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The death and life of great American cities
In chapter 6 of Jane Jacobs’ book I learned how she describes what is a neighborhood consists of, and what makes up a community. According to her most important part of a neighborhood are people and street Jacobs used the term “eyes on the street”. I agree with Jane Jacobs because without a strong sense of community neighborhoods would crumble. I lived in India until I was 9 and in my neighborhood back home me and my friends would play outside without our parents supervision but since our neighborhood was tight community we were always being watched by our elders.

This article explains some of the problems that were caused by urban housing projects. Places like Rockway and Coney Island public hosing was build according to Robert Moses he wanted to clean up the city. In order to do so he began constructing high rise building and placing low income families in them, these buildings housed mainly African American, and Puerto Rican families. These building are located typical on the edge of the borough for the reason that the property was cheap. During hurricane sandy some of my friends who lived in far rockway had great trouble getting out of far rockway, no one felt safe at that time not just because a hurricane was approaching but also from their community.

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The film Citizen Jane: battle for the City directed by Matt Tyrnaver showcased two completely different views on what a city should be like. First version is Robert Moses’s vision for New York City, and the second is Jane Jacobs’s idea of what city should consists of. Robert Moses was a urban planner who believed in quick fix cleanup, he wanted to create a city of skyscrapers and highways. Jane Jacobs was an activist and a writer whose vision of the city revolved around community and it’s people, she fought against a very powerful man to protect and preserve’s history of lower manhattan from being changed completely.