 > 0:00:50Most extraordinarily,
0:00:50 > 0:00:54we are urbanising people on the planet at maybe one and half million
0:00:54 > 0:00:57people every week.
0:00:57 > 0:00:59In less than two months,
0:00:59 > 0:01:02there'll be the equivalent to another Los Angeles
0:01:02 > 0:01:03metropolitan area on this planet.
0:01:05 > 0:01:09This scale and speed of urbanisation
0:01:09 > 0:01:11has never, ever happened in human history.
0:01:12 > 0:01:14This is the first time.
0:01:18 > 0:01:21When you look at what is being built in cities,
0:01:21 > 0:01:24you have endless, endless,
0:01:24 > 0:01:29row after row, of homogenising towers.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34And you see more and more highways.
0:01:46 > 0:01:48At this moment, you're going to
0:01:48 > 0:01:50shape the cities for generations to come.
0:01:52 > 0:01:54People need to realise this is an
0:01:54 > 0:01:56opportunity which will never come again.
0:02:03 > 0:02:07There are a couple of ways of approaching the design of cities.
0:02:07 > 0:02:11The question is always - who decides
0:02:11 > 0:02:13what the physical form will be...
0:02:14 > 0:02:16..how the city is going to function...
0:02:18 > 0:02:21..and who is going to live in the city?
0:02:29 > 0:02:31In order to understand what's happening today...
0:02:33 > 0:02:36..we need to think about two great figures
0:02:36 > 0:02:38in the middle of the 20th century,
0:02:38 > 0:02:40who embodied the struggle for the city.
0:02:46 > 0:02:48The legendary power broker, Robert Moses,
0:02:48 > 0:02:52who represented the authority of the great man who was going to come into
0:02:52 > 0:02:55the city with his carving knife
0:02:55 > 0:02:58and clear away the cancerous tissue...
0:03:03 > 0:03:07..and replace it with the shiny implements of modernist planning.
0:03:09 > 0:03:13You have to move a lot of people out of the way of a big housing project
0:03:13 > 0:03:15or slum-clearance project.
0:03:15 > 0:03:17A lot of them are not going to like it.
0:03:18 > 0:03:20Many of them are misinformed.
0:03:22 > 0:03:27In opposition to the homogenising clarity of Moses was Jane Jacobs.
0:03:29 > 0:03:31I have very little faith...
0:03:32 > 0:03:35..in, in...
0:03:35 > 0:03:38even the kind of person who prefers
0:03:38 > 0:03:40to take a large,
0:03:40 > 0:03:43overall view of things.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46Jacobs was an outsider.
0:03:46 > 0:03:49She believed the city is not about buildings, the city is about people.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52It is about public spaces and the street
0:03:52 > 0:03:54and she stood up for that.
0:03:56 > 0:04:01She evolved both a theory of what made a good and just city and a
0:04:01 > 0:04:03theory of opposition to the kind of
0:04:03 > 0:04:06planning practice that Moses represented.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10There's a prudishness, a fear of life,
0:04:10 > 0:04:12a wish to direct things from some
0:04:12 > 0:04:17uncontaminated refuge, that is part and parcel of their bad plan.
0:04:18 > 0:04:21They were famously at odds with each other.
0:04:21 > 0:04:26It really did become a war between opposing forces.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30Today, we're still fighting these battles across the world.
0:04:54 > 0:04:59When we look across the spectrum of all the problems generated by
0:04:59 > 0:05:01urbanisation, there is the
0:05:01 > 0:05:03extraordinary realisation that, my gosh,
0:05:03 > 0:05:06you know, these have been problems that have been around for the last
0:05:06 > 0:05:08100 years in cities.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13New York, of course, is the greatest example of that.
0:05:18 > 0:05:20In the 1930s,
0:05:20 > 0:05:23New York was the world's greatest city, you know?
0:05:24 > 0:05:26A very special place.
0:05:26 > 0:05:31Just the exuberance of metropolitan life in the early 20th century.
0:05:33 > 0:05:37That's, you know, the great age of the first real, great skyscrapers,
0:05:37 > 0:05:42you know, the Empire State Building is at the very climax of that.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47But then it all kind of crashes with the Depression.
0:05:49 > 0:05:51Through the entire decade of the '30s,
0:05:51 > 0:05:53it's just one problem after another.
0:05:56 > 0:06:00Now, this is an unfortunate period for the city.
0:06:00 > 0:06:06We've done an immense amount to cure these diseases and we have much more
0:06:06 > 0:06:07to do.
0:06:08 > 0:06:13Robert Moses started to work in an era, where we had a great many
0:06:13 > 0:06:16people living in truly horrible conditions.
0:06:17 > 0:06:23He began his professional life in opposition to those conditions.
0:06:26 > 0:06:30Moses emerged out of the progressive movement early in the
0:06:30 > 0:06:3120th-century in New York.
0:06:31 > 0:06:34The progressives were eager to improve the city.
0:06:36 > 0:06:42His early work in developing public parks and public beaches was about
0:06:42 > 0:06:45making life better for people who were not rich.
0:06:48 > 0:06:53Now, if we don't clean out these slums,
0:06:53 > 0:06:55the central areas are going to rot.
0:06:57 > 0:07:02And it's all nonsense to say that the problem can be solved by
0:07:02 > 0:07:06rehabilitating and fixing up Old Law Tenements.
0:07:06 > 0:07:08It can't be done.
0:07:08 > 0:07:10That problem, we've got to face.
0:07:21 > 0:07:26Just about every progressive believed that the way to solve the
0:07:26 > 0:07:30city's problems was to wipe the slate clean and start all over again.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35We didn't understand how high the price was,
0:07:35 > 0:07:40how we were giving up so many things that were so very important,
0:07:40 > 0:07:42until Jane Jacobs came along.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52I just loved coming to New York.
0:07:52 > 0:07:54It was inexhaustible.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59Just to walk around its streets and wonder at it.
0:08:00 > 0:08:02So many streets different,
0:08:02 > 0:08:07so many neighbourhoods different, so much going on.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13She lived in Greenwich Village,
0:08:13 > 0:08:17and just viscerally felt the pulse of the city,
0:08:17 > 0:08:21and was extraordinarily intuitive, was extremely observant.
0:08:24 > 0:08:29New York was a place where you don't have to be big and important and
0:08:29 > 0:08:31rich or have a great plot of land
0:08:31 > 0:08:34or a great development scheme or something like that,
0:08:34 > 0:08:37to do something,
0:08:37 > 0:08:41and maybe even do something new and do something interesting.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45A place that has scope for all kinds of people.
0:08:47 > 0:08:52What she saw was the soul of New York and what it meant to be a city,
0:08:52 > 0:08:54and a city meaning a community of people.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19After the war,
0:09:19 > 0:09:24the most sensational thing that came was the full flowering of
0:09:24 > 0:09:27this vision of the expressway tower city.
0:09:32 > 0:09:37This generation of idealistic city planners comes along
0:09:37 > 0:09:40and they are infected with the modernist purity idea.
0:09:42 > 0:09:45And they certainly have the tools at their disposal to sweep away large
0:09:45 > 0:09:47tracts of land.
0:09:49 > 0:09:52We recognise the problems your community faces,
0:09:52 > 0:09:56and we know that you share them with hundreds of cities everywhere.
0:09:57 > 0:10:00Now, what's involved in making your city a better place?
0:10:01 > 0:10:03Well, things like housing,
0:10:03 > 0:10:06industrial development,
0:10:06 > 0:10:09better streets and highways.
0:10:09 > 0:10:12Improving all these things adds up to a better city.
0:10:14 > 0:10:18I'm sure that you will see the exciting opportunity that exists for
0:10:18 > 0:10:20your city to become better.
0:10:20 > 0:10:25The planners conceiving these urban renewal projects are doing this from
0:10:25 > 0:10:28that godlike vantage point in the sky.
0:10:29 > 0:10:31To be able to look down,
0:10:31 > 0:10:34and you're able to imagine massive transformations.
0:10:38 > 0:10:41They thought that applying the logic
0:10:41 > 0:10:44of the machine age was going to do that.
0:10:50 > 0:10:55The problem had to be solved by some supervisor noticing where the slums
0:10:55 > 0:10:59were, noticing where the traffic was, and going in and bulldozing...
0:11:02 > 0:11:04..and building grand projects.
0:11:04 > 0:11:06Well, we got out a brochure just now,
0:11:06 > 0:11:08telling when everybody has to move.
0:11:08 > 0:11:10Robert Moses was the great embodiment of this.
0:11:19 > 0:11:21I don't honestly believe that,
0:11:21 > 0:11:25considering the large numbers of people we have had to move out the
0:11:25 > 0:11:28way of public housing and other public improvements,
0:11:28 > 0:11:31I don't believe that we've done any very substantial amount of harm.
0:11:32 > 0:11:34There must be people who are discommoded,
0:11:34 > 0:11:37inconvenienced, or call it what you will,
0:11:37 > 0:11:39on the old theory that you can't
0:11:39 > 0:11:41make an omelette without breaking some eggs.
0:11:56 > 0:12:00After the Second World War, Robert Moses began to amass power.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04He was the longest Parks Commissioner in the city of New York,
0:12:04 > 0:12:07and he got power to build parkways,
0:12:07 > 0:12:10and was appointed the city's construction coordinator.
0:12:12 > 0:12:13He built thousands of apartments.
0:12:15 > 0:12:17He became urban renewal tsar,
0:12:17 > 0:12:19the head of the mayor's committee on slum clearance.
