Journal of the American Planning Association ISSN: 0194-4363 (Print) 1939-0130 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjpa20 Toward an Urban Design Manifesto Allan Jacobs & Donald Appleyard To cite this article: Allan Jacobs & Donald Appleyard (1987) Toward an Urban Design Manifesto, Journal of the American Planning Association, 53:1, 112-120, DOI: 10.1080/01944368708976642 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01944368708976642 Published online: 26 Nov 2007. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1537 View related articles Citing articles: 42 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjpa20 Download by: [University of Victoria] Date: 09 October 2015, At: 14:19 Planner's Notebook Toward an Urban Design Manifesto Allan Jacobs and Donald Appleyard A 1987 prologue It is about six years since Donald Appleyard and I completed The International Congress of Modern Architecture people "Toward a New Urban Design Manifesto."In large measure rightly understood that their professional experience had it was student-generated, growing out of afirst-time course the value of research-a lesson that academics too often that Donald and I gave, "Theories of Urban Form." have difficulty accepting. The course examined the physical forms of urban de- What follows, then, is an assertion of what urban places velopment associated with particular periods, or with design ought to be. That is what manifestoes are all about. It stems movements, or with ideas about urban form-ideas such from many sources: social and economic ideas and values as the livable city or the new towns' movement, or the of what "good" communities could be; environmental re- Charter of Athens. We tried to distill the essential urban search of the kind that Donald did with livable streets and physical characteristics of each period and of each idea and that others, such as Whyte and Bosselman, do with regard attempted to assess them against values such as health and to urban places that are comfortable, enjoyable, and par- comfort, self-reliance, opportunity, and accessibility. Stu- ticipatory; and our experiences of working in and studying dents, as always in the good classes, contributed to the cities. After a while one knows and accepts that the research research, the presentations, and the debates as much as into what makes good places to live will be endless, often Donald or I did. without conclusion, and always value-laden. There comes We concluded, among many conclusions, that the new a time when one says, 'Well, I must take a leap. All of the towns and garden city movements, on the one hand, and experience has taught me something. It may be unprovable, the cities inspired by the Charter of Athens and the Inter- but I think I know what a good place is." Donald and I national Congress of Modern Architecture, on the other had reached such a point, although I think he was always hand, were perhaps the most powerful influences on the more comfortable with socioeconomic values than with form of today's cities as we experience it. I think they are physical assertions. still, even though we have turned slightly back toward the Readers will see similarities between our idea and the importance of the street in city design. We, like others, were more urban parts of Kevin Lynch's place utopia. That makes pleased with neither movement's principles. At a final class sense. Donald and Kevin went back a long time together. session, students suggested we write our own manifesto, a We all talked frequently, and we shared values and an ap- "Berkeley Design Manifesto," fhey called it. It was time proach to our work. for something different, something better to help guide our I think the work still holds up. It begins a picture of the work and perhaps the efforts of others as well-an assertion kind of city that good urban places could be. The word of what was right. "Toward" in the title is important. It bespeaks the need for Donald and I took their challenge. How could we not? a lot more work and research on all the terribly important "Toward a New Urban Design Manifesto" was the result. Downloaded by [University of Victoria] at 14:19 09 October 2015 pieces that make up good living environments. Had Donald We had an opportunity to test our conclusions at a major lived, I think he would be working in just that direction, address that was part of the American Planning Association fishing out what is missing. In the meantime, I think he Conference in Sun Francisco in 1980. The response was would have wanted this work published. better than we might have expected, just as it has been at Today I think I would stress more strongly the section the numerous other occasions when it has been presented on livable streets and neighborhoods. I am convinced that in one form or another. It was not so warmly received, many of the standards we imposed on city building, usually however, by the editors and reviewers of JAPA, who won- in the name of health and safety-road widths, auto lane dered where the research was to support our assertions. widths, and parking standards are my most hated favor- ites-run counter to good city design. No, they actually Jacobs is a professor of city and regional planning at the University prevent or ruin urbanity. It is so easy to conclude that "a of California, BerkeIey, and a principal with Aidala and Jacobs, fittfemore won't hurt," or to round of a size to the next San Francisco. The late Donald Appleyard was a professor of city highest number divisible by two, or to be cowed by years and regional planning and landscape architecture at the University of lawsuits over the competence of our conclusions into of California, Berkeley. making things bigger, safer. And thus we destroy cities. 112 APA JOURNAL Perhaps also our proposed minimum density could be on buildings that define public ways or the appropriateness somewhat higher. Under integration of activities 1 would of many modest-sized buildings rather than fewer large stress more strongly the need for integrating places of res- ones. idence with other uses. We know all about mixed-use pro- But enough of this; it is better that the reader read for jects that consist of shopping and ofice activities, but we himself a vision for better urban living places. do not insist as much as we should on living-working- . shopping mixes. 1 would not make changes to the sections A. J. We think it’s time for a new urban design manifesto. attest to the acceptance of the charter’s dictums. The Almost 50 years have passed since Le Corbusier and design notions it embraced have become part of a world the International Congress of Modem Architecture design language, not just the intellectual property of an (CIAM) produced the Charter of Athens, and it is more enlightened few, even though the principles have been than 20 years since the first Urban Design Conference, devalued in many developments. still in the CIAM tradition, was held (at Harvard in Of course, the Charter of Athens has not been the 1957). Since then the precepts of CIAM have been at- only major urban philosophy of this century to influence tacked by sociologists, planners, Jane Jacobs, and more the development of urban areas. Ebenezer Howard, too, recently by architects themselves. But it is still a strong was responding to the ills of the 19th-century industrial influence, and we will take it as our starting point. city, and the Garden City movement has been at least Make no mistake: the charter was, simply, a mani- as powerful as the Charter of Athens. New towns pol- festo-a public declaration that spelled out the ills of icies, where they exist, are rooted in Howard’s thought. industrial cities as they existed in the 1930s and laid But you don’t have to look to new towns to see the down physical requirements necessary to establish influence of Howard, Olmsted, Wright, and Stein. The healthy, humane, and beautiful urban environments for superblock notion, if nothing else, pervades large hous- people. It could not help but deal with social, economic, ing projects around the world, in central cities as well and political phenomena, but its basic subject matter as suburbs. The notion of buildings in a park is as com- was the physical design of cities. Its authors were mon to garden city designs as it is to charter-inspired (mostly) socially concerned architects, determined that development. Indeed, the two movements have a great their art and craft be responsive to social realities as deal in common: superblocks, separate paths for people well as to improving the lot of man. It would be a mis- and cars, interior common spaces, housing divorced take to write them off as simply elitist designers and from streets, and central ownership of land. The garden physical determinists. city-inspired communities place greater emphasis on So the charter decried the medium-size (up to six private outdoor space. The most significant difference, stories) high-density buildings with high land coverage at least as they have evolved, is in density and building that were associated so closely with slums. Similarly, type: the garden city people preferred to accommodate buildings that faced streets were found to be detrimental people in row houses, garden apartments, and maison- to healthy living. The seemingly limitless horizontal ex- ettes, while Corbusier and the CIAM designers went pansion of urban areas devoured the countryside, and for high-rise buildings and, inevitably, people living in suburbs were viewed as symbols of terrible waste.