The Death and Life of Great American Cities

A ground-breaking, direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in the 20th century, and on into the twenty-first. Since its first publication in 1961, Jacobs' book has become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured. Arguing that the 'real vitality' of cities lies in their diversity, architectural variety, teeming street life and human scale, this work provides an essential and provocative framework for assessing how humans live 'in the city'. Index. 458p. Jane Jacobs passed away on April 25th, 2006. Her call for an 'urban jouissance' altered the course of urban planning.