Jane Jacobs’ Déjà Lu
Thoughts and Notes
on
Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead, 2004
by Shoukry Roweis§
Dark Age Ahead is Jane Jacobs’s latest book (released in the spring of
2004). This is forty-three years after the first publication of her Death and Life of
Great American Cities in 1961. Although Jacobs has written more than seven
books since 1961, it was Death and Life …, almost single-handedly, that made
her a star. Most of her other books are too ‘technical’ to appeal to the general
reader, and not scholarly enough to interest academics. In Dark Age Ahead,
Jacobs (and/or her marketing advisors) seems intent on re-creating the popular
hype of the early sixties. I am very doubtful that this book will succeed in doing
that.
What you are about to read is not a review, nor a summary. This is why I
call it “thoughts and notes”.
I will start by sketching the structure of Dark Age Ahead and will follow up
with thoughts on seven sets of issues:
The weak connection between the title and the contents;
The ‘tired’ contents (what I call déjà lu);
The uselessness of the analytical framework;
The rambling, disjointed and haphazard text (despite Jacobs’s
reputation for crafty English);
o The inappropriateness of her extreme empiricism;
o Matters of method, logic and evidence. These are covered in an
appendix in order to avoid interrupting the main document with
lengthy ‘technical’ discussions. As well, this is meant to give readers
a choice of how much time and energy they wish to devote to Dark
Age Ahead.
o The author and the publisher: apportioning responsibilities.
o
o
o
o
To the best of my ability, I have tried to focus on informing readers rather
than on polemicising. This has not been easy, and probably I have not always
succeeded.
§
shoukry.roweis@utoronto.ca. Please send me your comments.
Structure of the Book:
Dark Age Ahead is composed in eight chapters. The first chapter outlines
what Jacobs sees as the hazard we face. It also lays out what is ostensibly the
analytical perspective Jacobs wishes to bring to bear on our impending decline.
Here, she introduces us to her notion of “mass amnesia,” the alleged cause and
dynamic by which societies drift into a dark age.
The next five chapters discuss what the author calls ‘ominous signs of
decay’ in five key pillars of North American culture: community and family, higher
education, science and technology, government responsiveness and taxing
practices, and the self-policing of the learned professions. Jacobs thinks that her
choice of these five pillars, as opposed to numerous other possible ones, is not
arbitrary, but she does not explain or defend that view. Then, in Chapters Two
through Six, she gives examples of signs of decay without, however, referring to
the analytical perspective woven in Chapter One around the notion of “mass
amnesia.” I will return to this later.
Chapter Seven contains what Jacobs describes as “practical suggestions
for reversing some intractable deteriorations” (p. 25)1.
The purpose of the last chapter is not clear. It returns to a diffuse and wideranging discussion of the ‘history’ of dark ages and tries to link this to the shift
beyond agrarian economic structures. Jacobs ends the book by urging us to
uphold and hold on to the core value of democracy, a theme sadly conspicuous
by its absence in Dark Age Ahead.
The Title vs. the Contents:
It is hard to believe the extent to which the title of the book is unrelated to its
contents. Dark Age Ahead is mostly an extended attack on the automobile and
low-density suburban environments. The five core chapters — Two through Six
— contain hardly any references to the theme indicated by the title.
In and of itself, this may be considered as no more than an oddity.
Marketing and other considerations frequently result in such weak connections
between titles and contents. In the present context, however, this disconnection
is part of an array of puzzling and frustrating discrepancies. Therefore it cannot
be set aside as ‘just’ an unfortunate choice of title.
Déjà lu:
In the First Chapter, Jacobs leads the reader to expect the next five
chapters to discuss ‘ominous signs of decay’ in her chosen five pillars of
contemporary culture. This expectation does not materialize. Instead, Jacobs
takes the reader through her old, and tired, attacks on the automobile, highways,
traffic engineers, planners, economists, and, of course, suburbs.
Chapter Two, “Families Rigged to Fail,” does not in fact discuss the perils
facing families and communities. It talks instead about housing shortages and the
1
Throughout, I simply cite the page number when referring to Dark Age Ahead.
2
importance of informal neighbourly relations, and gradually veers off into the
familiar attack on the automobile. “Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has
been the chief destroyer of American communities” (p. 37). And while she is at it,
Jacobs does not miss the chance to hurl insults at Robert Moses2 (the public
works baron in New York City during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s). This ‘naturally’
leads her to an equally familiar lament about how General Motors, Firestone,
Standard Oil and “the likes of Moses and La Guardia” (p. 41) conspired to kill
urban public transit in order to safeguard the monopoly of the automobile. As in
Death and Life …, this is followed by the standard criticisms of suburbia.
Chapter Two ends abruptly with some observations whose intent is to draw
parallels between our times and those of the failing Roman communities.
Families and communities in our times are obviously facing serious troubles
and traumas. It would be folly to imagine that these are primarily caused by
housing shortages, automobiles, highways, and suburbia. If anything, it is
probably the other way around. Unemployment results in inadequate family
incomes leading directly to housing difficulties. Easy exposure of teenagers to
drugs and crime in the inner city prompts families to move to the suburbs. And so
on.
Chapter Three, “Credentialing Versus Educating”3, actually discusses
education only in the last three pages. The first seventeen pages give us more
déjà lu : the story of the US Interstate Highway System (in the 1950s); the way
the automobile was made into an all-American cultural icon; and the way
highways destroy viable communities. When Jacobs finally does start writing
about credentialing vs. educating, she does no more than re-assert the position
with which she started: “[t]he more successful credentialing became … the more
it dominated education” (p. 62). This is an important statement. It makes a
demonstrable claim. But researching the matter, providing evidence and making
a case, does not seem to interest our author.
I leafed through the pages of Dark Age Ahead before I bought it. The title
of Chapter Four, “Science Abandoned,” struck a chord with me – a lifetime spent
in academia has convinced me that this is true. I looked forward to reading this
chapter. I was, again, thoroughly disappointed.
Jacobs uses three examples to show that science has been compromised.
Let us set aside the question of whether anything resembling an adequate case
for such an awesome thesis can be made on the basis of only three examples4.
2
Robert Moses died in 1981. His ‘era’ had died long before. Neither of these facts spared him
Jacobs’ characteristically vicious, and at times uncivilized, insults. See pp. 37- 41. It is worth
noting that cities like Boston, Chicago, Newark, St. Louis, and Seattle did almost exactly what
was done in New York in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Yet they did not have Moses.
3
The title of Chapter Three, “Credentialing Versus Educating”, foretells the chapter’s failure.
There is no inherent contradiction between credentialing graduates and educating them. Jacobs
tries to show that institutions of higher learning engage in credentialism and assumes that this
‘proves’ that they have undermined or abandoned the goal of education. It does not. See also
page xiv of the Appendix.
4
See the Section on extreme empiricism below.
3
Let us also forget for now the equally important question of what criteria may
reasonably be used to judge the standards of scientific production in a given
society or era. If we must settle for Jacobs’ extreme empiricism, her near fixation
on making grand generalisations on the basis of a few anecdotes, we would at
least expect her to select examples that match the scope and weight of the thesis
at hand. The author could have discussed counter-insurgency ‘research’ and
how it was, and probably still is, secretly conducted and used to sabotage
legitimate political change in other countries5. She could have analysed the
interference of pharmaceutical companies in medical research whose
conclusions go against, or threaten to go against, the interests of these
companies6. NASA’s two unthinkable disasters, and the ‘science’ underpinning
them, might have provided yet other examples suitable in scope and
seriousness7.
Instead, Jacobs uses two virtually identical cases of street closures, a case
of a severe heat wave that resulted in tragic loss of life in Chicago, and a
‘discussion’ of import-replacement vs. export-promotion economic expansion.
One may justifiably ask: What in these examples is especially illustrative of the
abandonment of scientific standards? In my view, none of the three examples the
author chose provides anything particularly revealing. Their only merit is that they
offer a pretext for rehashing old convictions and surprisingly lasting grudges.
The two anecdotes regarding road closures permit Jacobs yet another
opportunity to insult transportation planners — she calls them traffic engineers —
as well as the entire field of ‘traffic engineering’. She writes: “It is popularly
assumed that when universities give science degrees in traffic engineering …
they are recognizing aboveboard expert knowledge. But they aren’t. They are
perpetuating a fraud upon students and upon the public when they award
credentials in this supposed expertise” (p. 72). This is more déjà lu. Regardless,
5
See, for example, Horowitz, 1967 on the ill-conceived and ill-fated ‘Project Camelot’, a project
launched and financed by the US Defence Department in the early 1960s. Many universities and
research organizations took grants and for years conducted secret counter-insurgency ‘research’
— nothing more than sophisticated espionage — in countries where popular uprisings threatened
US interests. These included Chile, Colombia, Laos, Nigeria, Senegal, Venezuela, Vietnam, and
Uruguay, to mention just a few. The project was cancelled in 1965 when the Department could no
longer contain the controversies that erupted internationally when information about the
‘research’ and about some of the researchers leaked to the public.
