Ege Coğrafya Dergisi

Öz

Until the 1950s, urbanists, planners, and intellectuals in Europe and the United States were deeply concerned about how modern urbanization was unfolding and were uncertain about the future. In order to alleviate these concerns and uncertainties, the idea of building suburbs and garden cities on the periphery of cities, while transforming the slums within urban areas, emerged. Over time, this idea became the main paradigm in urbanism. Journalist and writer Jane Jacobs heavily criticized these modernist planning approaches. She argued that cities cannot be planned solely according to simple statistical and mathematical principles; the human factor must also be considered. In this study, Jacobs' criticisms of modern urban planning and her proposed solutions are discussed. The author’s work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is used as the primary source for the study. A content analysis of the book was conducted within the framework of the themes of “urban vitality”, “urban diversity”, “necessary conditions for urban vitality” and “urban land uses”, and sub-codes related to these themes were determined. Word clouds, concept maps and document portraits were created with the MAXQDA program to code and visualize the written expressions in the book. The principles she identified for urban diversity and vitality are analysed within the framework of the questions: What? How? and Why? The author's key concepts, such as urban vitality, urban diversity, density, and “eyes on the street” are analysed, and criticisms against Jacobs are evaluated at the end of the study. As a result of the analysis, it has been understood that the interaction of human and space comes to the forefront in Jacobs' book and the concepts that support the idea of urbanism that prioritizes human beings are dominant.