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The Death and Life of Great American Cities
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  • Published: 19 March 2020
  • ISBN: 9781847926180
  • Imprint: Bodley Head
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 480
  • RRP: $39.99

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
19 Mar 2020
EBook
17 Nov 2016
Audiobook
13 Sept 2011
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'Perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning... Jacobs has a powerful sense of narrative, a lively wit, a talent for surprise and the ability to touch the emotions as well as the mind' New York Times Book Review

In this classic text, Jane Jacobs set out to produce an attack on current city planning and rebuilding and to introduce new principles by which these should be governed. The result is one of the most stimulating books on cities ever written.

Throughout the post-war period, planners temperamentally unsympathetic to cities have been let loose on our urban environment. Inspired by the ideals of the Garden City or Le Corbusier's Radiant City, they have dreamt up ambitious projects based on self-contained neighbourhoods, super-blocks, rigid 'scientific' plans and endless acres of grass. Yet they seldom stop to look at what actually works on the ground.

The real vitality of cities, argues Jacobs, lies in their diversity, architectural variety, teeming street life and human scale. It is only when we appreciate such fundamental realities that we can hope to create cities that are safe, interesting and economically viable, as well as places that people want to live in.

'Perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning... Jacobs has a powerful sense of narrative, a lively wit, a talent for surprise and the ability to touch the emotions as well as the mind' New York Times Book Review
  • Published: 19 March 2020
  • ISBN: 9781847926180
  • Imprint: Bodley Head
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 480
  • RRP: $39.99
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About the author

Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs was an urban writer and activist who championed new, community-based approaches to planning for more than forty years. Her 1961 treatise The Death and Life of Great American Cities became perhaps the most influential American text about the inner workings and failings of cities, inspiring generations of urban planners and activists. Her efforts to stop downtown expressways and protect local neighborhoods invigorated community-based urban activism and helped end Parks Commissioner Robert Moses’s reign of power in New York City. Jane Jacobs died in 2006.
JJ

Also by Jane Jacobs

The Economy of Cities
Jane Jacobs: The Last Interview
Dark Age Ahead
The Nature of Economies
Systems Of Survival
Cities and the Wealth of Nations
See all

Praise for The Death and Life of Great American Cities

The most refreshing, provacative, stimulating and exciting study of this [great problem] which I have seen. It fairly crackles with bright honesty and common sense

Harrison Salisbury, New York Times

One of the most remarkable books ever written about the city... a primary work. The research apparatus is not pretentious it is the eye and the heart but it has given us a magnificent study of what gives life and spirit to the city

William H. Whyte, author of The Organization Man

Perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning... Jacobs has a powerful sense of narrative, a lively wit, a talent for surprise and the ability to touch the emotions as well as the mind

New York Times Book Review

An immensely provocative and rewarding book... It challenges comfortable assumptions...but it does so in a manner that is neither rancorous nor contentions

Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post