6
See, for example, Valenstein 1998 on how the Boots pharmaceutical company pressured and
intimidated Dr. Betty Dong of the University of California at San Francisco in 1990 when her
nearly completed research yielded results that were unfavourable to Boots. The company tried to
pressure top administrators at the University to terminate the study. As well, see Chernavsky
2004, for documentation and additional references on the Nancy Olivieri case (1998) in Toronto’s
Hospital for Sick Children. Ms. Olivieri was similarly harassed and threatened by the
pharmaceutical company Apotex when her research did not show what the company wanted to
see. The company wanted to gag the research and when Ms. Olivieri went public, in order to
safeguard public safety, the company threatened to sue her. Some of her ‘honourable’ academic
colleagues and superiors acted criminally in their attempt to discourage her supporters. Ms.
Olivieri was vindicated in 1999.
7
On the Columbia disaster, see Langewiesche 2004. On the Challenger disaster, see Vaughan
1996.
4
what evidence do the examples offer to justify this blanket condemnation? Here it
is in a nutshell: two ‘traffic engineers’, one in New York in the mid-1950s, and
another in Toronto in the late 1980s, told the public that “traffic is like water: if it is
dammed up or diverted from its course in one place, it will find other outlets
where it meets less resistance”8 (p. 72). That is it. Supposedly, the empirical
invalidity of the traffic-as-water metaphor is evidence that science as a whole has
been abandoned.
The second example is a tragedy that occurred in Chicago in the summer of
1995. A severe heat wave claimed more than seven hundred lives, mostly
among the elderly in inner-city neighbourhoods. Seven years after the disaster, a
book (Klinenberg 2002a) linked the Chicago deaths to specific neighbourhood
factors: the presence or absence of local stores and other gathering places; of
neighbourly relations and friendships; of intermixed residential, commercial,
industrial, and institutional land uses; of dense pedestrian traffic on local streets;
and of (perceived) neighbourhood safety. This, more than anything else about
the Chicago heat wave, draws Jacobs’ attention, because it furnishes yet another
opportunity for more déjà lu about good and bad neighbourhoods. The stuff is
almost line-by-line from her Death and Life … of forty-three years ago. How is
this related, one may ask, to the issue of science and its abandonment? Here is
how. Jacobs compares a four-page report released immediately after the
disaster by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help local
officials develop immediate emergency responses (Semenza 1996), to the 300page book I just mentioned. She judges the findings of the former “worse than
useless” (p. 82), and those of the latter “much more fruitful” (p. 85). She
concludes that even if his discoveries may not result in policy changes,
Klinenberg at least “spoke up with fresh truths drawn from the real world, and
that is a beginning. If that is lost, all is lost” (87). This is more evidence, she
thinks, that science is abandoned or is at great risk of being abandoned9.
In the third and final example, Jacobs talks about Brampton (a fast growing
town within the regional orbit of Toronto). She reviews lots of facts, and quotes
newspaper reports at length, to show that Brampton’s success is due to the great
number of ‘import-replacement’ jobs created there. Import-replacement (as
opposed to export-enhancing) jobs, she says, are not even recognised by
economists “[s]ince such jobs don’t fit into [their] preconceptions of how
economies behave” (p. 88).
The point? Economists have abandoned the ‘scientific state of mind’ in their
unwillingness to ‘see’ the secret of city economic expansion. She fears that the
Brampton case “will be forgotten, lost to memory, like the episode of city import
replacement that occurred in the early 1990s in Vancouver at a time when the
rest of Canada, including Toronto, was in recession. The Vancouver event slid by
without being identified or studied, it seems. As for the public, it gets about as
much enlightenment from all the professors of economics it supports as from the
8
For an analysis of the problems associated with Jacobs’s handling of this example, see pages
viii and ix in the Appendix.
9
See also pages ix and x in the Appendix.
5
professors of traffic engineering” (p. 98). Leaving aside the question of whether
these insults are fair or justified, the notion of import-replacement is entirely déjà
lu. Jacobs wrote a whole book — Cities and the Wealth of Nations — about
this (Jacobs 1984) in which she expounded at length the notion that cities and
their hinterlands will prosper only if they produce more and more of the goods
and services they used to import. The Brampton example offers little support to
the ‘science abandoned’ thesis, but an ample chance for Jacobs to make us read
again what she wrote twenty years ago10.
Chapter Five is supposed to deal with the tendency of senior levels of
governments to tax and govern the localities without adequate responsiveness or
accountability. The bulk of the chapter is spent cataloguing the known ills of
Canadian municipalities, with most of the examples drawn from Toronto. More
than fifteen pages of cataloguing and digressions do not produce a shred of
evidence that municipal governments are being gypped fiscally or in terms of
power11. But they do create yet another forum for telling us again about housing
problems12, the demise of public transit systems, and the marvels of local
autonomy13. There is a great deal of déjà lu but few ‘ominous signs of decay’ in
this chapter as well.
Chapter Six, the last of the five key chapters, discusses the ways in which
the learned professions regulate their own members, or fail to do so. This is the
ostensible focus. A long introduction, taking up more than half the chapter,
covers the basic rationale for self-regulation and self-policing. The other half,
however, drifts badly off-topic. It begins with a discussion of corporate scandals
and the role of accountants in fabricating figures and covering up fraud. This
discussion has hardly begun when it digresses into Central Intelligence Agency
tactics for concealing evidence and protecting superiors, false-image making, the
10
Quite apart from the technical and conceptual ambiguities involved in deciding which jobs are
‘import-replacement’ and which are not, there is a serious flaw in the notion of import substitution.
Applied at the city or city-region levels, it begs the question of what happens to scale economies
and positive agglomeration effects if more and more cities seek to replace their imports with
‘domestic’ goods and services. Applied at the national level, this approach has been virtually
rejected after a short period of experimentation in most Latin American countries during the
1950s and 1960s. See, for example, Bruton 1998.
11
See pages i and ii in the Appendix for a discussion of the issue of municipal finance.
12
I cannot resist commenting on this passage from Chapter Five. Jacobs writes: “When I go to
our neighbourhood shopping street, I am asked by a well-spoken, shabbily dressed man … to
write that he and others in his fix need rooming houses, but rooming houses are gone. ‘please tell
it, spread the word’ he says. I promise I will; he thanks me, and I don’t have heart to tell him that
spreading the word does no good” (p.110). This should be very embarrassing to Jane Jacobs. At
least in the neighbourhood where she lives (the Annex, near the University of Toronto central
campus), the disappearance of rooming houses resulted directly from prolonged agitation and
lobbying by Jane Jacobs zealots in the name of ‘neighbourhood quality,’ based on the principles
elaborated in Death and Life … Second, it is ironic that she professes that “spreading the word
does no good” while clearly unable to restrain her urge to spread and re-spread the same words
over and over again.
13
From the beginning of her career as an author about urban affairs, Jacobs expressed
infatuation with ‘self-government’. Her ideas in this regard are mostly metaphorical, and ignore
issues of agglomeration effects, inter-municipal externalities, redundant and overlapping
services, fiscal zoning, and more. See, for example, Jacobs 1961, pp. 114-117.
6
distinction between capital assets and operating expenses in accounting, and so
on. The chapter ends without much déjà lu, but also without any discussion of
‘ominous signs of decay’ in the fifth and final jeopardized pillar of our culture: selfpolicing by the learned professions.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this Section, Jacobs delivers little by way
of ‘ominous signs of decay’. The five key chapters of the book take the reader
through old ideas that are as familiar as they are unsuitable, in terms of scope
and weight, to support the view that we are rushing headlong into a Dark Age. It
is hard to resist the thought that Jacobs did not really want to write a book about
the danger of a dark age ahead, but just wanted another chance to communicate
old thoughts that she thinks have not been taken seriously enough. She sounds
as if she is saying: listen to me or else! The last words in this section go to her:
“Some men tend to cling to old intellectual excitements, just as some belles,
when they are old ladies, still cling to the fashions and coiffeurs of their exciting
youth” (Jacobs, 1961, p. 371).
Mass Amnesia: a Flawed and Unused Notion:
In the opening chapter, Jacobs elaborates a notion of “mass amnesia”. The
onset of mass amnesia and forgetfulness, we are told, is a self-perpetuating
mechanism that causes civilizations to decay. The death of formerly vigorous
cultures “is caused not by assault from outside but by assault from within, … by
internal rot in the form of fatal cultural turnings, not recognized … while they
occur or soon enough afterward to be corrected. Time during which corrections
can be made runs out because of mass forgetfulness” (p. 14, emphasis is mine).
