About this title: Jane Jacobs sets out to produce an attack on current city-planning and rebuilding in America and to introduce new principles by which these should be governed. Throughout the post-war period, planners temperamentally unsympathetic to cities have been let loose on the urban environment. Inspired by the ideals of the Garden City or Le Corbusier's ...
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1992-12-01
ISBN-13:9780679741954ISBN:067974195X
Description: Good. Books may NOT include Online Access Codes (InfoTrac, MyEconLab). Books MAY contain highlighting, bent pages, and/or writing. We ship M-F. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1992
ISBN-13:9780679741954ISBN:067974195X
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 458 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Fair. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Shipped quickly. 1961. Paperback. First Edition Ed. Used, acceptable. Previous owner's name/address inside. Text pages show modest aging/yellowing. Cover has some rubbing. Cover has some edge wear. read more
Description: New. A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the shortsightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great American Cities has, since its first publication in 1961, b... read more
"Having lived in Chicago all my life, but traveled extensively to Europe, I've recently been plagued with a feeling that something is missing in my city. Why does it feel like Chicago is become a city of suburbs instead of a vibrant, life-filled area of diversity? The reason behind those feelings was simply and comprehensively answered in Jacob's classic book. She discusses the purpose of cities and the four major requirements necessary to achieving those aims (having lived in European metropolises, its easy to understand her examples). She then presents methods of achieving those aims and the mentality we must posses to succeed. Jacobs writes clearly and with plenty of examples (though outdated at this point); the structure of her writing is easily followed and economical. I highly recommend this work to those who love cities."
"someone recently asked me what credentials jane jacobs had when she wrote this book, and why we should listen to her if she didn't have a formal education in urban planning. well, because she possessed incredible common sense and sincere interest in the well-being of city people and their neighborhoods, and said a lot of things that no formally trained urban planners did. do you have general interest in cities or want some ideas about how to improve your own neighborhood? great. get a copy of this book.
note: i'm not done yet-- it's pretty long-- so don't take the shameless plug above as an endorsement of everything she has to say. anyway, it's been 50 years since the book was written, so certain things are bound to have changed, and some of jacobs' ideas are now common wisdom."
"This is her seminal work from around 1960, and it still holds up today. Challenging urban planning conventions of the time, Jacobs relies on her journalistic observations, colorful case studies, and common sense to show how cities actually work. She translates reality into theory, building from sidewalks and streets to neighborhoods and districts to, ultimately, robust city vitality. If you enjoy urban life and want to dissect what makes it tick, Jacobs will be your feisty guide.
It is especially pleasing to read a book from nearly 50 years ago and contemplate how it has informed -- and continues to inform -- the smartest planners of city dynamics. This book has sharpened my instincts and actually heightened my enjoyment of American cities (including, of course, Chicago)."
To generate exuberant diversity in a city's streets and districts, four conditions are indispensable: The distrct must serve more than one purpose (preferably more than two), the blocks must be short, the buildings must vary in age and condition, and the population must be dense.
Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, which used to be considered by many critics one of the most beautiful of American avenues (it was, in those days, essentially a suburban avenue of large, fine houses with large, fine grounds), has now been excoriated, with justice... as one of the ugliest and most disorganized of city streets. In converting to outright urban use, Euclid Avenue has converted to homogeneity: office buildings again, and again a chaos of shouted, but superficial, differences. (p. 226)
Traffic congestion is caused by vehicles, not by people in themselves. Wherever people are thinly settled, rather than densely concentrated, or wherever diverse uses occur infrequently, any specific attraction does cause traffic congestion... this is tolerable where the population is thinly spread. It becomes an intolerable condition, destructive of all other values and all other aspects of convenience, where populations are heavy or continuous. (p. 230)
... Credit-blacklist maps are identical, both in conception and in most results, with municipal slum-clearance maps. And municipal slum-clearance maps are regarded as responsible devices, used for responsible purposes - among their purposes is, in fact, that of warning lenders not to invest here... Credit-blacklist maps, like slum-clearance maps, are accurate prophecies because they are self-fulfilling prophecies. (p. 300)
... there is a basic aesthetic limitation on what can be done with cities: A city cannot be a work of art... we need art most, perhaps, to reassure us of our own humanity. However, although art and life are interwoven, they are not the same things. Confusion between them is, in part, why efforts at city design are so disappointing. (p. 372)
What if we fail to stop the erosion of cities by automobiles? What if we are prevented from catalyzing workable and vital cities because the practical steps needed to do so are in conflict with the practical steps demanded by erosion?... In that case we Americans will hardly need to ponder a mystery that has troubled men for millenia: What is the purpose of life? For us, theanswer will be clear, established and for all practical purposes indisputable: The purpose of life is to produce and consume automobiles. (p. 370)"
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