The Death and Life of Great American Cities
by Jane Jacobs and Gerd Albers
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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.
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Subjects
City planning, Urban renewal, Urban policy, Cities and towns, United States, Juvenile literature, Stedenbouw, Long Now Manual for Civilization, Rénovation urbaine, Urbanisme, Urbanismo, Public Policy, Politique urbaine, City planning, united states, Cities and towns, united states, Villes, Sociologie urbaine, Croissance, History, Architecture, Amistad (Schooner)Places
United States, États-Unis, United StatedShowing 6 featured editions. View all 42 editions?
| Edition | Availability |
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1
The death and life of great American cities
2011, Modern Library
in English
- 50th anniversary ed., 2011 Modern Library ed.
0679644334 9780679644330
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2
Déclin et survie des grandes villes américaines
April 1, 1995, Mardaga
Paperback
in French
2870094639 9782870094631
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WorldCat
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3
The death and life of great American cities
1993, Modern Library
in English
- Modern Library ed.
0679600477 9780679600473
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WorldCat
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4
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
1992, Vintage Books
in English
- Vintage Books ed.
067974195X 9780679741954
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Book Details
First Sentence
"This book is an attack on current city planning and rebuilding."
Table of Contents
Edition Notes
Originally published: New York : Random House, [1961].
Includes index.
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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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| July 22, 2024 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
| April 21, 2024 | Edited by bitnapper | merge authors |
| April 21, 2024 | Edited by bitnapper | Edited without comment. |
| April 21, 2024 | Edited by bitnapper | Merge works |
| October 17, 2009 | Created by WorkBot | add works page |