In short, drifting towards a dark age can potentially be halted, and even reversed,
if not for “mass amnesia.” When people forget their previously vigorous cultural
practices, serious troubles begin. Domino effects take over; decay begets more
decay. In this manner, Jacobs makes the credibility of her book dependent
ultimately on showing evidence of mass amnesia or forgetfulness14.
But Jacobs does not do that. She does not use the notion of mass amnesia
at all, which makes most of the opening chapter irrelevant. Not once in the five
core chapters do we see any hint that signs of “mass amnesia” or “forgetfulness”
accompany the promised but undelivered ‘ominous signs of decay’.
For example: Does the author give us any indication that we have forgotten,
or come very close to forgetting, what non-decaying family and community life is
(was) like? Has she given us examples to show that we no longer remember
clearly the difference between educating and credentialing? Has she provided
evidence that our scientists, and/or the rest of us, no longer ‘remember’ the
characteristics of viable science, or are about to forget them? I could continue,
14
In the Appendix, I discuss some serious flaws that make this notion of mass amnesia
conceptually and methodologically untenable. In addition, the notion of mass amnesia seems
particularly inappropriate in the contemporary context given the unprecedented magnitude of
detailed records our culture keeps of almost anything and everything. Jacobs’s assertion that
“living cultures are transmitted neither in writing nor pictorially … [but] through word of mouth and
example” (p. 5) is just that: an assertion.
7
but I think the point is clear. Jacobs does not use the notion of “mass amnesia”
that she laboured so hard to construct as an analytical framework for thinking
about the dynamics of decline of civilizations. Cut adrift from an organizing
framework, the bulk of the book wanders about without much structure,
organization, or concern for relevance. This is the focus of the next section.
Rambling, Disjointed and Haphazard Text:
The text is rambling, disjointed and haphazard despite the fact that author
had a copy chief, a production editor, a research and fact checker, and six
editors helping her with this book (pp. 223 and 224).
Rambling and unnecessary digressions are strewn all over this book. The
extent of this is astounding – on a very conservative estimate, 50 pages of about
170 could have easily been eliminated.
The text is generally disjointed, with elements of might-have-been
arguments getting separated and scattered because of Jacobs’s tendency to
meander. The result is a text that is painful to read, particularly if one wishes to
take it seriously.
The storyline is frequently lost. This happens usually, but not solely, when
Jacobs uses the work of others to bolster her positions. Instead of getting to the
point, citing the relevant evidence, and moving on, she reviews the work,
comments on it, gets enmeshed in its merits and demerits, passes judgements
on its plausibility, and interprets it to suit her purposes15. Rather than
strengthening her positions, the resulting mess often weakens them.
The Inappropriateness of Jacobs’s Extreme Empiricism:
Empiricism is the belief that knowledge comes from experience. There is, of
course, nothing wrong with this view. But extreme (or naïve) empiricism poses
serious problems. Extreme empiricists believe that observations automatically
lead to hypotheses (the facts speak for themselves), and forget, or fail to realize,
that observations can have no meaning, relevance, or significance unless they
are made on the basis of some prior hunches or hypotheses regarding the
phenomenon or phenomena under investigation. Throughout her writing career,
Jacobs has exhibited a near fixation on extreme empiricism as defined here. On
the basis of a limited number of cases or examples or anecdotes, she has always
been ready to make brave generalizations. The assumptions that underpin such
leaps are hardly recognised and almost never spelled out. Similarly, the factors
that limit, or should limit, one’s ability to generalize are typically ignored as well.
Death and Life … (1961) was basically a polemic against so-called
modernist urban planning principles. Because it was a polemic, and because it
was written in the activist and ‘radical’16 atmosphere of the 1960s, it did not meet
with much scholarly scrutiny. In addition, the book’s observational terrain was
15
See the Appendix, pages vi to ix, for a discussion of Jacobs’ use of sources.
Saul Alinsky, the guru of radical community organizing in the 1950s and 1960s, is among the
first acknowledged in Death and Life …
16
8
confined mainly to the neighbourhood scale, where it appeared that Jacobs’
extreme empiricism was not very problematical17.
But the phenomenal success of Death and Life … seems to have lured
Jacobs into more ambitious projects. Every subsequent book took on more and
more global and multidisciplinary issues: The Economy of Cities (1970); The
Question of Separatism: Quebec and the Struggle Over Sovereignty (1980);
Cities and the Wealth of Nations … (1984); Systems of Survival … (1992): and
so on. Throughout, she never modified or moderated her extreme empiricism,
and never realized that a method that was partly suitable for a discourse on
neighbourhoods might be unsuitable for one on, say, the moral foundations of
commerce and politics (1992).
Dark Ages Ahead is even more ambitious in scope. The spatial and
temporal scales it seeks to compass are immense. The range of substantive
fields it covers is equally large. Its conclusions are about an entire civilization. Yet
Jacobs ploughs through all this in the same manner she approached her
previous books. This time, however, the inadequacies of extreme empiricism are
glaring, often embarrassing. The text hops back and forth from local anecdotes to
global conclusions. Nothing much paves the way from the former to the latter: no
formulation of testable hypotheses, no discussion of the comparative merits and
demerits of rival interpretations of facts, and surely no cautions, qualifications or
provisos.
Here is an example. “One can drive today for miles through American
suburbs and never glimpse a human being on foot in a public space, a human
being outside a car or a truck. … This is a visible sign that much of North
America has become bereft of communities” (p. 36). This kind of ‘argument’ may
be acceptable in some ‘casual’ journalistic contexts, but it is not serious analysis.
The conclusion, “this is a visible sign …”, simply does not follow from the
empirical observation that “one can drive for miles …”. At most, the absence of
pedestrians may draw attention to differences between inner city communities
and suburban ones. Beyond that, conclusions regarding the eclipse of
communities require far more robust methods18.
Here is another example. “Declining voter turnout and increasing disdain …
for politicians … are evidence that people … have concluded that voting is a
waste of effort. That increasing numbers of voters act this way … indicates
popular disconnection from Lincoln’s government ‘of the people, by the people,
for the people’. Pigeonholing that ideal as irrelevant or unattainable means losing
it. That is how weakening of cultural webs leads to further weakening” (p. 122,
emphasis in the original). Jacobs seem to think that the observation (declining
voter turnout and increasing disdain for politicians) leads to an all-encompassing
conclusion about the weakening of cultural webs. It does not necessarily do so.
The phenomenon of weakening (of certain cultural webs) leading to further
17
The points of view elaborated in Death and Life … were inapplicable to young cities (e.g., Los
Angeles), or to most urban situations outside of the United States. This did not put a dent in the
legendary popularity of the book.
18
See the Appendix, page i, for more on this matter.
9
weakening is overdetermined: it lends itself to numerous plausible interpretations
or explanations. Factors such as class interests, institutional frameworks, culture,
economic organisation and even geography and demography may play a role.
But which ensemble of these factors promise ‘the most’ plausible interpretation?
Answering this question requires going far beyond Jacobs’s extreme empiricism.
I do not think I need to cite more and more examples. The point is already
clear. Extreme empiricism may be tolerated in some casual or polemical
contexts, but it is not suitable in the present one.
Matters of method, logic and evidence:
In addition to the issues I discussed in the preceding sections, Dark Age
Ahead suffers from a wide range of methodological problems: faulty logic,
inconsistencies, largely fictional history, questionable use of sources,
rudimentary understanding of how knowledge works, self-destructing statements,
simplistic notion of science, and unsubstantiated claims. These matters are
discussed in the Appendix.
The author and the Publisher — Apportioning Responsibilities:
Under normal circumstances, it is generally understood that an author
assumes full responsibility, and takes full credit, for the work. But this is not a
normal circumstance. How did Random House allow such a breach of standards
to occur? Did management merely want to get one last book out of the lustrous
name of Jane Jacobs? Is it just a case of making some more money? Why did
they not refuse a manuscript that is obviously not of publishable quality? Did they
not see the problems? Did they have no respect for an author whose name they
risk tarnishing by their disregard for standards? How about Ms. Mary Ann Code,
the “resourceful researcher and fact checker” (p. 224)? Did she look at the
references cited by Jacobs to ensure that they actually contain evidence? I am
perplexed and deeply disturbed by all this. I cannot escape the sense that
Random House acted irresponsibly in allowing this book to be printed and
distributed.
Concluding Remarks:
Our contemporary civilization has serious problems indeed, which call for
serious and careful study. The dangers of deterioration are real. We need to
understand these dangers and to assess their likely consequences. Dark Age
Ahead is sadly disappointing because it fails even to take the issues seriously,
let alone teach us something new and useful about them.
