From a fantastic interview with Jane Jacobs, by James Howard Kunstler in September 2000 for Metropolis Magazine:
Jacobs: There are still an awful lot of intelligent, clever constructive Americans and they are still doing clever constructive things. Is it more necessary to be able to design computers or is more necessary to be able to manufacture computers. I think that it is necessary to do both. I think it is fatal to specialize. And all kinds of things show us that and that the more diverse we are in what we can do the better. But I don’t think that you can dispose of the constructive and inventive things that America is doing—and say oh we aren’t doing anything anymore and we are living off of what the poor Chinese do. It is more complicated than that. There is the example of Detroit which you noticed yourself was once a very prosperous and diverse city. And look what happened when it just specialized on automobiles. Look at Manchester when it specialized in those dark satanic mills, when it specialized in textiles. It was supposed to be the city of the future.
Kunstler: We have an awful lot of places in America that don’t specialize in anything anymore and don’t produce anything in particular anymore.
Jacobs: Well that’s better than specializing.
Related posts:
- Lay Guide to WikiCity
- David Dawson on Compromise
- The Contextual City
- Detroit, Australian Libraries, Processing and A Place Where Things are Happening