0:12:21 > 0:12:25By the time that Moses was running the urban renewal programme,
0:12:25 > 0:12:28we had torn down, literally,
0:12:28 > 0:12:33thousands of tenement buildings in cities like New York and Chicago.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36You know, there is the prewar Moses and the post-war Moses.
0:12:36 > 0:12:40The prewar Moses was mostly an angel.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43Post-war Moses was increasingly problematic.
0:12:43 > 0:12:47For nearly half a century, this man has pushed people around New York.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54Almost anybody who is anybody has cursed him, fought him,
0:12:54 > 0:12:57knuckled under to him and admired him.
0:12:57 > 0:13:01The list of his adversaries include Franklin Roosevelt, Fannie Hurst,
0:13:01 > 0:13:04Elmer Davis, who once compared him to Hitler,
0:13:04 > 0:13:06Walter O'Malley and hundreds of
0:13:06 > 0:13:08thousands of landowners who thought
0:13:08 > 0:13:09their property was sacred.
0:13:14 > 0:13:16Absolute power corrupts absolutely,
0:13:16 > 0:13:18and Robert Moses was absolutely powerful.
0:13:18 > 0:13:22So, he had amassed not simply an incredibly amount of power,
0:13:22 > 0:13:27but had insulated himself from oversight by political authorities
0:13:27 > 0:13:28and by the broader public.
0:13:30 > 0:13:34Don't forget that it is one thing to buy a park or a great big chunk of
0:13:34 > 0:13:36land from one owner,
0:13:36 > 0:13:39it's quite another thing to get a right of way where hundreds and even
0:13:39 > 0:13:41thousands of people own it.
0:13:41 > 0:13:43Yet theoretically,
0:13:43 > 0:13:47and according to some of the goo-goos and uplift organisations,
0:13:47 > 0:13:50we are to negotiate with every individual until he's happy.
0:13:50 > 0:13:53Can you imagine when you build anything under those conditions?
0:13:55 > 0:13:58Moses, along with all of the people who were involved in the urban
0:13:58 > 0:14:02renewal programme, had an agreed-upon agenda.
0:14:02 > 0:14:08People needed adequate housing, adequate recreation facilities,
0:14:08 > 0:14:12and the motor car was coming to America and it needed to be
0:14:12 > 0:14:14accommodated on a large scale.
0:14:14 > 0:14:16That was the agenda.
0:14:19 > 0:14:23Moses became one polar view of what you could do...
0:14:28 > 0:14:31Until, all of sudden, there was an alternative.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35Jane Jacobs has, in The Death And Life Of Great American Cities,
0:14:35 > 0:14:39written a book that advances with the controlled and implacable power
0:14:39 > 0:14:43of a bulldozer against modern, orthodox city planning and rebuilding.
0:14:43 > 0:14:47I first began to look into city planning and housing,
0:14:47 > 0:14:50and it was unbelievably awful.
0:14:50 > 0:14:52Insane.
0:14:54 > 0:14:59When Death And Life comes out in the '60s, it's a clarion call.
0:14:59 > 0:15:05It's Martin Luther nailing those 95 theses to the cathedral door.
0:15:05 > 0:15:07The book is really the first cogent,
0:15:07 > 0:15:12accessible articulation of a whole set of ideas that questions the
0:15:12 > 0:15:15mainstream thinking about our cities.
0:15:15 > 0:15:17She is constantly probing.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20By that example, she is saying, "You, reader,
0:15:20 > 0:15:22"you have the ability to question."
0:15:37 > 0:15:41Middle-income housing projects which are truly marvels of dullness and
0:15:41 > 0:15:47regimentation, sealed against any buoyancy or vitality of city life.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53Luxury housing projects that mitigate their inanity, or try to,
0:15:53 > 0:15:55with a vapid vulgarity.
0:15:56 > 0:15:59Cultural centres that are unable to support a good book store.
0:16:01 > 0:16:04Civic centres that that are avoided by everyone but bums,
0:16:04 > 0:16:07who have fewer choices of loitering place than others.
0:16:08 > 0:16:10Expressways that eviscerate great cities.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35She was questioning orthodoxy, and in essence saying,
0:16:35 > 0:16:37the emperor has no clothes,
0:16:37 > 0:16:39at a time when women were not
0:16:39 > 0:16:42welcomed in those kinds of environments.
0:16:46 > 0:16:50If you want to see what kind of a city can flourish,
0:16:50 > 0:16:54you need to look at the cities where it is happening.
0:16:54 > 0:16:56There must be a lot of diversity.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59Continually building up diversity of kinds of work.
0:17:01 > 0:17:03Diversity of kinds of people.
0:17:04 > 0:17:08She revealed the way to create better cities is by working with the
0:17:08 > 0:17:11people who live there and the fabric that existed.
0:17:11 > 0:17:14The traditional fabric that people inhabited.
0:17:17 > 0:17:22There have to be areas of the city which people use a lot,
0:17:22 > 0:17:25walking on the streets, and
0:17:25 > 0:17:27use at all times of day.
0:17:29 > 0:17:33Jane understood neighbourhoods need lots of connections.
0:17:33 > 0:17:34Short blocks and lots of turns,
0:17:34 > 0:17:37allowing different kinds of interaction.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40Neighbourhoods need a mix of buildings, old and new.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44They need diverse uses, 24/7,
0:17:44 > 0:17:46so that they're safer.
0:17:47 > 0:17:51Constant connection with neighbourhoods around,
0:17:51 > 0:17:53so that you are not isolated.
0:17:53 > 0:17:56You need public spaces that are accessible to people.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58It's all a great network in the city.
0:17:58 > 0:17:59It's all related.
0:18:02 > 0:18:04She observed these early qualities,
0:18:04 > 0:18:07at a time when housing was being built in the completely
0:18:07 > 0:18:10opposite direction. They were isolating communities.
0:18:12 > 0:18:14They were creating dead-end streets.
0:18:14 > 0:18:18They were separating work uses and recreation and residential uses.
0:18:20 > 0:18:23She was explaining how life worked.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38Before Death And Life, she was a journalist.
0:18:38 > 0:18:42She was a very savvy observer of human behaviour,
0:18:42 > 0:18:45of places, of cities.
0:18:45 > 0:18:50Jacobs started writing about the city when she was 18 years old.
0:18:50 > 0:18:52She was a secretary for a candy company.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55She was determined to write on the side.
0:18:55 > 0:18:57She did what any good, enterprising writer would do -
0:18:57 > 0:18:58she got freelance jobs.
0:18:59 > 0:19:02Her curiosity was so remarkable.
0:19:02 > 0:19:06She writes about specific economic districts in the city.
0:19:06 > 0:19:08She does the Jewellery district, she does the Fur District,
0:19:08 > 0:19:11she does the Flower District. She develops a voice,
0:19:11 > 0:19:12and where does she sell them to?
0:19:12 > 0:19:14Vogue magazine.
0:19:15 > 0:19:19She was writing pieces about what she was observing and seeing in
0:19:19 > 0:19:20this city.
0:19:21 > 0:19:24The best way to plan for Downtown
0:19:24 > 0:19:26is to see how people use it today.
0:19:33 > 0:19:36There is no logic that can be superimposed on the city.
0:19:36 > 0:19:37People make it.
0:19:39 > 0:19:44And it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49She's curious, she's got a really good craft.
0:19:49 > 0:19:50She knows how to write.
0:19:51 > 0:19:54And she finds herself on a staff job with Architectural Forum.
0:20:03 > 0:20:06And this is Jacobs, an associate editor of the magazine
0:20:06 > 0:20:07Architectural Forum, who has been a
0:20:07 > 0:20:11New Yorker for 27 years, and loves it. Mrs Jane Jacobs.
0:20:11 > 0:20:12APPLAUSE
0:20:12 > 0:20:15Thank you very much.
0:20:15 > 0:20:16One fine day,
0:20:16 > 0:20:20Architectural Forum put me on an assignment about some urban renewal
0:20:20 > 0:20:23projects that were being done,
0:20:23 > 0:20:25in Philadelphia, as a matter of fact.
0:20:30 > 0:20:33We have found, in our work in rebuilding Philadelphia,
0:20:33 > 0:20:35that a central design idea,
0:20:35 > 0:20:38well-developed and clearly expressed,
0:20:38 > 0:20:42can of itself become a major creative force and can make more
0:20:42 > 0:20:44meaningful the work of individual architects
0:20:44 > 0:20:46in various parts of an area.
0:20:46 > 0:20:49I find out what they had in mind and what they were planning to do,
0:20:49 > 0:20:52and how it was going to look according to the drawings,
0:20:52 > 0:20:55and what great things it was going to accomplish.
0:20:55 > 0:20:59I came back and wrote enthusiastic articles about this.
0:20:59 > 0:21:04All was well. I was in very cosy with the planners and the
0:21:04 > 0:21:06project builders. Anyhow,
0:21:06 > 0:21:09time passed and some of these things were actually built.
0:21:12 > 0:21:14Society Hill is residential.
0:21:14 > 0:21:16The oldest part of the city, it is
0:21:16 > 0:21:18the site of an intensive restoration project.
0:21:20 > 0:21:23Houses, many predating the American Revolution,
0:21:23 > 0:21:26slowly had grown dilapidated, and had been converted to other uses.
0:21:29 > 0:21:31In addition, there was room for new,
0:21:31 > 0:21:35dramatically contemporary apartment towers.
0:21:35 > 0:21:38Society Hill emerges as a combination of ancient and modern.