Despite all this, Random House has hailed the book as Jane Jacobs’s
“crowning achievement” (Random House 2004). If we take this as anything other
than a crass and cynical sales pitch, we must consider it an insult to Jane
Jacobs, who has written much better books.
10
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Horowitz, Irving Louis. 1967. The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot; Studies in the
Relationship between Social Science and Practical Politics. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: MIT Press.
ITE, Institute of Transportation Engineers. 1992. Traffic Engineering Handbook.
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Jacobs, Allan, Elizabeth Macdonald, and Yodan Rofé. 2002. The Boulevard
Book. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Jacobs, Jane. 1961. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York:
Vintage Books.
—. 1970. The Economy of Cities. New York: Random House.
11
—. 1980. The Question of Separatism: Quebec and the Struggle Over
Sovereignty. New York: Vintage Books.
—. 1984. Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life. New
York: Random House.
—. 1992. Systems of Survival: a Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of
Commerce and politics. New York: Random House.
—. 2000a. The Nature of Economies. New York: Modern Library.
—. 2000b. Toronto: Considering Self-Government. Owen Sound, Ontario: Ginger
Press.
—. 2004. Dark Age Ahead. New York: Random House.
Klinenberg, Eric. 2002a. Heat Wave: a Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
—. 2002b. "Dying Alone: an Interview with Eric Klinenberg." Interview posted by
the U. of C. Press: University of Chicago Press. Available from:
www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/443213in.html
Kuhn, Thomas. 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Langewiesche, William. 2004. "Columbia's Last Flight." in The Best American
Science Writing 2004, edited by Dava Sobel and Jesse Cohen. New York:
Ecco.
New York, Commission on Building Districts and Restrictions. 1916. "Final
Report." New York: Board of Estimate and Apportionment, Committee on
City Plan.
Pagden, Anthony. 2001. Peoples and Empires. London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson.
Petty, Richard, and John Cacioppo. 1986. Communication and Persuasion:
Central and Peripheral Routes to Attitude Change. New York: SpringerVerlag.
Random House, Inc. 2004. "About This Book." Book Review. Available from:
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?1400062322
Reese, K. M. 1998. "British Study Finds Less Traffic When Roads Close."
Chemical and Engineering News 76:56.
Semenza, Jan C. 1996. "Heat-Related Deaths During the July 1995 Heat Wave
in Chicago." New England Journal of Medicine 335:84-90.
Valenstein, Elliot S. 1998. Blaming the Brain; the Truth about Drugs and Mental
Health. New York: Free Press.
Vaughan, Diane. 1996. The Challenger Launch Decision; Risky Technology,
Culture, and Deviance at NASA. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Weber, Adna Ferrin. 1899. The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century; a
Study in Statistics. New York: Columbia University.
12
Appendix
Issues of Method, Logic, and Evidence
This appendix focuses on a range of concerns regarding method, logic and the
use of sources and resources. It excludes substantive matters to the extent that it is
possible to separate form from content. I will use examples selectively.
Despite their seriousness and importance, I decided to relegate these concerns
to an appendix. As mentioned before, there are two reasons for this decision: first, I
wanted to leave the readers with a choice of whether or not to go into the more
‘technical’ matters covered here; second, I wanted to keep the main text as brief as
possible. There is an additional consideration: by omitting these methodological
concerns from the main text, I hoped to underscore how seriously flawed Dark Age
Ahead is, even without considering the problems discussed here.
I have organized the materials for this appendix under eight headings
(categories). These are arranged alphabetically, and not necessarily in order if
importance.
I. Faulty Logic:
Here, I restrict myself to the simplest of all logical principles – that conclusions
should be derivable from premises.
In Chapter Two, the author restates her familiar view that automobiles destroy
communities. In support of this, she says: “One can drive … for miles through
American suburbs and never glimpse a human being on foot in a public space, a
human being outside a car or truck. … This is a visible sign that much of North
America has become bereft of communities” (p. 36).
This is not necessarily so. Yes, community involves interactions and encounters
among diverse people who share a neighbourhood. But the absence of people
outside cars and trucks is not a sign, and not even a heuristic proxy, that such
interactions are non-existent, as Herbert Gans1 (1967) has shown.
In Chapter Four, Jacobs accuses mainstream economic theories of blinding
economists to daily realities. She says: “Since [import-replacement] jobs don’t fit into
economists’ preconceptions …, they don’t recognize these jobs as respectable
evidence of economic expansion, and thus fail to recognize the process [of
expansion through import-replacement]” (p. 88). The premise that importreplacement “jobs don’t fit into economists’ preconceptions”2 may and may not be
true. Be that as it may, it does not logically entail the conclusion that “economists
don’t recognize these jobs as … evidence of economic expansion”.
In the course of arguing in favour of more local ‘autonomy’, Jacobs criticizes
senior government policies for insensitivity to local problems and local solutions. She
1
Jacobs praised Herbert Gans in her Death and Life … (Jacobs, 1961, p. 272), but disregarded his
findings about suburban communities. To her, ‘community’ seems to mean only one thing:
neighbourhoods like Greenwich Village, New York, in the 1960s.
2
The statement is an unsubstantiated assertion. This does not mean that it is false.
writes: “Instead of learning from innovations and encouraging them to spread [the
reference here is to Toronto’s assisted housing initiatives], the senior governments
killed them” (pp. 109-110). The reasoning here is faulty. The failings and
shortcomings of centralization do not provide evidence in support of the desirability of
more local ‘autonomy’ or ‘independence’. In other words one may, with no
inconsistency, criticise the operations of central authority without seeking to reduce or
eliminate it.
In Chapter 7 the author advocates residential ‘densification’. In this context, she
reiterates her familiar objections to modernist urban design principles. “Planning fads
… of the [1950s and 1960s] emphasized the desirability of empty, open spaces; thus
replacement buildings usually provided fewer affordable dwellings than the numbers
destroyed” (p. 143). The conclusion does not follow logically from the premise
(although it may be factually correct). Leaving empty open spaces does not impose
limitations on the total number of dwelling units built, because the number of storeys
can, in principle, be increased.
In the same context: “Standards and regulations accompanying the
government-guaranteed mortgages … mandated suburban sprawl … It is no wonder,
given this history, that homelessness has increased in North America …” (p. 145).
Just how guaranteed mortgages caused suburban sprawl, or how suburban sprawl
increase homelessness, is left unexplained.
II. Inconsistencies:
Inconsistency arises when premises used to buttress an argument are
contradicted elsewhere to support other arguments.
In her opening Chapter, the author says, “… living cultures are transmitted
neither in writing nor pictorially. Instead, cultures live through word of mouth and
example” (p. 5). However, the fact that she chose to write this book implies the belief
that writing may make a difference, and hence presupposes the falsehood of this
claim3.
As part of a criticism of credentialism, the author maintains that since the
1950s, full employment and jobs have become key American values, indeed “the
purpose of life” (p. 57). Later, the author scorns this sacred cow and retorts that it has
become an excuse to justify otherwise undesirable projects and policies (p. 59). On
the last page of the book, the author urges us to avoid the hazard of drifting towards
a dark age “by tenaciously retaining the underlying values responsible for the
culture’s nature and success” (p. 176). Should Americans include the value of full
employment and jobs?
In a discussion of what the author sees as tax-related irrationalities, she points
out that Canadian “[f]ederal budget figures are lumped into Canada-wide
expenditures, making it impossible to learn how much goes to specific localities and
for what purposes” (p. 112). Even a task force appointed by the prime minister could
not find this information, according to the author.
3
This claim (regarding word of mouth, etc.) is unnecessary, except to pre-empt the obvious criticism
of the notion of ‘mass amnesia’ on grounds of its clear irrelevance in an information age.
ii
On the next page, she acknowledges that tax rich jurisdictions should not
expect to get back everything they contribute, because there is a legitimate need to
support “poor regions … that are unable to pay their way”. The author then adds: “all
that, however, does not alter the fact that not enough resources return for municipal
reinvestment” (p. 113). If the former claim (p.112) that nobody knows where the
money goes is a fact, then the latter claim (p. 113) that not enough of it goes to the
municipalities cannot also be called a ‘fact’. How can one assert that “not enough” is
returned when the information is not available?
III. Largely Fictional History:
The author’s idea of how to use history as a source of evidence is peculiar.
What she tells us is almost always a combination of fiction and history.
The phrase “mass amnesia” appears on the first page as a metaphor, a
‘manner of speaking’, or an ‘image’. Gradually it becomes an analytical construct –
“During the Dark Age, the mass amnesia of survivors becomes permanent and
profound” (p.7). By the end of the same page4, it has become an empirical entity –
“So much had been forgotten in the forgetful centuries …”. How does she know that?
