Complexity Is Key
“When we deal with cities we are dealing with life at its most complex and intense,” says Jane Jacobs in her seminal book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961).
By The Empty Square
Photo: Mihály Köles/Unsplash
“When we deal with cities we are dealing with life at its most complex and intense,” says Jane Jacobs in her seminal book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961).
Complexity covers diversity, varieties, density, an infinite number of relations and interactions, and the whole spectrum of human capacity.
Therefore, we need urban strategies that can illuminate and clarify life and help to explain to us the meanings and the order of cities.
Instead of approaching cities and towns as if they were a larger technical or architectural problem, how can we introduce strategies ennobling to life?
How can we direct our attention towards the inner and underlying, often invisible, structures that lead to complexity – instead of focusing 98 % on single units, visual design, technical solutions, and parking?
Anybody out there that dares to arrange an urban design competition with 50 % focus on the visible, technical, and architectural features and 50 % on the inner, underlying, invisible structures – those that can actually lead to the complexity needed to create a living city?
Read or reread: Jane Jacob’s classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Penguin Books, 1961), quote p.385