0:21:41 > 0:21:45But they didn't work at all the way they should have worked.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48The city around them, didn't react, the way, theoretically,
0:21:48 > 0:21:51the city around them should have reacted.
0:21:51 > 0:21:55She is the hypersensitive antennae, you know,
0:21:55 > 0:21:58that's picking up something here that no-one else is seeing.
0:22:00 > 0:22:05Why did stores that looked very cheerful and were supposed to be
0:22:05 > 0:22:08doing a great and booming business in the plans,
0:22:08 > 0:22:12actually go empty or languish?
0:22:12 > 0:22:15Well, I would bring these questions up with the people who had been
0:22:15 > 0:22:19responsible for the planning of these places...
0:22:22 > 0:22:28..and I got quite a lot of alibis, boiling down to, "People are stupid,
0:22:28 > 0:22:30"they don't do what they are supposed to do."
0:22:33 > 0:22:35And this was a great shock to me.
0:22:36 > 0:22:41Never mind highfalutin theories and so forth, what are we looking at,
0:22:41 > 0:22:42what are we seeing?
0:22:42 > 0:22:45Do you want to trust some theory
0:22:45 > 0:22:47that somebody figured out sitting in an office
0:22:47 > 0:22:51somewhere or do you want to trust what you actually see out there
0:22:51 > 0:22:53with your own eyes? Maybe the
0:22:53 > 0:22:58experts didn't really know as much as they pretended to know.
0:23:06 > 0:23:10About this time, a gentleman came into the office of the
0:23:10 > 0:23:14Architectural Forum. He was very much worried about East Harlem.
0:23:15 > 0:23:18About $300-million-worth
0:23:18 > 0:23:22of city rebuilding money had been put to work.
0:23:23 > 0:23:27He could see that their problems were growing greater than they had
0:23:27 > 0:23:28ever been in the past.
0:23:31 > 0:23:37She goes up to Harlem and she gets taken around by William Kirk of the
0:23:37 > 0:23:39Union Settlement House and he's
0:23:39 > 0:23:42showing her all the things that are
0:23:42 > 0:23:47being lost in this community, what is being demolished.
0:23:48 > 0:23:50He would walk me around East Harlem.
0:23:51 > 0:23:55We would stop in at stores, stop in at housing projects.
0:23:57 > 0:24:02I began to see that just out of the accumulation of all of this,
0:24:02 > 0:24:07I was beginning to understand how things worked.
0:24:08 > 0:24:12Many little details of cause and effect.
0:24:13 > 0:24:16She describes it as the very beginning,
0:24:16 > 0:24:19the sort of moment when the light bulb kind of went off in her head.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32What I was seeing, in fact, was what
0:24:32 > 0:24:36makes the very intricate order of the city.
0:24:37 > 0:24:42This has to do with a quality that's called, rather vaguely, urbanism.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51Cities are extremely physical places.
0:24:51 > 0:24:52It's not an inert mass.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58It's enterprises and people reacting in certain ways to each other and
0:24:58 > 0:25:01mutually supporting each other.
0:25:02 > 0:25:05And wherever it worked properly,
0:25:05 > 0:25:07there seemed to be an awful lot of diversity.
0:25:09 > 0:25:13Many different kinds of enterprises, many different kinds of people,
0:25:13 > 0:25:16mutually supporting and supplementing each other.
0:25:24 > 0:25:27Jane Jacobs is thinking about - how does a neighbourhood work?
0:25:27 > 0:25:30How does a street work? What functions does a sidewalk play?
0:25:31 > 0:25:36What she's really after is a new theory of how cities function.
0:25:36 > 0:25:40In The Death And Life Of Great American Cities, she's asking -
0:25:40 > 0:25:42what is the problem of a city?
0:25:48 > 0:25:51She argues the city is a problem of organised complexity.
0:25:54 > 0:25:56Looks on the surface
0:25:56 > 0:26:00like it's complex and disordered
0:26:00 > 0:26:02but in fact there's an underlying structure.
0:26:04 > 0:26:08It looks like chaos but in fact there's a balance,
0:26:08 > 0:26:12there's a productive mix of different functions and organisms.
0:26:13 > 0:26:17She draws on ecological metaphors, biological metaphors,
0:26:17 > 0:26:19to suggest how it's really an ecosystem.
0:26:22 > 0:26:23She wrote...
0:26:31 > 0:26:34The leaves dropping from the trees in the autumn,
0:26:34 > 0:26:36the interior of an aeroplane engine...
0:26:38 > 0:26:40..the entrails of a dissected rabbit...
0:26:41 > 0:26:43..the city desk of a newspaper...
0:26:45 > 0:26:47..all appear to be chaos...
0:26:48 > 0:26:51..if they are seen without comprehension.
0:26:51 > 0:26:56Once they are seen as systems of order, they actually look different.
0:26:57 > 0:27:01Jacobs understood - when cities really work,
0:27:01 > 0:27:04they're phenomena that come from the bottom up.
0:27:04 > 0:27:07So a great neighbourhood is what happens when thousands of different
0:27:07 > 0:27:13actors - and that's the shopkeepers, the bar owners,
0:27:13 > 0:27:15the people walking the streets...
0:27:15 > 0:27:19They spontaneously come together in an uncoordinated but meaningful way,
0:27:19 > 0:27:23to create the kind of flavour and personality of a distinct neighbourhood.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28That's not planned, that's much more a question of organised complexity.
0:27:31 > 0:27:37Planners, they don't see any of the wondrous human qualities that Jacobs
0:27:37 > 0:27:42is seeing. The very forms of urbanism that she wrote about,
0:27:42 > 0:27:45the urban renewal-ists sought to destroy.
0:28:06 > 0:28:08What would you do for Harlem?
0:28:08 > 0:28:12The slum corner of Harlem, I'd take that and all the other similar slums,
0:28:12 > 0:28:14I'd tear them all out, every bit of them.
0:28:14 > 0:28:19It's a cancerous thing and you've just got to wipe them out.
0:28:19 > 0:28:23I say that if you have a cancerous growth, Phil, it has to be carved out.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26All right, you've carved it out, now you've replaced it with something new.
0:28:26 > 0:28:29Yes, that's right. Something that's decent,
0:28:29 > 0:28:31something that involves light and
0:28:31 > 0:28:34air and new schools and playgrounds and parks.
0:28:34 > 0:28:38And I say that's a hell of a big contribution and certainly all the
0:28:38 > 0:28:41contribution that I would be able to make with all the people I can
0:28:41 > 0:28:43persuade to make it.
0:28:45 > 0:28:48Instead of following the natural way that people used space,
0:28:48 > 0:28:52city planning in this post-war era, and modern architecture,
0:28:52 > 0:28:56created this abstract vision of what it should be,
0:28:56 > 0:28:59concentrated on the utopian and the ideal.
0:29:13 > 0:29:16In the 1920s, you get the rise of this curious,
0:29:16 > 0:29:21mystical figure out of Switzerland, who calls himself Le Corbusier.
0:29:21 > 0:29:25He's done some architecture and he's thinking himself not only an
0:29:25 > 0:29:27architect but a great urban visionary.
0:29:30 > 0:29:34Le Corbusier envisioned tearing down huge sections of Paris...
0:29:36 > 0:29:41..and replacing it with slabs, modern slabs, cruciform buildings.
0:29:43 > 0:29:45He proposed superhighways
0:29:45 > 0:29:49that went through green, open space...
0:29:50 > 0:29:55..and they were going to terminate in super blocks and the super blocks
0:29:55 > 0:30:00had high-rise buildings, and the high-rise buildings were so that people could have
0:30:00 > 0:30:02light and air and could get out of the slums.
0:30:05 > 0:30:08And he was thoroughly of the opinion that if you had good architecture,
0:30:08 > 0:30:12the lives of people would be improved and that architects improved people and
0:30:12 > 0:30:14people would improve architecture
0:30:14 > 0:30:16until perfectibility would descend on us
0:30:16 > 0:30:18like the Holy Ghost and we'd be happy for ever after.
0:30:20 > 0:30:24Corb did this plan and made his models and it excited a lot of
0:30:24 > 0:30:27people, but in France they weren't so excited.
0:30:29 > 0:30:34The idea of the La Ville radieuse and the tower in a park ended up moving to America,
0:30:34 > 0:30:36just like the rest of modernism did.
0:30:39 > 0:30:43The public housing model that we picked in the United States was a
0:30:43 > 0:30:45misinterpretation of Le Corbusier.
0:30:46 > 0:30:52The towers in his 1923 plan were for offices and then around the towers
0:30:52 > 0:30:56were low, seven-storey buildings with generous balconies.
0:30:57 > 0:31:02He never called for people living in high-rise towers.
0:31:02 > 0:31:08It was one of those odd moments where a set of intellectual ideas
0:31:08 > 0:31:13could be corrupted very quickly and easily into something cheap and commercial.
0:31:13 > 0:31:17The simplest formula to make quick money is modernism.
0:31:17 > 0:31:19It was very cheap,
0:31:19 > 0:31:24very quick to produce and could suddenly enable huge amounts of
0:31:24 > 0:31:26building to happen very quickly.
0:31:26 > 0:31:29And Robert Moses totally understood that.
0:31:32 > 0:31:37The one thing missing completely from that vision is streets and the
0:31:37 > 0:31:41idea that a street is something you actually walk on and a street is a
0:31:41 > 0:31:43place where things happen.
0:31:43 > 0:31:46Jane Jacobs saw that at a time when everybody else
0:31:46 > 0:31:51was thinking the sidewalk was a kind of foolish leftover of another age.
