inspiring & surprisingly accessible

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	• The Death and Life of Great American Cities Jane Jacobs Vintage, 1992 - 458 pages average customer review:based on 64 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Chicagolander

Everything about this book makes sense. As a resident of a suburb of Chicago, every time I go to the city I see a few parts that are fascinating and energetic, and others that seem so unhealthy. This book makes all of that make so much more sense. The areas that I see that are interesting and successful have diverse primary uses -- the cultural centers, commerce and residences are all together. They have a mixture of old and new buildings so that less profitable ventures that still draw people can continue to fluourish. They have public transportationn that even I can figure out and a variety of obstacles make driving incovenient (and encourage people to use more efficient buses and trains). The sidewalks are broad and people watch out for each other, even though there are plenty of crazies. Places like this, like Michigan Avenue, show me that Mrs. Jacobs at least had some things right about the properties of vital cities.

What saddens me though is that it doesn't seem as though her ideas have caught on in the slums of Chicago. The city still knocks down places that don't function, rather than encouraging people to stay and try and make it work. Why does no one try her ideas for encouraging the unslumming of slums? And if they have, why don't these ideas become more widespread? Why are people continuing to try to expand road space rather than focusing on the attrition of vehicles? The fact that after more than 40 years Mrs. Jacobs' ideas don't seem to have been sufficiently tested makes me sad.

Anyway, I strongly recommend this book, it's easy to understand and very interesting. Read it. Think about it.

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great

This is a great book. I read it on the subway and never lost interest. Even today it helps open your eyes to bad planning that occurs in cities that kills what otherwise could be successful neighborhoods.

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inspiring & surprisingly accessible

This book reads like a novel rather than an ideological tome. If you think of it that way, the city is the protagonist and you feel like you're reading a bildundgsroman about this much put upon but always fascinating central character. Wow. Somebody recommended a Modern Library edition. I have to concur because this edition (paperback) is badly designed and hard to read. It's worth getting a nicer edition.

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An Excellent Urban Work

When one begins to talk about city planning and urban land use, the name Jane Jacobs almost always comes up in the conversation. Jacobs is without question the leading scholar attacking the modern urban theories of development. If you ask any average suburban soccer mom or dad what the problem is with the city, they almost always say "it is too crowded!"

Jacobs is able to show that the real problem with cities isn't overpopulation - rather, it is exactly the opposite! The major problem with cities today is that they aren't dense enough. Empty sidewalks are inviting only to criminals. Children, shop keepers, and families hate an empty sidewalk.

Furthermore, city planners compound the situation by moving businesses (and therefore commerce) away from residences - thus resulting in a further decline of sidewalk traffic.

If you're going to be involved in city government, planning, or land use, you should definitely read this book. I'm a small government conservative, and lots of other conservatives are scared by Jacobs -- but let me tell you -- this is the future of America. We should accept and embrace this urban challenge.

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A landmark piece of work

I've been reading a lot lately about urban planning, because after having moved to Silicon Valley I couldn't help but notice how different the place looked from the European cities that I was used to. My curiosity about why the place looks so different and barren was satisfied by reading Suburban Nation. But in the course of reading that, and a great many other books on the same subject, I couldn't help but notice dozens of citations from The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Now I can see why. It's hard to believe that something so insightful could have been written when it was, and that so much of the well-researched and well-argued material was ignored by the planners who went ahead with the malling and sprawling of the west.

Today I see the same mistakes being repeated in my own country, Ireland, where catering for the needs of the automobile at the expense of everything else is going ahead with the same indecent haste that it did in the USA all those years ago.

This book is very detailed and comprehensive, a lot more so than much of the more recent works on this very topic. It can be heavy reading at times though, Ms Jacobs does tend to talk about certain concepts in a general and abstract way and could use more examples to explain what she's saying, but if you concentrate hard enough you will find it well worth it.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

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recommendations

Recommended by Columbia Univ. Urban Planning class of 2008
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