Urban Planning By Jane Jacobs

Planning principles is the body of knowledge on how to plan different urban forms in a land to become a lively town or country. Urban forms are houses, shops, streets, etc. There are a lot of theories used around the world. All of them are an effort to modernize urban. Jane Jacobs too had a thought in the urban planning. In a book of hers, The Death and Life of Great American Cities cited her opinion towards the city. It was more about safety and security on the streets among the strangers. Not less form Oscar Newman, his planning theories were more on defensible spaces. In his book, Design Guidelines for Creating Defensible Space, he proposed that defensible spaces depend on the involvement of residents to reduce crimes and remove criminals.
Therefore, she presented that the character of the city should be determined by these four generators of diversity: mixed uses, permeability (short blocks), variety in the built environment (variety of building in function and age), and high density (high dense of people). She discusses how these affect the social and economic vitality of place.
Streets must be filled with differing residents, businesses and public infrastructure in order to generate “a continuous come and go on city and sidewalks”. Short blocks are needed to create more variety and different ages of buildings add more interesting character to the built environment. Moreover, high density of people creates safety of the streets, because there are many “eyes” one the streets.
Oscar Newman’s theories has the ability to bring people of different incomes and race together in a mutually beneficial union. For low-income people, Defensible Space can provide many benefits because it provides self-defend, rather than government intervention. It also propose the effect of different housing form towards the defensible spaces. There are 5 factors determine defensible spaces: natural surveillance, image, milieu, territoriality, close juxtaposition. The 5 factors are interconnected to each other to make strong defensible spaces where criminals are reduced and
When the criminals know that particular neighborhood is difficult to trespass because the residents are always on surveillance, they would give up committing crimes at that area. This will form a good image that criminals would never lay their hands at that neighborhood, therefore the area will be safe.

2.5 Private and Public Spaces
Private space means a space or area that belongs to one particular person or group of people only. Public space means a space or area that belongs to everyone and is not possess by anyone. For land houses, all interior spaces of a dwelling unit and the ground around the private unit are within the private domain of the family. The semi private space is the front garden of the house, because although it is owned by the resident there is also an implied invitation for people to walk onto it, such as the postman. Usually people do not stay long at the semi private spaces, because it is owned and has controlled by the owner. In Malaysia, the houses are defended by fences, the area within the fences is owned. The area outside the fences, streets and roads are public spaces. (see figure