0:32:11 > 0:32:14There must be eyes upon the street.
0:32:14 > 0:32:18Eyes belonging to those we may call the natural proprietors of the street.
0:32:19 > 0:32:22The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to ensure
0:32:22 > 0:32:25the safety of both residents and
0:32:25 > 0:32:28strangers, must be oriented to the street.
0:32:28 > 0:32:31They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it
0:32:31 > 0:32:32and leave it blind.
0:32:34 > 0:32:39Philosophically, what she recognised was - safety doesn't come from armed
0:32:39 > 0:32:42security guards blocking the entrances.
0:32:44 > 0:32:47What makes a neighbourhood great is precisely the fact that there
0:32:47 > 0:32:49ARE people on the street.
0:32:49 > 0:32:52The sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously.
0:32:52 > 0:32:55Both to add to the numbers of effective eyes on the street and to
0:32:55 > 0:32:58induce the people in the buildings along the street to watch the
0:32:58 > 0:33:00sidewalks in sufficient numbers.
0:33:03 > 0:33:06Nobody enjoys sitting on a stoop or looking out a window on an empty street.
0:33:17 > 0:33:19She went out and looked at things.
0:33:19 > 0:33:23When she said that the doormen were paid eyes on the street and that the
0:33:23 > 0:33:28same thing could happen from bars on the street in West Village,
0:33:28 > 0:33:30I understood what she was talking about.
0:33:30 > 0:33:34Nobody has to worry about things, where there are a lot of people on
0:33:34 > 0:33:35the street.
0:33:38 > 0:33:42Jane Jacobs reverses the vantage point.
0:33:42 > 0:33:46What is it like actually to live in these places from street level?
0:33:46 > 0:33:49And it's that simple change of perspective that led her away from
0:33:49 > 0:33:51the orthodoxy of the time.
0:33:56 > 0:33:58Robert Moses had no interest, really,
0:33:58 > 0:34:01in paying attention to what was there in neighbourhoods.
0:34:03 > 0:34:06What was there, he viewed as simply an obstacle to what he wanted to
0:34:06 > 0:34:09make happen.
0:34:09 > 0:34:12People oppose Moses all the time.
0:34:13 > 0:34:15Whether he wanted Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts,
0:34:15 > 0:34:18a bridge across the entrance to the New York harbour,
0:34:18 > 0:34:22a parking lot where mothers air their babies in Central Park,
0:34:22 > 0:34:25a highway down the spine of Fire Island or one through the
0:34:25 > 0:34:27middle of Washington Square,
0:34:27 > 0:34:31vehement opposition was what he expected and what he got.
0:34:31 > 0:34:34Oh, well, there's opposition to everything that's progressive,
0:34:34 > 0:34:36everything that's new.
0:34:38 > 0:34:41The opinion of people who were activists,
0:34:41 > 0:34:43as we were in the Village,
0:34:43 > 0:34:48were Robert Moses was terrible and Robert Moses was destroying the city
0:34:48 > 0:34:51and Robert Moses had to be stopped.
0:34:52 > 0:34:56Jane got involved in several efforts to stop Robert Moses from ripping
0:34:56 > 0:34:58the city to pieces, starting with
0:34:58 > 0:35:02his attempt to run Fifth Avenue down through Washington Square.
0:35:07 > 0:35:13The first time I became aware of the threat of what the highways were
0:35:13 > 0:35:16doing and could do to New York was
0:35:16 > 0:35:20when along came the plan to push Fifth Avenue
0:35:20 > 0:35:25through Washington Square Park and down below it,
0:35:25 > 0:35:27as a continuous street.
0:35:27 > 0:35:33They wanted to have the Fifth Avenue buses go through the park, down into
0:35:33 > 0:35:39West Broadway and change the name of that to Fifth Avenue South,
0:35:39 > 0:35:41so as to make it more valuable for
0:35:41 > 0:35:45rents and that was a Robert Moses project.
0:35:45 > 0:35:47This wasn't in the abstract, for Jane Jacobs,
0:35:47 > 0:35:50this was happening close to home, right in her back yard.
0:35:52 > 0:35:55This was where she brought her kids in strollers, to play in that park.
0:35:58 > 0:36:00This is the circle. On weekdays,
0:36:00 > 0:36:03it's a wading pool for Village kids but on
0:36:03 > 0:36:05Sundays the water is turned off and
0:36:05 > 0:36:07the circle becomes a meeting place for
0:36:07 > 0:36:11guitarists, bongo and banjo players, Villagers on a stroll,
0:36:11 > 0:36:13folk singers and tourists.
0:36:16 > 0:36:20To me and to many others, we were outraged about a road going through
0:36:20 > 0:36:24Washington Square and we were going to save Washington Square Park.
0:36:27 > 0:36:29Washington Square was really Jane Jacobs'
0:36:29 > 0:36:31beginning as a civic activist.
0:36:31 > 0:36:33All of the activists, myself included,
0:36:33 > 0:36:36were involved in trying to stop that.
0:36:36 > 0:36:43The leaders there included Jane Jacobs and Charlie Hayes.
0:36:44 > 0:36:46Jane was not deferential to power,
0:36:46 > 0:36:50so she ups the ante on that Washington Square fight and says,
0:36:50 > 0:36:52"I'm going to write the mayor."
0:36:53 > 0:36:56I have heard with alarm and almost with disbelief,
0:36:56 > 0:37:00the plans to run a sunken highway through the centre of Washington Square.
0:37:02 > 0:37:04My husband and I are amongst the
0:37:04 > 0:37:06citizens who truly believe in New York,
0:37:06 > 0:37:09to the extent that we have bought a home in the heart of the city and
0:37:09 > 0:37:12remodelled it with a lot of hard work.
0:37:12 > 0:37:15It is very discouraging to do our best to make the city more habitable
0:37:15 > 0:37:18and then to learn that the city itself is thinking up schemes to
0:37:18 > 0:37:20make it uninhabitable.
0:37:24 > 0:37:27Jane's example that she set for herself
0:37:27 > 0:37:29is an example for other people to follow.
0:37:29 > 0:37:31If a highway is coming
0:37:31 > 0:37:34through that's going to be very destructive
0:37:34 > 0:37:38and you know it's an idiotic thing, you fight that highway.
0:37:38 > 0:37:41Protest against the stultification and the status quo,
0:37:41 > 0:37:44and things that touch you and your neighbourhood directly.
0:37:44 > 0:37:48I think she was effective because of the force of her personality and the
0:37:48 > 0:37:52fact that she was able to mobilise a lot of people.
0:37:52 > 0:37:54Margaret Mead, Susan Sontag,
0:37:54 > 0:37:57all the various folks that Jane was involved with, were drawn to the
0:37:57 > 0:38:00tangibility of this particular fight.
0:38:09 > 0:38:12We have too many critics, we have too many mud throwers, too many
0:38:12 > 0:38:15people who foul their nest and know it all - that's not trouble.
0:38:15 > 0:38:19Too many people sitting around calling names, like Mumford, people like that...
0:38:19 > 0:38:20What do they contribute?
0:38:20 > 0:38:23You have any problem to solve, any difficulty,
0:38:23 > 0:38:24never call upon them.
0:38:26 > 0:38:28Call upon them for four-letter words.
0:38:30 > 0:38:33They don't even have very good vocabulary, in my book.
0:38:33 > 0:38:37Robert Moses wasn't used to anybody saying no to him.
0:38:37 > 0:38:40He would fire off these letters to people of Greenwich Village.
0:38:42 > 0:38:46I realised that in the process of rebuilding south of Washington Square
0:38:46 > 0:38:50there would be cries of anguish from those who are honestly convinced the
0:38:50 > 0:38:54Sistine Madonna was painted in the basement of one of the old buildings
0:38:54 > 0:38:57there. Not presently occupied by a cabaret or speakeasy.
0:38:59 > 0:39:02That Michelangelo's David was fashioned in a garret in
0:39:02 > 0:39:04the same neighbourhood.
0:39:04 > 0:39:08And that anyone who lays hands on the sacred landmarks will be
0:39:08 > 0:39:12executed if he has not already been struck down by a bolt from heaven.
0:39:14 > 0:39:18They managed to show Moses as this bully,
0:39:18 > 0:39:21and they got a lot of important people on their side,
0:39:21 > 0:39:24including Eleanor Roosevelt.
0:39:24 > 0:39:30I would feel very strongly that destroying the square by putting
0:39:30 > 0:39:35a large artery for traffic through the square,
0:39:35 > 0:39:38would harm not only the square
0:39:38 > 0:39:43itself but the whole neighbourhood and, really, the city.
0:39:43 > 0:39:48I am not opposed to change, in fact, I believe in change.
0:39:48 > 0:39:53But I think that good tradition has to be preserved.
0:39:55 > 0:40:01Jacobs was a brilliant strategist when it came to civil action.
0:40:01 > 0:40:04She had a real sense for the photo op.
0:40:04 > 0:40:06In Washington Square Park,
0:40:06 > 0:40:10she arranged for her daughter and another girl to conduct a
0:40:10 > 0:40:13ribbon-tying ceremony. This, of course,
0:40:13 > 0:40:16was the opposite of a ribbon cutting ceremony that politicians
0:40:16 > 0:40:17love to celebrate with public works.
0:40:19 > 0:40:21At one of the hearings,
0:40:21 > 0:40:25where Moses was foolish enough to say that nobody is against this
0:40:25 > 0:40:28except a bunch of mothers!