No historian can know that. At best, a historian may find evidence that some bodies
of knowledge and skills and practices are no longer used. This does not necessarily
entail that they “have been forgotten”.
There is more. Cultural wrong turnings, we are warned, must be recognised –
“Time during which corrections can be made runs out because of mass forgetfulness”
(p. 14). What was initially a manner of speech, a mere phrase, having become an
empirical entity (potentially observable), is now a cause of historical change.
In any case, the Dark Ages did not involve “mass amnesia” as Jacobs alleges.
During the centuries following the collapse of the Roman Empire, the European
monasteries preserved and copied vast amounts of Latin and Greek manuscripts.
They kept alive many cultural and technical practices including winemaking, pottery,
textiles, stone cutting and carving. They developed horticultural techniques and
implements (the three-field system, the metal plough, the horse collar). They even
contributed to the preservation of reasoned modes of governance (the Benedictine
Rule). Even this most cursory sketch of monastic history casts doubt on the ‘abyss of
forgetfulness’.
As another presumed example from ‘history’, the author briefly relays the story
of a small population (on the island of Tasmania) that was separated over 10,000
years ago from a larger aboriginal people on mainland Australia (according to
Diamond, 1997). About 4,000 in number, these people regressed into extreme
primitiveness compared to their condition before being separated. From this extreme
case of isolation, Diamond concludes that the regression of the Tasmanians “may
stem in part from the effects of isolation and population size” (1997, p. 313). Jacobs
renders this story as if Diamond thought that it showed “how cultures lost their
4
On this same page, the author invokes the authority of three historians (Pirenne, Duby and
Mandrau). What they wrote and what she quoted are entirely unrelated to the claim of “an abyss of
forgetfulness”. See also Section IV below on the questionable use of sources.
iii
memories”. Nowhere does Diamond go near these notions of ‘forgetfulness’, ‘mass
amnesia’, or ‘cultures losing memory’.
Like us, Jacobs says, the Ancient Romans “needed strong communities to
assimilate and cushion the many people experiencing unprecedented circumstances
[shortly before the collapse]…” (p. 42). But: “The failing and failed Roman
communities were not equal to the responsibility …” (p. 42). Nothing further, and no
references either. We have no idea what evidence may conceivably have led her to
this ‘conclusion’ about the failing and failed Roman communities.
The author’s use of ‘history’ is also characterized by key indeterminacies. With
regard to the central issue of human agency in the making of history, the author is
seldom clear on who the actors were/are behind this or that development or change.
Thus, “… new knowledge entered a fundamentalist and feudal framework …”
(p. 6). Who brought it? What were the real interactions — conflicts, alliances, etc. —
provoking the “new” knowledge?
Or, “… ethnic awareness came to the fore …; the embryos of nation-states
were forming” (p. 8). What were the specific human interests behind these
transformations?
“People get used to losses …” (p. 23). ‘People’? Any? All?
It is not just remote history that is ‘edited’ and presented as ‘history’. Relatively
recent developments on this continent and even in this City, Toronto, are too. In
attempting to show that tax money would be most effectively spent if policies and
projects were developed locally, Jacobs paints a glorious picture of Toronto’s
assisted housing initiatives during the 1970s (p. 109). The picture blurs or completely
omits several important aspects. First, the shift from public housing (a lá Regent Park
in Toronto) to non-profit assisted housing (mixture of market and assisted units) was
not unique to Toronto, and was far more than just a matter of a courageous mayor
(David Crombie) and a genius alderman (Michael Dennis). It involved complex and
nation-wide issues including Federal and Provincial policy redirection. Second, the
goal of increasing the supply of affordable housing was frequently thwarted by the
city itself. Toronto’s own Land Use Committee frequently voted against proposals
submitted by Cityhome (Toronto’s own non-profit housing company) under pressure
from small yet vocal groups of young professional gentrifiers. Under the leadership of
mayor John Sewell in 1978, the City launched an attack on ‘illegal’ bachelorette
apartments in south Parkdale (a low income neighbourhood west of downtown). No
attempt was ever undertaken to work with non-conforming owners to upgrade and
preserve the scarce supply of low-rental housing units. Here again, city government
bowed to pressure from a small minority of ‘Victorian’ single-family homeowners in
the area and abandoned its own talk about low-income housing. So much for
Toronto’s “constructive innovations” (p. 109) in the field of assisted housing.
In her penultimate Chapter, ostensibly about proposals to avoid sliding into a
Dark Age Ahead, the author continues her long-standing criticism of zoning. In North
America, she says, three “big ideas” shaped zoning: “High ground coverages are
bad”; “High densities (number of people or number of households per acre) are bad”;
and “The mingling of commercial or other work uses with residences is bad”. She
iv
adds: “To this day, the three assumptions [big ideas] remain the principal tools of
planners and zoners” (p. 153). Without exception, all these claims are contradicted by
the same very urban history that the author should know inside out.
Let us start by clearing up a confusion in Jacobs’s understanding of density.
Density may refer to the number of people per acre of land (this is how the author
uses the word). But density may also refer to the number of people per square foot or
square metre of habitable space or per room. This is an index of crowding. The
author does not seem to realize that what the Progressives of the early 20th Century
(e.g., Adna Weber 1899) were combating was overcrowding, not a high density of
people per acre. The construction of the Interborough Rapid Transit Subway in 1904
was followed by massive land speculation, shoddy development, and construction of
‘new’ tenements5 in districts like Washington Heights6. The same reformers and the
same reforming spirit that the author praises in her third Chapter started to agitate for
zoning ordinances to combat the unacceptable impacts of the new transit lines. As
with other subsequent zoning ordinances, the 1916 New York City zoning resolution
regulated the height, the area, and the use of buildings. The target was overcrowding
and not, as the author claims, high ground coverage.
Let us look at the issue of mixed land uses. In the case of New York, the
subway line intensified the northward movement of commercial districts and their
encroachment on established residential areas in midtown Manhattan. Reformminded advocates at the time saw zoning as a protector of neighbourhoods. It is in
this sense that “mingling of commercial … uses with residences” was considered
“bad”. But what they considered bad was the mingling of incompatible land uses,
not, as the author states, any set of different uses.
Finally, the author asserts that these three aversions — to high ground
coverage, to high densities, and to mixed land uses — “remain the principal tools of
planners and zoners” to this day. This claim too flies in the face of recent planning
realities. In Toronto, for example, the 1969 Official Plan of the City of Toronto
contained lavish high coverage and high-density allowances in the City’s core area
and other strategic nodes7.
Regarding the claim that zoning discourages mixed land uses “to this day”, the
author should look at Toronto’s Railway lands (regarding which the author was
involved in the late 1990s as a pro bono advisor). She might also look at mixed-use
developments like the London Docklands, the Battery Park district in New York, and
the South Boston Waterfront District, to name just a few examples.
5
These were multi-storey buildings aimed at the lowest income tenants. They presupposed extreme
levels of overcrowding. See, e.g., Hood 1993.
6
Testifying before the City Commission on Building Districts and Restrictions, the Chief Engineer of
the Board of Estimate and Apportionment stated: “I remember the sensational development of the
Washington Heights districts on the completion of the present subway... Unless there is some
restriction on kind of development which can occur, I think we will have a serious problem for the city
to deal with” (New York, 1916, p. 147).
7
The so-called reformers of 1970s — including Crombie, Dennis, and Sewell — fought against these
high densities and high coverage allowances (hypocritically in the name of preservation of
neighbourhoods).
v
The point of this discussion of zoning is neither to defend traditional zoning
doctrines and practices nor to oppose Jacobs’ well-known views on coverage,
density, and mixed-use. The point rather is to highlight the distortive consequences of
using fiction as evidence.
IV. Questionable Use of Sources:
One does not expect an experienced author to miss or compromise basic —
one might say, elementary — guidelines regarding the proper and prudent use of
sources. Most standard writing manuals contain the basic guidelines. The ones listed
here are summarized and rephrased from a version at the Claremont Graduate
University Writing Center (Claremont 2004). First: “Never use information in a way
that is contrary to the author’s intentions”. To this one may add: when in doubt, alert
the readers by reviewing alternative reasonable ‘readings’. Second: “Although it is not
always necessary to quote an entire passage to make your point, make sure that you
have not changed the author’s main idea through selective quoting or use of
ellipsis”. Third: “It is not ethical to prove your thesis by ignoring well-known
information that conflicts with or refutes it. A well-argued paper confronts such
evidence”. To these, I would like to add an equally obvious guideline: do not use a
source whose credibility you could not, or have not, evaluated. The following are
examples of what I consider violations of one or more of these relatively noncontroversial guidelines.
