DIY City: The Collective Power of Small Actions

Abstract

of Jacobsian insights about street life, when Jacobs’ attention had turned to other topics. His work can be traced as an influence on such luminaries as Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Andres Duany and Jan Gehl. Holly, sensitive to the zeitgeist of the emerging environmental movement during the 1970s, was able to recognise how important this was to be, as well as realising and finding a passion for the preservation of open spaces on the fringes of cities. His advocacy around density cluster zoning land easements to preserve land and a whole variety of planning strategic and tactical mechanisms strike one as being remarkably prescient. When you think about the different disciplines that have influenced urban planning during the twentieth century you could easily list the utopianism of Howard, the biological influences of Patrick Geddes or the architectural approaches of Clarence Stein and Patrick Abercrombie as key. Holly, perhaps uniquely, brought to the discipline a business study-based understanding of organisations, a commitment to supporting the collective wisdom of the masses to make decisions about complex and emerging systems that were of collective benefit. As with any biography there is ample detail here, and some may be of less interest to a planning audience. These include details about Holly’s marriage, (notwithstanding that that inspired him to look at social spaces for children) genealogical details, details about his alma mater and his hobnobbing with a set of influential East Coast political and economic decision makers. Overall, through a series of short chapters Rein deftly picks apart this complicated person and all of his webs of influence. Many chapters of this book could easily be used in a planning history course to help students understand not only Holly himself but the different kinds of debates that circulated around planning during the late twentieth century. These include sprawl and density, planning as an expert-led subject, public participation, and land rights. Holly’s influence on planning can be seen as layers of an onion in which the innermost part clearly are his writing in the Social Life of Small Spaces and the New York plan. Towards the more outer layers are his sociological studies, his influence on other key thinkers and his networking ability, catalysing dialogues between figures like Jane Jacobs, the Rockefellers and the sociologist Herbert Gans.