0:40:28 > 0:40:30How could he be so tactless?
0:40:30 > 0:40:32Only if you think people don't matter at all,
0:40:32 > 0:40:34could you make a statement like that!
0:40:34 > 0:40:37She was a housewife, that's how they treated her.
0:40:37 > 0:40:41I mean, of course, she was a professional journalist that was not somehow...
0:40:41 > 0:40:45When you wanted to dismiss her, you would just stay -"Who's this
0:40:45 > 0:40:47"housewife from Hudson Street?"
0:40:47 > 0:40:49Try to mess with a bunch of mothers.
0:40:49 > 0:40:54I think that he underestimated what the effectiveness of these mothers
0:40:54 > 0:41:00might in fact be. Literally thousands of people turned to...
0:41:01 > 0:41:04And it took quite a few years, but did save it.
0:41:04 > 0:41:07It ended up being an extraordinarily potent opposition,
0:41:07 > 0:41:08which he had never met before.
0:41:08 > 0:41:10Moses had never met this before.
0:41:11 > 0:41:14He had his... He had it coming.
0:41:15 > 0:41:20Washington Square Park was certainly the first public defeat for
0:41:20 > 0:41:24Robert Moses, and it was a major chink in his armour.
0:41:27 > 0:41:31The battle over Washington Square is Jane's first taste of victory.
0:41:34 > 0:41:37Not long after the Washington Square victory,
0:41:37 > 0:41:39Death And Life is published.
0:41:40 > 0:41:46And Bennett Cerf, head of Random House, sends a copy to Robert Moses.
0:41:48 > 0:41:49And Moses sends it back.
0:41:52 > 0:41:54I am returning the book you sent me.
0:41:55 > 0:41:57Aside from the fact it is intemperate and
0:41:57 > 0:42:02inaccurate, it is also libellous.
0:42:03 > 0:42:06I call your attention, for example, to page 131.
0:42:30 > 0:42:32He didn't even want to recognise
0:42:32 > 0:42:35the existence of the book or of Jane.
0:42:37 > 0:42:43Others were also not charitable, including Lewis Mumford.
0:42:43 > 0:42:47Lewis Mumford, the great architectural critic for The New Yorker,
0:42:47 > 0:42:51his famous review of her book had the title -
0:42:51 > 0:42:53Mother Jacobs' Home Remedies.
0:42:53 > 0:42:57He is immediately telling you that Jane Jacobs was just this sweet old lady
0:42:57 > 0:43:00trying to get some homoeopathic medicine into the city,
0:43:00 > 0:43:03instead of doing the serious surgery that a real doctor would do.
0:43:06 > 0:43:10Right around the time of Death and Life of Great American Cities,
0:43:10 > 0:43:14ironically, her own neighbourhood, the West Village,
0:43:14 > 0:43:19the very neighbourhood she had proclaimed as a model for what
0:43:19 > 0:43:22neighbourhoods could be, was earmarked for urban renewal.
0:43:28 > 0:43:32Moses was Commissioner of Housing in the urban renewal effort to build
0:43:32 > 0:43:35more public housing in New York City.
0:43:35 > 0:43:39He actually stepped down from that position, but before he did,
0:43:39 > 0:43:44he designated the West Village as eligible for slum designation.
0:43:52 > 0:43:55I got the book finished, finally.
0:43:55 > 0:43:59And thought, "Ah, now I can think about something else."
0:43:59 > 0:44:04And for three weeks, I did think about other things.
0:44:04 > 0:44:09Then I opened the New York Times one morning and found that our own
0:44:09 > 0:44:12area of the West Village was going
0:44:12 > 0:44:15to have an urban renewal project in it.
0:44:15 > 0:44:19She really didn't think of herself as a community organiser,
0:44:19 > 0:44:24as a street fighter, she was a writer. She didn't appreciate the distraction,
0:44:24 > 0:44:27she really didn't, but she knew she had to do it.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30She was sad, I mean, she would shrug her shoulders and say, "What can I do?"
0:44:36 > 0:44:38You know that thing about an inert object?
0:44:38 > 0:44:42Well, there is nothing more inert than a government bureau.
0:44:42 > 0:44:45There is nothing more inert than a planning office.
0:44:45 > 0:44:47It gets going, in one direction,
0:44:47 > 0:44:49and it's never going to change of its own accord.
0:44:50 > 0:44:55So I suddenly had to put into practice my own premises that if
0:44:55 > 0:45:00anything was going to happen to reverse the way things were being done,
0:45:00 > 0:45:04then the citizens had to take some initiative and the citizens had to
0:45:04 > 0:45:05frustrate the planners.
0:45:07 > 0:45:11I thereupon began to devote myself to frustrating planners.
0:45:14 > 0:45:16And so did the whole neighbourhood.
0:45:17 > 0:45:22Jane calls a meeting of local residents at the Lion's Head,
0:45:22 > 0:45:25a favourite neighbourhood hang-out,
0:45:25 > 0:45:29organises people to speak at public meetings,
0:45:29 > 0:45:32and gets everybody to wear
0:45:32 > 0:45:35sunglasses with an X painted on them.
0:45:41 > 0:45:43They were fairly sophisticated, I think,
0:45:43 > 0:45:45in the tactics that they would employ,
0:45:45 > 0:45:48and they are tackling somebody who has been writing for a living for a
0:45:48 > 0:45:51couple of decades and knows how to make an argument.
0:45:51 > 0:45:56We all knew one another and were constantly planning on how to get
0:45:56 > 0:46:01the mayor on our side and threaten him, and we did, we got him on our side!
0:46:01 > 0:46:04She filed a lawsuit against the city of New York,
0:46:04 > 0:46:07to try to block the urban renewal plan.
0:46:11 > 0:46:14I think that the time has come to put the West Village urban renewal
0:46:14 > 0:46:15proposal to rest.
0:46:17 > 0:46:19Promptly remove the West Village designation -
0:46:24 > 0:46:27They prevailed, and at the end of the day, the slum designation never
0:46:27 > 0:46:30happened in the West Village.
0:46:32 > 0:46:37She effectively showed the people of Greenwich Village that they could
0:46:37 > 0:46:42fight City Hall, that they did not have to accept the plans of the
0:46:42 > 0:46:45planners at their drafting tables,
0:46:45 > 0:46:51and that they could reject those lines being drawn around their homes.
0:46:55 > 0:46:59Any city that's tearing down its buildings just to make money
0:46:59 > 0:47:01for a development or
0:47:01 > 0:47:06just to add novelty, is doing something criminal.
0:47:12 > 0:47:14DISTANT VOICES
0:47:17 > 0:47:22A fellow who gets to the upper storeys of a public housing project,
0:47:22 > 0:47:23where he has a view.
0:47:23 > 0:47:27What's the matter with him? He's got a nice place to live, hasn't he?
0:47:29 > 0:47:32I think that the objection that some might have was that the view was
0:47:32 > 0:47:35just of another housing development on another highway.
0:47:35 > 0:47:39No, no. No, I don't concede that.
0:47:45 > 0:47:49It wasn't just that they wanted new housing in place of the old,
0:47:49 > 0:47:51they wanted an entirely different-looking city.
0:47:57 > 0:48:03Robert Moses and his constituency, wanted it all to be very simplified,
0:48:03 > 0:48:04very sterilised.
0:48:06 > 0:48:09It was the hubris of Moses and his ilk,
0:48:09 > 0:48:14the idea that we're going to rearrange the spaces and therefore
0:48:14 > 0:48:17we're going to rearrange the social relations.
0:48:17 > 0:48:21It had to do with this towers in the park mentality,
0:48:21 > 0:48:24it had to do with the creation of a new form of ghetto.
0:48:28 > 0:48:31Old downtowns were being bulldozed in the name of
0:48:31 > 0:48:34people but not for the people -
0:48:34 > 0:48:36they were destroying lives and
0:48:36 > 0:48:38replacing them with these housing projects.
0:48:40 > 0:48:44And why? Because it was making a lot of people a lot of money.
0:48:44 > 0:48:47It was making developers a lot of money.
0:48:48 > 0:48:51Politicians a lot of money.
0:48:51 > 0:48:52And it was fast money.
0:48:54 > 0:48:56So they kept doing it over and over and over again,
0:48:56 > 0:48:58in cities all over the country.
0:49:00 > 0:49:03It was several years after Robert Moses had begun
0:49:03 > 0:49:05building these projects,
0:49:05 > 0:49:07that the other cities caught up.
0:49:22 > 0:49:26What they were building was the Corbusian model.
0:49:26 > 0:49:29You saw the kind of building of these housing projects across the
0:49:29 > 0:49:31United States, you know,
0:49:31 > 0:49:3425-storey, block-apartment buildings,
0:49:34 > 0:49:36with playgrounds and gardens
0:49:36 > 0:49:39around them, that looked great in all the drawings.
0:49:39 > 0:49:44Here in bright new buildings with spacious grounds, they can live.
0:49:44 > 0:49:47Live with indoor plumbing, electric lights,
0:49:47 > 0:49:50fresh-plastered walls, and the rest of the conveniences that are
0:49:50 > 0:49:51expected in the 20th century.
0:49:53 > 0:49:58In these projects, children can play in safety on the wide lawns,
0:49:58 > 0:50:00not in the littered alleys and vacant lots.
0:50:02 > 0:50:05We must make sure that every family
0:50:05 > 0:50:10in America lives in a home of dignity.