The author spends nearly half of her first Chapter re-presenting various parts
and passages from a world-history book by Jared Diamond (1997). Diamond’s
broad-brush analysis — covering more than 10,000 years of history — poses a
‘simple’ question: why are some nations rich and others poor? Why do some nations
lose ground? China is one of the many examples Diamond uses as he tries to pin
down the ‘causes’ of decline. Jacobs covers Diamond’s analysis of China at some
length. “Diamond asks himself why Chinese ships didn’t colonize Europe before
Vasco da Gama’s … ships launched Europe’s colonization of East Asia? … Why did
China lose its technological lead to formerly so backward Europe?” (p. 18). She sums
up Diamond’s description of some 15th Century political rivalries in China that led,
amongst other things, to a halting of long-distance navigation and overseas trade.
She follows this by the following statement: “Loss of charts and records from the
archives ended medieval China’s interest in the outside world …” (p. 19).
Most readers would assume that this last claim is from, or is at least based on,
Diamond’s book. Not so. It is only in the endnotes that Jacobs cites Anthony
Pagden’s Peoples and Empires (2001) in support. There she references this claim
— with no page numbers — as if Anthony Pagden made it. But Pagden makes no
such claim. He merely indicates, in the course of a discussion of navigation, the use
of the sea, trade, and conquest, that “the vice-president of the [Chinese] Ministry of
War, Liu Daxia, confiscated Zheng He’s documents from the archives and either hid
or burned them” (66 and 67). He adds later: “China had turned its back upon any
further expansion …It was a decision which, in the long run, was to prove calamitous”
(67). In short, the claim that China lost interest in the outside world because of the
loss of charts is Jacobs’. Leaving aside the plausibility of her claim, the way in which
vi
she slips it into her references to Diamond and Pagden raises concerns about her
use of sources.
Back to the claim itself. Hiding or burning documents may well have been the
result, not the cause, of Daxia’s decision to cease long-distance overseas trade. The
author fails to present this alternative to the readers despite its plausibility.
There is more. Diamond’s overarching intent is to show that “the striking
differences between the long-term histories of peoples of different continents have
been due not to innate differences in the peoples themselves but to differences in
their environments” (Diamond 1997, p. 405). He wants to oppose the self-serving
Euro-centric histories that seek to account for recent European domination over the
rest of the world by reference to the presumed superiority of the Europeans. “Sound
evidence for the existence of human differences in intelligence that parallel human
differences in technology is lacking” (Diamond 1997, p. 19). Jacobs does not seem to
respect that broad intent or to recognise that the purpose of his narrative has nothing
at all to do with her notion of mass amnesia. She makes no effort to place her
fragmented re-presentations in the context of Diamond’s intentions. Hence she
denies her readers the opportunity to judge, for themselves, the appropriateness of
her use of sources.
It is also necessary to draw attention to Jacobs’ confused treatment of
Diamond’s analysis. At first (p. 11) we are introduced to Diamond as a “brilliant
twenty-first-century historian and scientist” who has meticulously analysed the
“unequal contests between conquering invaders and their victims”. Two pages later
we are told that Diamond “hoped he had created the foundation for a genuine
science of human history …”. “It seemed to [Diamond]”, the author tells us, “that only
a couple of loose ends [in the project of human history as a science] needed tying”.
Jacobs does not mention that Diamond included a lengthy Epilogue8 in which he
spelled out the limitations of his project and articulated his reservations about it.
Instead of clarifying this for her readers, Jacobs merely uses the reference to
Diamond’s hope to thrust her pet notion of ‘mass amnesia’ inexplicably onto his
analysis. One of the “loose ends,” we read, is “how cultures lost their memories” (p.
13). Not so! I find such writing games, whose purpose is to camouflage gaps in
evidence, quite reprehensible.
There is still more. The fact that she uses Diamond’s book so many times as a
source of supporting evidence implies that she considers his analysis reliable. Yet
she announces: “Diamond’s analysis … turned mushy and unreliable as soon as
human decisions entered the equation” (p. 20). Why did she take her readers through
this long detour if she thinks Diamond’s work is unreliable? Unsettling questions arise
here with respect to her seriousness as an author. What becomes of all the
‘evidence’ she ‘found’ in his work? Should we consider it “mushy and unreliable” as
well? And what reason did she have for describing him as “brilliant” a few pages
earlier? Perhaps she wrote her text as she leafed incrementally through Diamond’s
book, and never bothered to restructure, indeed rewrite, her Chapter when she later
8
The example of China’s abrupt halting of her fleet’s activities in the 15th Century is part of this
epilogue, and is used, in part, to show some of the areas that Diamond considered to be weak in his
own research.
vii
‘discovered’ that he was “unreliable”. This whole muddle becomes all the more
perplexing when we realize that human decisions entered Diamond’s equation from
the outset9, not somewhere towards the tail end of his book as Jacobs implies.
Near the end of her first Chapter, still working with, and on, Diamond’s history,
Jacobs proposes to turn his question upside down. Rather than ask: What makes
winners win? Let us ask: “What dooms losers?” Then she delivers a casual but fatal
blow to the notion of mass amnesia that she laboured so hard to construct as a way
to explain the decline of civilizations. For she now says: “The answer to the new
question, cast in the form of a principle10, runs something like this: Losers are
confronted with such radical jolts in circumstances that their institutions cannot adapt
adequately, become irrelevant, and are dropped” (p. 20, italics in the original). No
fatal amnesia, then, just something on the order of an asteroid hitting the earth. I
personally think that she would have written a better book had she followed through
with this ‘principle’, and used it as an analytical framework. But she did not. She goes
back to the feeble notions of mass amnesia, forgetfulness, and loss or memory, as if
she has never thought this thought nor written this ‘principle’.
The next example of Jacobs’s questionable use of sources can be discussed
much more briefly. In Chapter 4 — ‘Science Abandoned’ — the author describes two
traffic-related cases about which she had first hand information. Both cases involved
traffic engineers who tried to convince local citizens that “ … traffic is like water: if it is
dammed up or diverted from its course in one place, it will find other outlets where it
meets less resistance” (p. 72). In both cases, the traffic engineers resisted residents’
demands to close certain local roads, and in both cases the engineers’ predictions
did not come true.
On the basis of this evidence, the author concludes that “the water hypothesis
to explain traffic flow had been discredited by the real world”. Then she takes this a
step further and issues a more general indictment of traffic engineering as “… a fake
science that cares nothing about evidence …” (p. 74). The author could have simply
moved on. Instead, she confuses the readers, and undermines her own point, by
citing a 350-word clipping about the effects of road closures that her brother sent her
(Reese 1998). This is a summary of a summary of a draft report that never made it
into any library catalogue, including WorldCat. The report, commissioned in the UK in
the late 1990s, was subsequently published as a full-length book (Cairns et al. 1998).
Members of the same research team subsequently published additional findings on
the phenomenon of ‘disappearing’ or ‘vanishing’ traffic (Goodwin 1998a; 1998b;
Cairns et al. 2002). Jacobs does not reference any of this material, only her brother’s
clipping, and so she is at a loss to interpret what is meant by ‘missing or vanishing
traffic’11. Reading research materials before citing their results on hearsay basis
would have spared the readers some confusion and the author some
embarrassment.
9
On page 39, he is already writing about jewellery, careful burial practices, revolutionary aesthetics
and spiritual developments.
10
She probably means ‘hypothesis’, or ‘thesis’.
11
“By the time I read the clipping, I had begun to wonder whether missing traffic — meaning cars and
their occupants — actually did vanish or if, instead, only some of their travelling on the roads
vanished” (p. 76).
viii
More importantly, this ‘third-hand’ citing also keeps her from realizing that the
metaphor that likens traffic to water may be a red herring. Goodwin explains that the
metaphor acts “as the counter-factual against which individuals compare their current
situation” (1998a, p. 134). In a hypothetical situation where there are literally only two
roads people can take from point A to point B, and where all those who travel from A
to B must continue to make these trips (inelastic travel demand), closing the first road
would transfer all of the trips to the second road. In this admittedly unrealistic
scenario, traffic would behave like water. In real-life cases, the metaphor functions
differently. It does not predict directly what would happen, but provides a benchmark
for estimating what may happen. The traffic engineers who used it to discourage
citizens from pursuing their demands stand accused of manipulating or of
misinforming the public. This, however, does not discredit the metaphor itself. What it
does is to discredit Jacobs’s grounds for insulting the whole of traffic engineering.
Cairns and her colleagues surveyed about 400 professionals who work on road
space reallocation and analyzed over 140 responses. They report that “[o]ver 90% of
respondents knew of a road space reallocation scheme which had ‘apparently’ or
‘definitely’ been implemented without causing any significant problems for general
traffic” (Cairns et al. 2002 p. 14). By implication, this same high percentage of traffic
engineers knew better than to take the traffic-as-water metaphor literally. There is
nothing really peculiar in all this. Gravity, equilibrium, and intervening opportunity
models (to cite just a few types) all function in the same manner, and not even entrylevel engineering students imagine that these models describe reality. My point is
simple: using sources properly is not only a matter of ethics; it is also a practical
precaution against unnecessary confusion.
