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Death and Life of Great American Cities (Peregrine Books)
![Death and Life of Great American Cities (Peregrine Books)]()
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Additional Death and Life of Great American Cities (Peregrine Books) Information
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This book is an attack on current methods of city planning and re-building. It is also an explanation of new principles and an argument for different methods from those now in use. It is the first real alternative to conventional city planning that we have had in this century. Its author, herself a city dweller and an editor of Architectural Forum, is direct and practical in her approach. What, she asks, makes cities work? Why are some neighborhoods full of things to do and see and why are others dull? Why does the crime rate soar in our public housing developments and why are some of our older neighborhoods, despite their evident pov-erty, so much more safe, stable and congenial? Why do some neighborhoods attract interested and responsible populations and why do others degenerate? Why are Boston's North End and the eastern and western extremes of Greenwich Village good neighborhoods and why do orthodox city planners consider them slums? What alternatives are there to current city planning and rebuilding?
Conventional city planning holds that cities decline because they are blighted by too many people, by mixtures of commercial, industrial and residential uses, by old buildings and narrow streets and by small landholders who stand in the way of large-scale development. Such neighborhoods, they insist, breed apathy and crime, discourage investment and contaminate the areas around them. The response of con-ventional city planning is to tear them down, scatter their inhabitants, lay out super-blocks, and rebuild the area accord-ing to an integrated plan, with the result, as often as not, that the crime rate rises still higher, the new neighborhood is more lifeless than the old one, and the surrounding areas deteriorate even more, until the life of the whole city is threatened.
But Mrs. Jacobs observes that in any number of cases these very conditions--mixed uses, dense population, old buildings, small blocks, decentralized ownership--create the very opposite of slums, neighborhoods that regenerate themselves spontaneously, that are full of variety and diversity, that attract large numbers of casual visitors and responsible new residents, that encourage investment and revitalize the areas around them. Boston's North End (condemned as a slum by or-thodox planners) is such a neighborhood, and so is Greenwich Village. Rittenhouse Square and Telegraph Hill are others. Nearly every large city can produce still other examples.
Why then do some city neighborhoods die and why do others flourish? And what can city planners do to avoid the death and encourage the life of our great American cities? The solutions proposed by Mrs. Jacobs in this book represent a sharp break with conventional thinking on the subject and they carry with them the ring of simple truth which marks this book as an inevitable classic of social thought.
This edition is set from the first American edition of 1961 and commemorates the seventy-fifth anniversary of Random House.
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What Customers Say About Death and Life of Great American Cities (Peregrine Books):
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For me, at a certain point -- probably about 2/3rds of the way through Death and Life -- Jacobs seems to start to repeat herself a bit, but many of her insights as to what creates vibrant neighbourhoods and vibrant cities remain as applicable today as they were when she was feuding with Robert Moses over the future of the West Village. But Jacobs' greatest strength, I believe, is that she combines great insight with clear prose that is devoid of the 'fancy' specialist terminology that practicing planners and academics use to talk about the forces driving change in neighbourhoods, towns, and metropolises. In spite of the modest shortcomings that have emerged with age, I still have a deep and abiding fondness for this book. This book should be required reading for all planners, highway engineers, and developers; many neighbourhood associations would also probably be the better for having a copy to hand. Anyone can read this book, and everyone should. after all, it is what decided me on a career change into urban planning. And unlike much of the specialist literature that I've had to read since then, this book is thrilling, passionate, accessible, and inspiring.
He has even introduced me to Jane Jacobs' work as he reads more and more of this book. I was not wrong. He loved the book and when he brought it to class, his professor was delighted that he had a copy and called it "the classic for studies of cities". My son is a college senior who is taking a seminar class in urban studies. I hope to read it from cover to cover when he brings it home from college later this year. While I was purchasing another 'leisure read' to send to him, I saw this book as a suggested other possibility. He was born in Manhattan so it was not a surprise that he should develop an interest in the subject. It got very high marks in all the reviews and I thought it would be a great addition to his collection of books in this area.
Throughout the book she discusses various ways to achieve this density and manage the vitality it brings, all the while challenging misconceptions about how cities work. Jacobs argues masterfully against the popular assumption that urban density leads to slums and decay. Instead she describes how a dense concentration of people gives a city vitality and provides a built-in source of security through "eyes on the street".
Living in Detroit in 2009 I find the book quite relevant since we are now on a journey to remake the city.
I would recommend this book to anyone that is interested in learning more about the urban environment. I bought this book as a required reading for school. It was very easy to read and covered many interesting topics.
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