The Death and Life of Great American Cities - by Jane Jacobs (Paperback)

About the Book

Originally published: New York: Random House, [1961].

Book Synopsis

Compassionate, bracingly indignant, and keenly detailed, a monumental work that provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of all 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." --The New York Times

A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness 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, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured.

In prose of outstanding immediacy, Jane Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what constitutes a neighborhood, and what function it serves within the larger organism of the city; about why some neighborhoods remain impoverished while others regenerate themselves. She writes about the salutary role of funeral parlors and tenement windows, the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity.

From the Back Cover

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, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured.

Review Quotes

"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." --The New York Times

"Magnificent ... Describes with brilliant specificity what works and what doesn't in cities, in language that is fearless and crisp as a trumpet blast." --Rebecca Solnit

"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" --The New York Times Book Review

"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

About the Author

JANE JACOBS was the legendary author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a work that has never gone out of print and that has transformed the disciplines of urban planning and city architecture. Her other major works include The Economy of Cities, Systems of Survival, The Nature of Economies and Dark Age Ahead. She died in 2006.