0:50:10 > 0:50:12In a neighbourhood of pride and a
0:50:12 > 0:50:18community of opportunity and a city of promise and hope.
0:50:19 > 0:50:23But what ended up happening is - nobody ever hung out
0:50:23 > 0:50:26in the kind of public space around these projects,
0:50:26 > 0:50:29so they became these under-populated places,
0:50:29 > 0:50:32and they actually very quickly became some of the most
0:50:32 > 0:50:34dangerous places in the world.
0:50:35 > 0:50:38Concentrated poverty.
0:50:38 > 0:50:42This is really the worst thing about the projects.
0:50:42 > 0:50:44And therefore amplified all of the
0:50:44 > 0:50:50pathological and anti-social elements of poverty.
0:50:50 > 0:50:53These institutions became fortressed.
0:50:53 > 0:50:57You become cornered, you feel cornered, you feel trapped.
0:50:57 > 0:50:59They left people more vulnerable.
0:50:59 > 0:51:02Public housing became places of fear.
0:51:06 > 0:51:09High-rise fortresses like these were built this way to save money.
0:51:09 > 0:51:12In the long run, they didn't even do that.
0:51:12 > 0:51:15The problem was that they were all wrong for the people who wound up
0:51:15 > 0:51:19living in them. Rural blacks, broken families.
0:51:19 > 0:51:22Allowed in and to stay in, only if their incomes were low enough.
0:51:27 > 0:51:31Most of these now are engaged in something called urban renewal,
0:51:31 > 0:51:34which means moving the negroes out, it means negro removal,
0:51:34 > 0:51:36that is what it means.
0:51:36 > 0:51:39The federal government is an accomplice to this fact.
0:51:39 > 0:51:41Now, we're talking about human beings.
0:51:41 > 0:51:44There is not such a thing as a monolithic wall or some abstraction
0:51:44 > 0:51:47called the negro problem, these are negro boys and girls,
0:51:47 > 0:51:50who at 16 and 17 don't believe the country means anything that it says,
0:51:50 > 0:51:53don't feel they have any place here.
0:51:53 > 0:51:57The phrase - "Urban renewal is negro removal" - was an acknowledgement by
0:51:57 > 0:52:02African-Americans that this was an assault, removal in the sense of
0:52:02 > 0:52:05out, over there, away, far away.
0:52:05 > 0:52:08some place inhospitable, where you can just die.
0:52:09 > 0:52:12And a huge part of what happened to people was that they were put in
0:52:12 > 0:52:16inhospitable places and African-Americans were put in at the
0:52:16 > 0:52:17margins of the city,
0:52:17 > 0:52:21in places that could barely support the vital kind of life that
0:52:21 > 0:52:22people need to prosper.
0:52:25 > 0:52:28It's as though the builders have not realised that children would be
0:52:28 > 0:52:31living there. Nor did they foresee the crime,
0:52:31 > 0:52:34the vandalism, which is really the acting out of rage and self-loathing
0:52:34 > 0:52:38that can make people want to destroy their own property.
0:52:38 > 0:52:41People had lived in communities that were messy, but they worked.
0:52:41 > 0:52:43People had social capitals,
0:52:43 > 0:52:47people watched each other's child when somebody was not there.
0:52:47 > 0:52:50All this was actually taken away.
0:52:50 > 0:52:53People had no investment, emotionally,
0:52:53 > 0:52:56people resented these projects that had been built for them
0:52:56 > 0:52:58because they were poor.
0:53:01 > 0:53:02You see a lot of windows broken up there.
0:53:02 > 0:53:05They all were broken by children throwing rocks.
0:53:05 > 0:53:07And what's more natural than children throwing rocks?
0:53:07 > 0:53:09They don't have nothing else to do.
0:53:09 > 0:53:12There is absolutely no recreation facilities here.
0:53:12 > 0:53:17And the playground like this is a mockery for thousands of children.
0:53:18 > 0:53:22Tenants had no input as to what they wanted.
0:53:22 > 0:53:23It was built because somebody said,
0:53:23 > 0:53:25this would be good for children to play on.
0:53:27 > 0:53:31There was graffiti everywhere and there were drug problems and all the
0:53:31 > 0:53:36problems you can imagine coming from when you uproot people
0:53:36 > 0:53:39without their will.
0:53:39 > 0:53:40And what do you expect?
0:53:40 > 0:53:42That they will love these projects?
0:53:42 > 0:53:43No, that wasn't going to happen.
0:53:50 > 0:53:54Pruitt-Igoe, if you really see an aerial view of it,
0:53:54 > 0:53:57those buildings were spaced quite a distance apart.
0:53:57 > 0:53:59If you took them and threw them on their on their faces,
0:53:59 > 0:54:02which is where they should have fallen,
0:54:02 > 0:54:06you would get lovely housing 20-feet high!
0:54:06 > 0:54:11You can take a look at a little exercise here, if these towers,
0:54:11 > 0:54:14the slabs are removed from the towers,
0:54:14 > 0:54:18you begin to see a different attitude of what is visible,
0:54:18 > 0:54:21you begin to see through the site,
0:54:21 > 0:54:23as opposed to looking at a slab of
0:54:23 > 0:54:24buildings running...
0:54:24 > 0:54:27One thing the tenants are really stressing, is for a
0:54:27 > 0:54:33low-rise building closer to a home, something that they can relate to.
0:54:33 > 0:54:39What we're trying to do here is to take a given situation and try to
0:54:39 > 0:54:45bring it back to a community where people would want to live.
0:55:03 > 0:55:07After thinking about the problem of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project,
0:55:07 > 0:55:09the city planners blew it up.
0:55:16 > 0:55:18Just dynamited it away.
0:55:25 > 0:55:29The projects ended up being tremendous failures.
0:55:29 > 0:55:31We know all about that failure now.
0:55:31 > 0:55:34And everywhere they existed - 30, 40 years later,
0:55:34 > 0:55:36they are all being torn down.
0:55:52 > 0:55:54You can't put streets back where you took them out.
0:55:54 > 0:55:56You can't put stores back,
0:55:56 > 0:55:59you can't put the daily life and all the institutions.
0:55:59 > 0:56:02It takes generations to build up those institutions.
0:56:06 > 0:56:09That's what was eliminated by these projects.
0:56:22 > 0:56:27The superblock urbanism of the modernist ilk that Jane Jacobs
0:56:27 > 0:56:30writes about as destroying cities -
0:56:30 > 0:56:33you also have at the very same time, the automobile being rammed through.
0:56:36 > 0:56:41This causes as many problems as the urban renewal projects.
0:56:44 > 0:56:49The most profound influence on the city in the last 100 years has been
0:56:49 > 0:56:51the automobile.
0:56:54 > 0:56:58The decision made almost inevitably, was to drive the freeways,
0:56:58 > 0:57:02the interstates, right through the cities and through neighbourhoods,
0:57:02 > 0:57:07whose value city elites and developers wanted to ultimately reclaim.
0:57:10 > 0:57:12We wouldn't have any American economy
0:57:12 > 0:57:14without the automobile business.
0:57:14 > 0:57:16That is literally true.
0:57:16 > 0:57:19To believe that this is a great industry that has to go on and has
0:57:19 > 0:57:22to keep on turning out cars and trucks and buses,
0:57:22 > 0:57:24then there have to be places for them to run.
0:57:24 > 0:57:26There have to be modern roads.
0:57:26 > 0:57:31The first of Moses' commandments for progress is - thou shalt drive.
0:57:37 > 0:57:39Jane Jacobs is one of the very first
0:57:39 > 0:57:43people to say the car is not supreme.
0:57:43 > 0:57:46The people who walk on the sidewalk are what makes the city.
0:57:47 > 0:57:51It isn't hard to understand that producing and consuming automobiles
0:57:51 > 0:57:54might seem all-important to the management of Ford
0:57:54 > 0:57:56and Chrysler and General Motors,
0:57:56 > 0:58:00but it's harder to understand why the production and
0:58:00 > 0:58:04consumption of automobiles should be the purpose of life for all the rest of us.
0:58:08 > 0:58:13Moses was about realising a very particular vision of the American Dream,
0:58:13 > 0:58:18that was - what's good for General Motors is good for the United States of America.
0:58:18 > 0:58:22I am privileged to present the winner of the award,
0:58:22 > 0:58:23Robert Moses of New York.
0:58:28 > 0:58:31Robert Moses, New York City Construction Coordinator,
0:58:31 > 0:58:33is a world-famous highway planner.
0:58:33 > 0:58:35A man who knows his business.
0:58:39 > 0:58:43What he was really doing was tearing up vital neighbourhoods, for example,
0:58:43 > 0:58:46in the South Bronx, where he built the Cross Bronx Expressway.
0:58:56 > 0:58:59It's just the single most destructive decision
0:58:59 > 0:59:01ever made about US cities.
0:59:01 > 0:59:03The Cross Bronx Expressway,
0:59:03 > 0:59:06an artery whose history was marked by such gigantic problems of
0:59:06 > 0:59:11construction, financing, relocation and organised obstruction,
0:59:11 > 0:59:13that it took 17 years to complete.
0:59:23 > 0:59:27The Cross Bronx Expressway ripped through the heart and the middle of
0:59:27 > 0:59:32the Bronx, creating what was a wall between what eventually was known as
0:59:32 > 0:59:34the northern and the southern part of the Bronx.
0:59:37 > 0:59:39Robert Moses thought he would get away with anything.
0:59:39 > 0:59:40Who was going to stop him?
