Jane Jacobs on master plans

When a trip to Saturn is proposed, the planning has to be very comprehensive, very detailed and very much in control until the whole scheme is finished. The plan has to be big or it is useless.

It seems to me sometimes that many city and town planners must be frustrated space-travel planners. But pieces of our cities, or for that matter suburbs or even New Towns, are not going to take off Saturn. They aren’t going to take off for anywhere. The substance doesn’t mandate big, comprehensive, tightly controlled planning the way a spaceship does.

Little plans are more appropriate for city renewal than big plans.

− Jane Jacobs, Residential Areas + Urban Renewal Conference, Germany, 1981

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