The last example in this Section comes from the same (fourth) Chapter, where
the author compares two different studies dealing with an unusual heat wave that hit
Chicago in 1995 and resulted in over 700 deaths in inner city neighbourhoods.
The first is a four-page report. In format, it is a standard ‘disaster reporting and
response’, conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, for purposes of immediate administrative action. It was released right
after the disaster and published in the following year (Semenza 1996). The second
study is a 300-page book that took over six years in preparation (Klinenberg 2002a).
The author does not provide the basic information I just summarised. Thus,
when she contrasts these two studies, she obscures the fact that she is in fact
comparing apples and oranges. She accuses the former of being “worthless,” and
praises the latter for its socio-spatial emphasis. She concludes implicitly that the
former is the predominant way ‘science’ is currently conducted, that the latter is the
exception, and that this example illustrates the “alarming abandonment of a scientific
state of mind” (p. 81). Incidentally, Eric Klinenberg, the author of the second study,
uses the risk factors identified in the first study, which he describes as “thorough”
(Klinenberg, 2002b). These are the same findings that Jacobs describes as “worse
than useless” (p.82). She may know better than the researcher whose work she
praises so highly!
I find Jacobs’ use of sources wanting. The main point of documenting sources
is to guarantee what she hinders through distortion and obfuscation: the ability of
ix
the readers to reach their own judgment about the credibility of evidence and
the plausibility of conclusions. A quotation attributed to Andrew Lang12 can be
very slightly paraphrased to describe Jacobs’s use of resources: “She uses sources
as a drunken uses lamp-posts … for support rather than illumination”.
V. Rudimentary Understanding of How Knowledge Works:
This Section discusses the author’s tacit conception of how knowledge works in
the realm of human choices, decisions, and actions. How does knowledge come to
influence practices? Why does it often fail to have an influence? Does validity
promise effectiveness? Clearly there are vast differences, in this present context,
between individual choices, decisions, and actions on the one hand and public,
structured, and institutionalised practices on the other. How does knowledge function
in the realm of institutionalised practices? 13 I suspect that the author does not have
coherent and reasoned views regarding the issues I just outlined. Here are some of
the examples that led me to this conclusion:
In the opening Chapter, the author describes the social and cultural changes
that engulfed Europe around the turn of the 16th Century, and says that “Copernicus’s
stunning proofs forced14 educated people to realize that the earth is not the centre of
the universe …” (p. 6). Does knowledge ‘force’? Did it ever?
Let us briefly revisit the author’s rendering of how China came to halt her long
distance navigation and overseas trade. “Loss of charts and records from the
archives ended medieval China’s interest in the outside world …” (p. 19). As I
indicated earlier, this claim is not from Diamond (1997) or Pagden (2001). It is the
author’s, and it indicates a rather green notion of how knowledge (or its absence in
this case) produces material effects in the world.
Towards the end of her introductory Chapter, the author describes the purpose
of her book. “… I have written this cautionary book in hopeful expectation that time
remains for corrective action” (p. 24). Like Copernicus’s stunning proofs, the
knowledge in her book may “force the educated people” to stop the drift15. She adds:
“Following my discussion of the decay …, I attempt practical suggestions for
reversing some intractable deteriorations” (p. 25). Here, we see clearly a key
characteristic of the author’s understanding of how knowledge works: knowledge
Æaction suggestions Æ implementation Ædesired outcome attained. This prompts
12
Andrew Lang is an English poet, writer, and collector of fairy tales, 1844-1912. The original
quotation reads: “He uses statistics as a drunken… etc.”.
13
The way science is used in the courts (at least in the United States) provides a straightforward, and
fascinating, example that can teach us a lot about most of these issues. See Foster 1997 for a
readable and extremely informative study.
14
The point here is not about the empirical validity of Jacobs’s claim. However, compare her
description to that of Thomas Kuhn: “Copernicanism made few converts for almost a century after
Copernicus’s death” (1967, p. 150)
15
The hope that truth may save is a keystone of Enlightenment rationalism. Few of us can claim to
have fully moved beyond it. The question is whether the author gives any signs of being aware of what
is at issue here. In judging her awareness, we can use the standard against which she proudly
assesses her own thoughts: “I have learned yet again (this has been going on all my life) what folly it
is to take anything for granted without examining it sceptically” (p. 179).
x
one to wonder if the author ever paused to think about her enormously popular Death
and Life … of forty-three years ago. How did the knowledge and the practical
suggestions offered in that previous book function in real life? Did the events of the
last forty-three years support the simple notion of knowledge Æ action suggestions
Æ implementation Ædesired outcome attained?
Towards the end of her penultimate Chapter — the one with the practical
suggestions — the author calls for proper and patient mentoring (in the education
system). She explains why she thinks this is crucial. “At some point in their
mentoring, accountants, priests and other learned professionals who achieved the
careers of their dreams, but who then failed to meet their ethical and professional
responsibilities, were not sufficiently educated to adhere to civilized standards
expected by the culture. Like children, professionals need to be taught right and
wrong, and why” (p. 158). This example highlights the precarious nature of Jacobs’s
understanding of how knowledge impacts human choices, decisions, and actions16.
VI. Self-Destructing Statements:
A device is self-destructing if it contains a mechanism causing it to destroy
itself. Similarly, a statement is self-destructing if some of its elements must be untrue
in order that the whole statement be considered true. Many key propositions in Dark
Age Ahead are self-destructing. Here are two examples.
On the first page, the author talks about North American aboriginal cultures,
“many of which were decisively finished off by mass amnesia in which even the
memory of what was lost was also lost”. How can anybody assert that: a) X was lost,
and, b) the memory of lost X was also lost? If (b) is true, (a) cannot be found true or
false. The statement is self-destructing17.
In the course of a vicious attack on traffic engineering, the author accuses the
whole field of being “… a fake science that cares nothing about evidence …” (p. 74).
The truth of this accusation requires that the author herself care “nothing about
evidence”18. If we believe the accusation, we must, because of the author’s disregard
16
The author’s ‘innocence’ is, in an interesting way, evidence in favour of her claim that contemporary
science is in trouble (Chapter 4).
17
Yet, ‘normally’, most of us continue to read. It seems that in such cases we tend to grant the author
a ‘stance’ from which we imagine that she or he can ‘see’ or ‘realize’ things that we cannot. We do this
heuristically. Heuristic responses are ones in which we use only some of the information given to us in
texts, sounds, or images to process what we read, hear, and/or see. We use simplifying ‘procedures’
that are socio-culturally conditioned. East (2003, p. 71) gives some examples of these heuristic ‘shortcuts’: previously encountered information is perceived as more probable; longer arguments are
believed to be more reliable (partly because of the assumption that length implies strength, and partly
because longer arguments encourage slippage into low levels of cognition); expert pronouncements
are granted more validity; and if people agree on something we are more likely to think that it is
correct. At low levels of cognitive response, this can happen. Petty and Cacioppo (1986) researched
the processes of low levels of cognition. They analyse two different “routes to attitude change”. What
they call the central route is a more formal, attentive, and non-pre-emptive cognitive route. The
peripheral route uses more ‘automatic’ or ‘preconceived’ methods of assessing the persuasiveness of
communications.
18
See also page ix of this Appendix.
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for evidence, promptly disbelieve it. This is the way with self-destructing
statements19.
VII. Simplistic Notion of Science:
In Section V above, I dealt with the author’s understanding of how knowledge
works. Here, I discuss a related, but different, issue: her understanding of science.
She sees it as a method of revealing truths20. “Its aim is to get at truths about how
reality works” (p.65). Beyond that, it is difficult to pin down any specifics. Two things,
however, are clear by their absence. First, the author does not seem to know that
much of contemporary science seeks not to establish truths, but rather to determine
or estimate the degree of uncertainty (unreliability) of this or that hypothesis, theory,
or body of knowledge. Second, the author gives no sign of realising that science is an
enterprise that occurs within intuitional and organizational frameworks, and more
importantly, within scientific communities whose members share certain beliefs,
habits and goals without which there can be no science. The lack of awareness of
these two dimensions of science derails her criticisms of science in Chapter 4.
There is also a crucial ambiguity regarding ‘reality’. The indicative (what is) and
the imperative (what ought to be) are both aspects of ‘how reality works’. The author
recognises this distinction explicitly: science “doesn’t guarantee we will avoid …
mistakes or correct them, but that is owing to failure to heed what science uncovers”
(p. 65). What she does not recognise is that science — qua institutionalised practices
— hardly ever charts its research agendum coherently, or in conformity with
established societal goals and policy issues. Science can, and does, veer away from
existing policy priorities; it can, and does, bias, strain, and/or distort them. Jacobs is
silent on these matters. Her only concerns are whether scientists respect the weight
of evidence, and use previously unsuspected anomalies to frame new and useful
questions. This narrow focus made it almost impossible for Jacobs to reach any
novel or important insights in Chapter Four.