0:59:40 > 0:59:43He's got all the city politicians around him,
0:59:43 > 0:59:45it was bringing in a lot of federal money from the
0:59:45 > 0:59:47Federal Highway Programme.
0:59:49 > 0:59:51And that gets passed around.
0:59:52 > 0:59:58Today, our greatest single problem is tenant removal.
0:59:59 > 1:00:03The tendency on the part of people in politics as well as those who are
1:00:03 > 1:00:09living on these rights-of-way who are immediately affected...
1:00:09 > 1:00:14is to assume that the people who are doing this job are unsympathetic
1:00:14 > 1:00:16or even sadistic.
1:00:18 > 1:00:21Of course, that isn't the truth at all.
1:00:21 > 1:00:25But when you remove the daily life, when you remove the stores,
1:00:25 > 1:00:30remove the places that constitute where they spend time,
1:00:30 > 1:00:34what we would call the public realm - the sidewalks, the bars,
1:00:34 > 1:00:37the grocery stores, you remove the city.
1:00:38 > 1:00:40And that's what Jane Jacobs says,
1:00:40 > 1:00:44you draw away the people with a prescription that is guaranteed to
1:00:44 > 1:00:46hurt cities.
1:00:46 > 1:00:49Well, you have to bullet through, you've got to do it.
1:00:49 > 1:00:51It's like all these things that happen with opposition.
1:00:51 > 1:00:55The fact that 2,000 people come and agitate against the extension of an
1:00:55 > 1:00:59expressway doesn't prove that you're not going to build the expressway.
1:01:01 > 1:01:06So many of the problems of the South Bronx grew directly out of the
1:01:06 > 1:01:08devastation caused by building that expressway.
1:01:11 > 1:01:13Which, of course, became totally
1:01:13 > 1:01:15gridlocked 15 minutes after it was open.
1:01:17 > 1:01:21I mean, Moses thought he was improving the city by bringing it up to date,
1:01:21 > 1:01:24by making it work for the automobile.
1:01:25 > 1:01:31And as it became clear that urban highways were in fact profoundly
1:01:31 > 1:01:37destructive, it really became a battle between opposing forces.
1:01:40 > 1:01:43Of course, in Lower Manhattan,
1:01:43 > 1:01:47Moses wanted to build a road right across
1:01:47 > 1:01:50the city there. The whole Cast Iron District would have been
1:01:50 > 1:01:52basically obliterated.
1:01:55 > 1:01:58The Lower Manhattan Expressway was
1:01:58 > 1:02:01to have connected the Holland Tunnel
1:02:01 > 1:02:04with the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges.
1:02:05 > 1:02:08It would have destroyed most of SoHo,
1:02:08 > 1:02:12we would have lost one of the greatest inventories of 19th-century
1:02:12 > 1:02:14buildings, not just in New York, but in the world.
1:02:16 > 1:02:18The highways, of course,
1:02:18 > 1:02:21destroyed the neighbourhoods that they went through.
1:02:21 > 1:02:23Where was this going to end?
1:02:24 > 1:02:28The whole place was going to be laced with highways.
1:02:28 > 1:02:30What would we have left of Manhattan?
1:02:33 > 1:02:37On any day of the week, if you walk along Canal Street,
1:02:37 > 1:02:41and it's often faster than riding, this is what you'll see.
1:02:41 > 1:02:45The crush of endless waiting traffic.
1:02:45 > 1:02:47Now look at the solution -
1:02:47 > 1:02:49the Lower Manhattan Expressway.
1:02:49 > 1:02:53The only practical highway crossing serving the Lower Manhattan
1:02:53 > 1:02:55commercial and business districts.
1:02:55 > 1:02:59Can we afford to let one section of our city slowly strangle in hopeless
1:02:59 > 1:03:01traffic congestion?
1:03:02 > 1:03:04There was an awful campaign against that neighbourhood,
1:03:04 > 1:03:07it was called Hell's Hundred Acres.
1:03:07 > 1:03:10A bottled-up stagnating section of the city,
1:03:10 > 1:03:13no new private buildings erected in 30 years.
1:03:15 > 1:03:18A valley of economic depression.
1:03:18 > 1:03:20The need is urgent.
1:03:20 > 1:03:24We must have a Lower Manhattan Expressway now.
1:03:27 > 1:03:30The local priest, a church on Broome Street,
1:03:30 > 1:03:34had heard about Jane's successful defences fighting Moses,
1:03:34 > 1:03:36and asked if she could help.
1:03:36 > 1:03:38Father, what effect do you feel that
1:03:38 > 1:03:40the expressway will have on the neighbourhood?
1:03:41 > 1:03:44Well, the expressway will destroy the neighbourhood.
1:03:54 > 1:03:57This is the worst thing about these monumental plans.
1:03:59 > 1:04:01There is no way...
1:04:01 > 1:04:04Old buildings can easily be torn down and new ones put up,
1:04:04 > 1:04:06old things adapted to different use.
1:04:09 > 1:04:10It's settled.
1:04:10 > 1:04:12Well, that's not planning for the future.
1:04:15 > 1:04:19Reminded of some of the opposition to his long-time dream for an
1:04:19 > 1:04:21expressway across Lower Manhattan,
1:04:21 > 1:04:25Moses was specific about what it takes to override the inevitable
1:04:25 > 1:04:30roadblocks. You've got to move people, and the political leaders,
1:04:30 > 1:04:33naturally, if they have people ticketed and they know where they
1:04:33 > 1:04:34are and they vote right, they don't
1:04:34 > 1:04:37want to move them and have them go somewhere else.
1:04:37 > 1:04:39What I try to do in New York,
1:04:39 > 1:04:41what we've done successfully in other places,
1:04:41 > 1:04:44which is to pay more money to people, in cash.
1:04:44 > 1:04:46Let them take the money and go away.
1:04:46 > 1:04:49You have people who rent, they don't own it,
1:04:49 > 1:04:51so what difference does it make,
1:04:51 > 1:04:53when you are talking about an expressway that costs
1:04:53 > 1:04:54$84 million?
1:04:56 > 1:04:58Stop being victims.
1:04:58 > 1:05:01I think it's wicked, in a way, to be a victim.
1:05:01 > 1:05:03It is even wickeder to be a predator,
1:05:03 > 1:05:07but it's wicked to be a victim and allow it.
1:05:09 > 1:05:12You can't, as an individual, you can't do anything, but you can organise.
1:05:14 > 1:05:17If you are being victimised by an expressway that a bureaucracy
1:05:17 > 1:05:21is putting through for the benefit of the automobile people,
1:05:21 > 1:05:25then you fight that, you refuse to be a victim of that.
1:05:25 > 1:05:28What effect do you think this will have on the neighbourhood itself?
1:05:28 > 1:05:30It will destroy the neighbourhood.
1:05:30 > 1:05:32It's one of the few neighbourhoods where a woman can go down the
1:05:32 > 1:05:35street's at night and be safe. And the women know it, and I know it.
1:05:35 > 1:05:37Two or three o'clock in the morning,
1:05:37 > 1:05:39the men are sitting in their cafes and they are watching you,
1:05:39 > 1:05:42taking care of you. They want to build up neighbourhoods like this,
1:05:42 > 1:05:46they say, "Let's get back to the old, save neighbourhoods." This is it.
1:05:49 > 1:05:52"Memorandum to Arthur Hodgkiss from Robert Moses."
1:05:54 > 1:05:57"The Lower Manhattan will move very soon.
1:05:57 > 1:05:59"Please keep an eye on it."
1:06:02 > 1:06:05Are you saying that they're trying to sneak it through?
1:06:05 > 1:06:07I would say it's a safe bet.
1:06:07 > 1:06:09If this thing is passed,
1:06:09 > 1:06:12these are how these things happen if they are not watched.
1:06:12 > 1:06:15It's a sleeper. Who do you think is pushing this?
1:06:15 > 1:06:17Well...
1:06:17 > 1:06:20There's only one man that I can think of could be pushing it.
1:06:20 > 1:06:23They seem to think they have a choice, that they'd rather stay in
1:06:23 > 1:06:25the houses that they've lived in all this time.
1:06:25 > 1:06:30..the whole Federal Arterial Aid programme running into billions
1:06:30 > 1:06:34of dollars, depend upon the votes of a very few people in one section,
1:06:34 > 1:06:37we wouldn't build anything, nothing would be built.
1:06:37 > 1:06:40There would be no highways, there would be no housing,
1:06:40 > 1:06:42there would be no public improvements.
1:06:42 > 1:06:45Please do not build this express highway.
1:06:45 > 1:06:47Most of these people consider automobiles
1:06:47 > 1:06:48more than the human being.
1:06:48 > 1:06:50It is not right.
1:06:50 > 1:06:53I think it's awful, I don't think it's fair.
1:06:53 > 1:06:55I do not think it's very good.
1:06:55 > 1:06:58Cos I live there, I look at my window,
1:06:58 > 1:07:01the trucks, and cars and everything, they don't need an expressway.
1:07:03 > 1:07:05What are they going to do? Throw me in the street?
1:07:05 > 1:07:07After 51 years, I'm a citizen and everything.
1:07:07 > 1:07:11It's something awful to think every day they are going to throw
1:07:11 > 1:07:15you out. I think it's awful, they make a mistake.
1:07:15 > 1:07:19I hope God has to be damn strict, that's what I hope.
1:07:19 > 1:07:20Goodbye, and thank you.
1:07:23 > 1:07:29There was going to be a defining hearing in which they would approve
1:07:29 > 1:07:33the Expressway. And Jane said, "When they discuss this issue,
1:07:33 > 1:07:36"I'm going to get up and I'm going to speak against it."
