Jacobs argues that the principals of urban planning applied in the XX century urban design are destroying the inner-city communities. It is done so due to design according to separation of uses, building isolated urban spaces, and rejection of human beings living in a community characterised by layered complexity and seeming chaos.
Jacobs proposed a renewal from the ground up, emphasizing the mixed use, rather that exclusively residential or commercial districts. She pointed out that the safe and alive street should be active at a different times of the day through out the day. With different kinds of enterprises mixed in to give people reasons for crisscrossing paths and for those public streets to ‘have eyes on them’ as continuously as possible. This would ensure a social kinships of residents, shopkeepers or local office workers and in return reduce the crime levels, strengthen city life and promote social and economic vitality.
Jacobs’ analysis is clear explanation for the richness and prosperity of Dharavi slum. A low rise densely populated areas with a mixed use living and working typologies that are self-built, self-emerged and spontaneously designed around the activities that are taking place in the slum. The system of rules for the spatial arrangement and occupation alongside space organization for circulation were not design by outside force but were unpremeditated and self emerged.
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