Jane Jacobs on Parks in our Cities

You can neither lie to a neighborhood park, nor reason with it. “Artist’s conceptions” and persuasive renderings can put pictures of life into proposed neighborhood parks or park malls, and verbal rationalizations can conjure up users who ought to appreciate them, but in real life only diverse surroundings have the practical power of inducing a natural, continuing flow of life and use. Superficial architectural variety may look like diversity, but only a genuine content of economic and social diversity, resulting in people with different schedules, has meaning to the park and the power to confer the boon of life upon it.

– “The uses of neighborhood parks” from The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961

More on Jane Jacobs as author, community activist, and urban planner from WSP Blog here.

More on Phase II tomorrow.