1:07:36 > 1:07:40I went up to the microphone, I was very angry.
1:07:40 > 1:07:43They weren't listening to us, they had made their decision,
1:07:43 > 1:07:47that was clear. There were really only errand boys who had no power
1:07:47 > 1:07:49to make decisions.
1:07:49 > 1:07:52So, we had better let them take back a message.
1:07:52 > 1:07:55We would never stand for this Expressway.
1:07:55 > 1:08:01I intended just to climb up to their level and walk across the stage.
1:08:01 > 1:08:05There was a steno typist who had a new machine.
1:08:06 > 1:08:11She was frightened and she picked up her steno type machine
1:08:11 > 1:08:13and clasped it to her bosom.
1:08:13 > 1:08:16The tapes fell out of the machine
1:08:16 > 1:08:19and ran across the floor like confetti.
1:08:19 > 1:08:22People began tossing it in the air.
1:08:22 > 1:08:27I knew it had to be brought to an end, so an inspiration struck me.
1:08:27 > 1:08:32I said, "There is no hearing because the record is gone,
1:08:32 > 1:08:34"and without a record there cannot be a hearing."
1:08:36 > 1:08:39The Chief State person was saying,
1:08:39 > 1:08:42"Arrest that woman, arrest that woman!"
1:08:42 > 1:08:47As I went out, the police captain told me that I was arrested.
1:08:50 > 1:08:52The police were very apologetic.
1:08:52 > 1:08:54They knew who she was and what was going on.
1:08:57 > 1:08:59She was charged with three felonies,
1:08:59 > 1:09:02which is pretty rotten for what she did.
1:09:02 > 1:09:05What did she do? She didn't hurt anybody.
1:09:06 > 1:09:08She became the hero
1:09:08 > 1:09:11and the politics did shift at that point.
1:09:11 > 1:09:15The board of estimate in an executive session today
1:09:15 > 1:09:16voted unanimously to turn down a
1:09:16 > 1:09:19proposal for a Lower Manhattan Expressway.
1:09:19 > 1:09:22The board... APPLAUSE
1:09:22 > 1:09:23Please!
1:09:31 > 1:09:33That was the decisive moment.
1:09:33 > 1:09:36And Moses couldn't do anything, he was just a pure villain,
1:09:36 > 1:09:38the politicians were villains.
1:09:39 > 1:09:41At that point, it was clear that
1:09:41 > 1:09:44no politician was going to get away with this.
1:09:46 > 1:09:48The Lower Manhattan Expressway
1:09:48 > 1:09:51was really the beginning of the end for Robert Moses.
1:09:54 > 1:09:59Robert Moses was finally squeezed out by Nelson Rockefeller who,
1:09:59 > 1:10:00as governor of New York,
1:10:00 > 1:10:03might have been the first public official
1:10:03 > 1:10:05powerful enough to call his bluff.
1:10:05 > 1:10:08Moses was famous for threatening to resign
1:10:08 > 1:10:09when he was unhappy with something.
1:10:09 > 1:10:11Rockefeller said at one point, "OK."
1:10:13 > 1:10:18And Moses had no choice, he couldn't back down and he was gone.
1:10:20 > 1:10:24After the Moses Expressway situation was finally settled,
1:10:24 > 1:10:25Jane felt she could go to Canada
1:10:25 > 1:10:28with her typewriter and become a writer again.
1:10:28 > 1:10:32Her husband, who was an architect, was building hospitals up there,
1:10:32 > 1:10:36and their sons were there to keep out of that awful Vietnam War.
1:10:36 > 1:10:38Of course, as soon as she got to Toronto,
1:10:38 > 1:10:42she saw there was another Expressway heading right for her house,
1:10:42 > 1:10:44the Spadina Expressway.
1:10:44 > 1:10:46She stopped that too!
1:10:46 > 1:10:48And then got to work.
1:10:48 > 1:10:54The Lower Manhattan Expressway was officially dead in the year 1970.
1:10:54 > 1:10:56Meanwhile, across the country,
1:10:56 > 1:11:00these kinds of freeway revolts were taking place and similar roadways
1:11:00 > 1:11:03were being defeated.
1:11:03 > 1:11:06But the Lower Manhattan Expressway was really the leading example.
1:11:09 > 1:11:12If that had happened, there would be no SoHo.
1:11:12 > 1:11:14The entire history of development
1:11:14 > 1:11:17and redevelopment and adaptive re-use
1:11:17 > 1:11:21in the city would have played out in a different way.
1:11:21 > 1:11:27It would have been the single most damaging intervention in the urban
1:11:27 > 1:11:29fabric in Manhattan in the 20th-century.
1:11:29 > 1:11:31Period.
1:11:43 > 1:11:45A city is not just a physical object.
1:11:49 > 1:11:51The city is a living thing.
1:11:52 > 1:11:55It will always morph and change.
1:11:56 > 1:12:02Our goal has to be to manage change well, not to freeze it in time.
1:12:05 > 1:12:09As cities around the world are obliged to house this dramatically
1:12:09 > 1:12:11increasing population,
1:12:11 > 1:12:17we still have the conversation in terms of top-down versus bottom-up,
1:12:17 > 1:12:19formality versus informality.
1:12:19 > 1:12:22These are the eternal polarities of thinking about the city.
1:12:28 > 1:12:30If you go to China,
1:12:30 > 1:12:32you see huge swathes of farmland
1:12:32 > 1:12:35that are now being urbanised in exactly
1:12:35 > 1:12:40the model that America used in the 1950s, and we know that it failed.
1:12:43 > 1:12:46China today is Moses on steroids, you know,
1:12:46 > 1:12:49and the notion that Moses could not
1:12:49 > 1:12:54have conceived of this extraordinary
1:12:54 > 1:12:56scaling up of what it means to build.
1:12:59 > 1:13:01In that sense, history has outdone him.
1:13:04 > 1:13:09These isolated developments with hundreds of similar looking blocks
1:13:09 > 1:13:11with no urbanism, no street.
1:13:11 > 1:13:14Who can live in them? And how would you live in them?
1:13:14 > 1:13:17What they are building today, I think...
1:13:18 > 1:13:20..is the slums of the future.
1:13:24 > 1:13:27And they are made in concrete, they are going to last at least 60 years.
1:13:27 > 1:13:32We are condemning future generations to an absolute world without hope.
1:13:37 > 1:13:40Given the scale of the problem we have,
1:13:40 > 1:13:44that makes a completely different context
1:13:44 > 1:13:48in which Jane Jacobs' ideas again, now, have a new incarnation.
1:14:16 > 1:14:19With the amount of people who now need to live in cities,
1:14:19 > 1:14:23you have to accept that you're going to need more density,
1:14:23 > 1:14:26but a lot of densely built-up terrain...
1:14:27 > 1:14:29..is not a city.
1:14:33 > 1:14:37If one were to build a city, no matter how fast it is,
1:14:37 > 1:14:41without building a great public realm, you don't have a city.
1:14:41 > 1:14:43That's what Jane Jacobs talks about.
1:14:43 > 1:14:47Historically, solutions to city problems
1:14:47 > 1:14:49have very seldom come from the top.
1:14:52 > 1:14:56They come from people who understand the problems first-hand because they
1:14:56 > 1:15:02are living with them, and who have new and ingenious and often very
1:15:02 > 1:15:04offbeat ideas of how to solve them.
1:15:12 > 1:15:17The creativity and the concern and the ideas down there in city
1:15:17 > 1:15:21neighbourhoods and city communities has to be given a chance,
1:15:21 > 1:15:23has to be released,
1:15:23 > 1:15:26people have to insist on government trying things their way.
1:15:30 > 1:15:33If you gave people an environment that they could shape themselves,
1:15:33 > 1:15:35they would not only be happier...
1:15:37 > 1:15:39..but you would have a completely different kind of city.
1:15:43 > 1:15:45The key thing about Jane Jacobs,
1:15:45 > 1:15:49much more important than loving stoops and streets and stuff,
1:15:49 > 1:15:52was a willingness to be sceptical.
1:15:52 > 1:15:56A willingness to doubt the received wisdom.
1:15:56 > 1:15:59And to trust our eyes instead.
1:16:07 > 1:16:11Under the seeming disorder of the old city,
1:16:11 > 1:16:14wherever the old city is working successfully...
1:16:16 > 1:16:21..is a marvellous order for maintaining the safety of the street
1:16:21 > 1:16:23and the freedom of the city.
1:16:26 > 1:16:27It is a complex order.
1:16:30 > 1:16:33This order is all composed of movement and change.
1:16:34 > 1:16:37And although it is life, not art,
1:16:37 > 1:16:40we may fancifully call it the art form of the city...
1:16:42 > 1:16:44..and liken it to the dance.
1:16:44 > 1:16:48Not to a simple-minded precision dance,
1:16:48 > 1:16:51with everyone kicking up at the same time,
1:16:51 > 1:16:54twirling in unison and bowing off en masse...
1:16:55 > 1:16:57..but to an intricate ballet...
1:16:58 > 1:17:00..in which the individual dancers
1:17:00 > 1:17:03and ensembles all have distinctive parts...
1:17:05 > 1:17:07..which miraculously reinforce each other...
1:17:09 > 1:17:12..and compose an orderly whole.
1:17:58 > 1:18:00Utopia - the better place.
1:18:00 > 1:18:02Somewhere between fiction and reality.
1:18:02 > 1:18:04The idea has exerted