Diversity and Mixed Use: Lessons from Medieval China

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Mixed-use urban patterns – patterns which combine living, working and leisure – have been widely advocated since the mid-twentieth century. They were very much the norm in pre-industrial cities around the world but were consistently eroded throughout the 1900s as a result of increasing economic and functional specialization in cities and urban planning interventions that aimed to outlaw mixed use and create segregated land-use patterns. There is little doubt that Jane Jacobs was among the first to recognize the many flaws of land-use separation in cities. She was also one of the most passionate and eloquent advocates of mixed use. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1969 [1961]), Jacobs argued that a mixed-use urban fabric is a vital precondition for creating socially diverse and healthy communities – communities that allow their residents opportunities for personal growth and social interaction. Her call for mixed use has since been echoed by a long line of scholars and practitioners. Among them are well-known contemporary proponents of returning to the design tenets of traditional, pre-industrial cities as a solution to the problems of modern urban development such as Leon Krier (1984) and Andres Duany et al. (2000). Influenced by the works of such urban activists, many planners today take for granted that mixed-use development is a panacea for reviving decaying urban neighbourhoods and creating vibrant, diverse and sustainable urban environments.