Jane Jacobs, Eugene, and the Evolution of Cities

 

Jane Jacobs (photo by Phil Stanziola, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

The visionary urbanist Jane Jacobs famously described cities as living ecosystems in her 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Challenging the urban renewal missteps of the 1950s and 1960s. Jacobs advocated for mixed-use development, bottom-up planning, and citizen empowerment. Her vision, along with the contributions of many other urbanists and activists, continues to shape cities worldwide. Eugene is no exception. Various organizations—at both the national and local levels—are working to help transform our city into a walkable, sustainable hub.
 
The following groups are helping to broadly shape urban design policies, greatly influencing Eugene’s efforts through their research and advocacy:
 

• Smart Growth America (SGA) backs walkable, equitable development through zoning reforms and transit-oriented planning, an approach that has informed Eugene’s compact urban vision.
• Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) builds on Jacobs’s legacy by advancing human-scale, mixed-use design, while providing resources, education, and technical assistance to create socially just, economically robust, environmentally resilient, and people-centered places.
• Project for Public Spaces (PPS) transforms public spaces into community hubs, bringing them to life by planning and designing them with the people who use them every day. PPS did exactly this when it contracted with the City of Eugene back in 2016 to identify a series of recommendations for immediate improvements that would transform the public’s perception of the downtown core.
• Strong Towns critiques car-centric sprawl and promotes financially sustainable urbanism, actions that support Eugene’s current emphasis on infill as the means to increase density and affordability.

Several advocacy groups here in Eugene are further translating these national ideas into local action, each with more specific urbanist goals in mind:
 

• Better Eugene-Springfield Transportation(BEST) advocates for improvements to public transit and other transportation options, safe streets, walkable neighborhoods, accessible bicycle infrastructure, and more. Notably, BEST served as a civic vanguard in support of the 2017 EmX bus rapid transit system expansion. That expansion boosted ridership by 14% and has added more than 43,000 riders annually.
• Greater Eugene Area Riders (GEARS) is a non-profit with the mission to promote and encourage bicycle riding for transportation and recreation. GEARS works to enhance the bicycle culture in Eugene and promote the ongoing expansion of Eugene’s bike path network.
• Walkable Eugene Citizens Advisory Network(WE CAN) is an ad hoc group of homeowners, renters, and property owners who support successful, diverse, and community-supportable walkable, 20-minute neighborhoods in Eugene, and who believe that all Eugene residents should have choices for housing that fit their lifestyle and budget. Note: WE CAN doesn’t appear to be as active as it once was, but its efforts did help push the implementation of such pedestrian-friendly policies as the reduction of parking minimums in the (now withdrawn) South Willamette Area Plan.
• Better Housing Together champions housing diversity and walkability, and supports the development of denser, mixed-use neighborhoods. The group’s efforts contributed toward the passage of House Bill 2001 (HB 2001), which then-governor Kate Brown signed into law on August 8, 2019, taking effect in 2020. The bill allows for alternative and more affordable types of housing to be built, such as duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and cottage clusters. This legislative change will be particularly impactful in Eugene, where the need for increased housing diversity is acute.

Cities, like natural ecosystems, are incredibly complex. The variety of organizations might suggest redundancy, but it’s a strategic asset reflecting this complexity. BEST focuses on transit, WE CAN on walkability, yet their efforts—often overlapping on safer streets—ensures broad coverage. National groups drive broad policy, while local ones tailor it to Eugene’s needs, fostering resilience and innovation. If one falters, others persist, amplifying impact through shared strategies.
 
These groups reshape policy and infrastructure. SGA and CNU influence zoning for mixed-use growth, revitalizing downtowns nationwide, while local efforts like BEST’s advocacy for public transit funding and GEARS’s promotion of bike networks enhance accessibility. Despite occasional resistance, the work of these groups and the others mirrors efforts seen elsewhere that are reshaping landscapes nationwide. Beyond physical changes, they shift public perception, empowering residents to influence what kind of development occurs and to value sustainability.
 
Of course, the University of Oregon has also been a leader in these efforts. The Oregon Experiment pioneered the concept of participatory design. Today, the Sustainable Cities Institute (SCI) focuses on sustainability and cities through applied research, teaching, and community partnerships. SCI works across disciplines that match the complexity of cities to address sustainability challenges, from regional planning to building design. Its programs, which include the Sustainable City Year Program, the EPIC-Network, and Urbanism Next, reflect SCI’s broad reach and influence.
 
Eugene faces mounting growth pressures in the coming decades. Current forecasts predict steady population growth through 2045, driven by migration despite an aging demographic, straining the urban growth boundary. This growth demands more housing—affordable and diverse—and jobs to sustain it, challenges that Envision Eugene and groups like Better Housing Together are tackling head-on, helping to ensure the city adapts proactively.
 
The vision of vibrant, people-centric cities, championed by Jane Jacobs and many others, drives these efforts, yielding steady, tangible progress in many North American cities. This legacy unfolds in Eugene through the persistent efforts of the groups I have mentioned. Cities evolve slowly, like living organisms, requiring time to mature into the resilient, walkable places we envision—an evolution these organizations are committed to sustaining.