The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Name: The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Author: Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs

Mixed uses, short blocks, aged buildings and dense foot traffic are what make a city street safe and alive, so the slum-clearance and superblock planning of postwar renewal was destroying the very disorder that made cities work.

No free copy is linked yet — expect to buy or borrow this one elsewhere.

What it overturned

The consensus this work replaced. Both sides are catalogued, because how a field changed its mind is part of the subject.

Garden Cities of To-MorrowEbenezer Howard, 1898A new kind of town, capped in size and ringed by permanent farmland, can combine the economic pull of the city with the health of the countryside if the increase in land value is captured for the community rather than the landlord.

Groundwork for

Works in the library that name this one as a prerequisite.

The Social Life of Small Urban SpacesWilliam H. Whyte, 1980Filmed, direct observation of how people actually use plazas shows that success is not about space or greenery but about sittable edges, sun, food and the simple presence of other people.

Filed under Urban Design & Planning in Architecture & Built Environment.