The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Vintage Books ed.
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  • 4.3 (13 ratings) ·
  • 200 Want to read
  • 8 Currently reading
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Last edited by MARC Bot
July 21, 2024 | History

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Vintage Books ed.
  • 4.3 (13 ratings) ·
  • 200 Want to read
  • 8 Currently reading
  • 19 Have read

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. Compassionate, bracingly indignant, and always keenly detailed. Jane Jacob's monumental work provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of cities.

Publish Date
Publisher
Vintage Books
Language
English
Pages
458

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Previews available in: English French

Edition Availability
Cover of: The death and life of great American cities
The death and life of great American cities
2011, Modern Library
in English - 50th anniversary ed., 2011 Modern Library ed.
Cover of: Déclin et survie des grandes villes américaines
Déclin et survie des grandes villes américaines
April 1, 1995, Mardaga
Paperback in French
Cover of: The death and life of great American cities
The death and life of great American cities
1993, Modern Library
in English - Modern Library ed.
Cover of: The Death and Life of Great American Cities
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
1992, Vintage Books
in English - Vintage Books ed.
Cover of: The death and life of great American cities.
Cover of: The death and life of great American cities.

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Book Details


First Sentence

"This book is an attack on current city planning and rebuilding."

Edition Notes

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

Published in
New York

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
307.76/0973
Library of Congress
HT167 .J33 1992, HT167 .J33 1961, Sp.Col. NA9108 .J3 c.2

The Physical Object

Pagination
458 p. :
Number of pages
458

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL1742994M
Internet Archive
deathlifeofgreat0000jaco_n0t5
ISBN 10
067974195X
LCCN
92050082, 61006262
OCLC/WorldCat
26213966
Goodreads
381359

Work Description

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.

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History

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July 21, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
April 21, 2024 Edited by bitnapper Edited without comment.
December 19, 2023 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
January 14, 2023 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
April 1, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from Scriblio MARC record