I think it is fatal to specialize. And all kinds of things show us that and that the more diverse we are in what we can do, the better. Jane Jacobs More Quotes by Jane Jacobs More Quotes From Jane Jacobs [ René Lévesque] didn't understand why things do collapse. It's usually a very banal reason why things do collapse. It's not a grand reason, why they collapse economically, at least in the West. Jane Jacobs westreasonreason-why Lots of things are not possible for municipalities, suburbs, or collections of them now. They are not possible and they would become possible, because they would have more authority. They would have the same authority as a province now. Jane Jacobs municipalitycollectionsauthority [If Quebec became sovereign] there would be one level of government that would be missing, one less level of government. The municipality would become the second level. Jane Jacobs governmentwould-bemissing Reactions [on my 1979 Massey lectures] were from Anglophones. I'm one. But I'm terrible at French. In fact, there was practically no reaction. Jane Jacobs reactionslecturesfacts Just the way in Europe, Paris, Copenhagen, and Stockholm, and Frankfurt, possibly and Berlin, certainly, all had important roles, because of independence. Because they were depending on themselves. Jane Jacobs independencepariseurope In trading with each other cities can't be in too different stages of development, and they can't copy one another. Backward cities, or younger cities, or newly forming cities in supply regions, have to develop to a great extent on one another's shoulders. This is one of the terrible things about empires. Empires want them only to trade with the empire, which doesn't help them at all. It's just a way of exploiting them. Jane Jacobs empirescitieswant Some of the large [municipalities] in Quebec can contain within them most of the answers to their own practical problems. And so lots of different possibilities for doing things in a practical and different way become available. Jane Jacobs differentanswersway I get absolutely ruthless in my own way about not doing anything else when I am trying to concentrate on writing a book. I have to stick to it and concentrate. Jane Jacobs writingtryingbook All my life I have been hearing that the oil was going to run out. It never happens. They keep discovering new oil fields. The world is apparently floating in oil fields. Jane Jacobs oilfloatingrunning I don't think that you can dispose of the constructive and inventive things that America is doing - and say, "Oh we aren't doing anything anymore and we are living off of what the poor Chinese do." It is more complicated than that. There is the example of Detroit which was once a very prosperous and diverse city. And look what happened when it just specialized on automobiles. Look at Manchester when it specialized in those dark satanic mills, when it specialized in textiles. It was supposed to be the city of the future. Jane Jacobs citiesdarkthinking Americans have got it so dinged into them that they are the most fortunate people on Earth, and that the rest of the world - the sooner it copies what America is like, the better. Jane Jacobs earthamericapeople People who try to predict the future by extrapolating in a line of more of what exists - they are always wrong. Jane Jacobs linestryingpeople The notion that you could discard the old world and now make a new one. This is what was so bad about Modernism. Jane Jacobs modernismnotionworld The Victorian house and lots of other buildings weren't oppressive in themselves. They were often very airy and gingerbready and fancy. But they were associated with all this [Victorian] stuffiness. Jane Jacobs fancybuildinghouse The notion - and I tell you this one even worries me that it extends into New Urbanism - the notion of the shopping center [as] a valid kind of downtown. That's taken over. It's very hard for architects of this generation even to think in terms of a downtown or a center that is owned by all different people, with different ideas. Jane Jacobs shoppingtakenthinking Privately run jails are a mark of American "reinvented government" that has been picked up by neoconcervatives in Canada. Jane Jacobs jailgovernmentrunning The best part of a Reg Hartt presentation is what he has to say. Jane Jacobs presentation It may be romantic to search for the salves of society's ills in slow-moving rustic surroundings, or among innocent, unspoiled provincials, if such exist, but it is a waste of time. Jane Jacobs rural-liferomanticmoving Advanced cultures are usually sophisticated enough, or have been sophisticated enough at some point in their pasts, to realize that foxes shouldn't be relied on to guard henhouses. Jane Jacobs foxesculturepast Detroit is largely composed, today, of seemingly endless square miles of low-density failure. Jane Jacobs densitysquarestoday
