The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Jane Jacobs

Vintage Books/Random House, 1961 - Architecture - 458 pages

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 Jacobs's monumental work provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of all cities.

What people are saying

Review: The Death and Life of Great American Cities

User Review  - Jim Dressner - Goodreads

Rightfully deserving it status as a classic, be prepared for this book to challenge some of your positions and stimulate new ideas--pretty good for a book over 50 years old! Key insights for me (so ...

Review: The Death and Life of Great American Cities

User Review  - Alla Polyakova - Goodreads

a must read for anyone who is interested in city planning as a hobby or as a career

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.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Death and Life of Great American Cities; Vintage Books ed; Vintage Series
• Author: Jane Jacobs
• Edition: reprint, reissue
• Publisher: Vintage Books/Random House, 1961
• ISBN: 067974195X, 9780679741954
• Length: 458 pages
• Subjects: Architecture / Urban & Land Use Planning; Social Science / Sociology / Urban