Cities: The Intersection of People and Place
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The "smart city" may be the latest trend in urban planning, but the fundamentals haven't changed, at least not according to Roberta Brandes Gratz.
"People need people, and that's what cities are about," she says.
Roberta is an urban planner, founder of the Center for the Living City, and author of "We're Still Here Ya Bastards: How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City." She's also a disciple and peer of Jane Jacobs, an urban critic and the mother of modern urban planning.
One hundred years ago, the world saw birth of Jacobs, who warned about grandiose developers peddling urban visions.
"This is one of the troubles with what I call the 'vision' thing," Jacobs said in 2004. "The vision thing is an idea that somewhere or other in the future is a golden age we should be working towards, and when we get it, boy won't that be great."
Channeling the memory of her friend, Roberta says: "If Jane taught us one thing, it was to observe and to understand through observation and through people, not through people and technology."
Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear our full conversation with Roberta.
