The death and life of great American cities

Author

• Jacobs, Jane

Additional Author(s)

-

Publisher

New York: The Modern Library, 2011

Language

English

ISBN

9780679644330

Series

Subject(s)

• CITY PLANNING-UNITED STATES
• URBAN RENEWAL-UNITED STATES
• URBAN POLICY

Notes

. . Index: p. 587-598

Abstract

Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of its initial publication, this special edition of Jane Jacobs's masterpiece, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, features a new Introduction by Jason Epstein, the book's original editor, who provides an intimate perspective on Jacobs herself and unique insights into the creation and lasting influence of this classic. The Death and Life of Great American Cities was described by The New York Times as "perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning. . . . [It] can also be seen in a much larger context. It is first of all a work of literature; the descriptions of street life as a kind of ballet and the bitingly satiric account of traditional planning theory can still be read for pleasure even by those who long ago absorbed and appropriated the book's arguments." Jane Jacobs, an editor and writer on architecture in New York City in the early sixties, argued that urban diversity and vitality were being destroyed by powerful architects and city planners. Rigorous, sane, and delightfully epigrammatic, Jane Jacobs's tour de force is a blueprint for the humanistic management of cities. It remains sensible, knowledgeable, readable, and indispensable.

Physical Dimension

Number of Page(s)

xxxvi, 598 p.

Dimension

19 cm.

Other Desc.

-

Summary / Review / Table of Content

Peculiar nature of cities: Uses of sidewalks, safety;
Uses of sidewalks, contact;
Uses of sidewalks, assimilating children;
Uses of neighborhood parks;
Uses of city neighborhoods --
Conditions for city diversity: Generators of diversity;
Need for mixed primary uses;
Need for small blocks;
Need for aged buildings;
Need for concentration;
Some myths about diversity --
Forces of decline and regeneration: Self-destruction of diversity;
curse of border vacuums;
Unslumming and slumming;
Gradual money and cataclysmic money --
Different tactics: Subsidizing dwellings;
Erosion of cities or attrition of automobiles;
Visual order, its limitations and possibilities;
Salvaging projects;
Governing and planning districts;
Kind of problem a city is.

Exemplar(s)

#	Accession No.	Call Number	Location	Status
1.	01811/18	307.760973 Jac D	Library - 7th Floor	Available