Near the beginning of the Chapter, the author paints an idealized picture of the
‘scientific state of mind’. This is a prelude to giving examples of how this “major
marvel … has been betrayed and … abandoned, while those carrying out the ugly
deeds pretend that nothing of the kind has happened …” (p. 70). During that prelude,
she draws on a widely cited book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970)21
by Thomas Kuhn22 in support of her view that science discards failing approaches
when actual observations disconfirm them.
Here is how she interprets Kuhn: “If a paradigm23 is truly obsolete, it must finally
give way, discredited by the testing of the real world” (Jacobs, p. 70). This is not
19
But see footnote 17 on how we, the readers, sometimes respond sloppily to such statements.
Richard Feynman (1999) popularised a similar notion.
21
Jacobs references the 3rd edition, 1996.
22
Kuhn died in 1996 at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was 73.
23
For Kuhn, a paradigm is a collection of beliefs shared by members of a scientific community.
Paradigms — qua shared theoretical and methodological beliefs — guide the development of theories,
the conduct of research, and the pursuit of debates and improvements within a given field of scientific
inquiry. Few terms have been so misused, overused, and abused as the term ‘paradigm’. Kuhn
realised this. He even offered an alternative — ‘disciplinary matrix’. But in a way, it was too late.
20
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Kuhn. One of his book’s goals, in fact, is to show that the discrediting that Jacobs
hails as the touchstone of science does not occur much in ‘normal science’24. Kuhn
makes this point explicitly: scientists “do not … treat anomalies as counter instances,
though in the vocabulary of philosophy of science that is what they are" (Kuhn, 1970,
p. 77). Jacobs may have missed Kuhn’s point in part because of her lack of
awareness of the institutional and cultural dimensions of scientific pursuits. Here
again, Kuhn is explicit: “Like the choice between competing political institutions, that
between competing paradigms proves to be a choice between incompatible modes of
community life. … As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice — there is no
standard higher than the assent of the relevant community” (1970, p. 94).
Jacobs has expectations that only revolutionary science, in Kuhn’s terms, fulfils,
and only during the ferment of a scientific revolution. She thinks science should
constantly test its ‘predictions’ against real life evidence. Only during periods of
‘paradigm shifts’ does this happen, says Kuhn. “[T]esting occurs as part of the
competition between two rival paradigms for the allegiance of the scientific
community” (p. 145). Jacobs wants discrepancies between facts and theories to be
taken seriously. She wants scientists to use anomalies inquisitively and creatively to
generate new research questions and new discoveries. It doesn’t happen, says
Kuhn. “Normal science does not aim at novelties of fact or theory and, when
successful, finds none” (1970, p. 52).
In short, Jacobs’s simplistic, and idealized, notion of science leads her to set
untenable expectations of normal science. Chapter 4 — ostensibly a critique of
contemporary scientific practices — suffers accordingly. Even if we accept her
inductive generalizations, we must still reject the criteria by which she judges, and
criticises, normal science. None of this should be construed as an apology for
contemporary science. What passes as science today is seriously flawed; my point
here is that Jacobs’s simplistic notions divert her attention away from these serious
flaws.
VIII. Unsubstantiated Claims:
This last Section deals with failure to support non-self-evident claims.
Unsubstantiated claims are not necessarily false. They are, however, weak links that
cumulatively erode the credibility of a chain of argument.
A very key claim in Dark Age Ahead is left implicit and totally unsubstantiated.
It is the claim that things have been getting worse in our times: “we show signs of
rushing headlong into a Dark Age” (p. 4). We may ask, for example, if we have
indeed been experiencing ‘loss’ of community. Is there evidence in Dark Age Ahead
that community life was better or stronger in earlier times (whatever those may be)?
Similarly with higher education: Is the emphasis on credentials something new? And
science: are current scientists less respectful of the marvel of the ‘scientific state of
mind’ than their counterparts forty or fifty years ago? Similar questions can be raised
about the other pillars Jacobs discusses. Nowhere (that I could find) does the author
24
Kuhn insisted that mounting discrepancies between theories and facts are only treated as grounds
for rejecting a paradigm by supporters of a competing, ‘revolutionary’ paradigm-in-the-making.
xiii
give evidence that our culture has been drifting towards ‘collapse’ — at least with
respect to community and family life, higher education, science, taxation and
representation policies, and the professions.
There are many more specific, but equally important, claims that are also left
unsupported. Chapter 3 provides an example. It is entitled “Credentialing Versus
Education”. Taken as a polemical gag, this title is fairly clever. As a substantive
foundation for a whole Chapter, it lacks weight. Credentialing and education are not
inherently in conflict. One must show evidence that they are. The author gives
evidence that credentialing is pervasive, thinking that this will serve to show, as well,
that education as such is being compromised or sacrificed. The latter may be the
case, but we are not given independent evidence to show that this is indeed so.
In Chapter 7, Jacobs laments the near impossibility, in North America, of using
a particular kind of road — the boulevard. Boulevards can provide walks for
pedestrians, lanes for bicycles and roller-skating, parallel lanes for public transit
vehicles, and separate lanes for automobile traffic. However, says Jacobs, they are
outlawed by traffic engineering dogmas. My concern here is not with the merits of
boulevards. It is with the claims Jacobs makes but fails to substantiate while
discussing them. Jacobs’ main contention here is that North American traffic
engineering standards ‘outlaw’ boulevards on grounds of safety, but that these
standards are “based on wholly unsupported dogma, nothing more” (p. 150). She
says that this conclusion is supported by Allen Jacobs (no relation to Jane Jacobs)
and two other architects in their 2002 book entitled The Boulevard Book. The only
information Jane Jacobs gives about this book is a cryptic reference in her endnotes
(p. 219): “[t]he quotation about the lack of traffic and safety data is from p. 247 of the
book [The Boulevard Book]”.
As it turns out, page 247 of The Boulevard Book is also a page of endnotes. It
is where the reader of The Boulevard Book is sent to find support for the following
statement on their page 92: “… street standards appear to have been based on
unproven assumptions and rationalizations about danger and safety rather than on
actual data …”. If you are patient and methodical and actually follow their endnotes,
you find two things. But neither of these gives any supporting references. Endnote 32
is a reference to “Institute of Transportation Engineers, Traffic Engineering
Handbook, p. 154”. Endnote 33 is a longer version of the statement that the traffic
engineering standards (in the Traffic Engineering Handbook) are arbitrary and
without basis. So far, then, there is no evidence to back up the claim. If you are
patient and really dogged, you may go to the Traffic Engineering Handbook (ITE
1992), and look at page 154 in the hope of finding some evidence at last. None. The
page is the introduction to a Chapter on Roadway Geometric Design. It contains brief
background notes and definitions. If anything, it contains some counter-evidence:
“Policy revisions [in the Handbook] are prepared in response to the continuing
operational and safety experience, direct and applied research, changes in vehicle
fleet characteristics, and other factors”.
In short, this long, and traveller-unfriendly, trail does not lead to any evidence
supporting Jacobs’s claim that the traffic engineering standards discouraging the
construction of boulevards are “based on wholly unsupported dogma, nothing more”.
xiv
Let me give one last example of the author’s tendency to assert and her failure
to support consequential claims. In the same Chapter 7, the author suggests that we
replace rigid zoning designations (which stipulate what people can and cannot build)
with flexible and adaptable performance codes (which specify performance outcomes
that people agree to satisfy). This is an interesting, though hardly a novel,
suggestion. As part of her comments on the practicalities of implementing such
performance codes, Jacobs offers this: “The object of a good performance code
should be to combine the greatest degree of flexibility … with the most germane and
direct protections needed …” (p. 157). She continues: “The training and credentialing
of planners and zoners does not equip them for this task, nor does their work
experience”. Those who know Jacobs’ record would not be shocked or surprised by
such derisive comments25. Most likely they would not find anything newsworthy either
in what I am about to say; namely, that Jacobs offers nothing in support of her
opinion.
A Concluding Thought:
As I tried to show in the main text, Dark Age Ahead is not a praiseworthy book
even if it did not have any of the methodological problems discussed in this appendix.
By the same token, these problems would, on their own, call into question the
author’s credibility. Together, the substantive and the methodological problems make
this book an embarrassment.
25
She obviously does not believe in Nizer’s adage that “a graceful taunt is worth a thousand insults”.
Louis Nizer is a 20th Century American Lawyer.
xv