‘Downtown Is for People’: The street-level approach in Jane Jacobs' legacy and its resonance in the planning debate within the complexity theory of cities

Jane Jacobs suggested that ‘just and diverse streets’ reflect the functioning of the city as ‘a problem of organised complexity’. The topic has recently been at the centre of the debate on her work. This paper looks at Jane Jacobs's reconstruction of the way a city works with reference to self-organisation and ethical aspects (trust and respect for diversity). The paper uses ‘Street-Level epistemology’ (SLe), which is a theory on the knowledge of ordinary people, in order to examine different ways to approach contemporary complex urban systems, resulting from myriads of self-organised practices and ‘vital little plans’. The paper employs Jacobs's early works on cities, in particular, a chapter in her book titled ‘Downtown Is for People’, to outline a proper Jacobsian Street-Level approach (SLa) substantiated by an ethical-cognitive component. This SLa is associated with the Complexity Theory of Cities (CTC), to improve the understanding of how complex, non-linear, discontinuous, and contingent urban systems work while constantly progressing and transforming. The paper draws on Jacobs's legacy and advocates progress through specific advancements in the debate around theoretical planning within CTC that describes the city as an emerging complex order.