Kaboom!

Perhaps the best feature of Jane Jacob's writing is her often understated wit and sarcasm. Pow! She let's a zinger go where you were expecting her to obligatorily remain severe and staid. Her style is extremely accessible and while she is not the first to speak of urbanism, I do believe she could be considered the powder keg for the latter half of the 20th century, rousing others to action and study. It is a shame Jacobs and Mumford did not have an interview session of the likes of Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, instead we will have to refer back to the sparring on the the page

Is she the Chomsky of urban life?

I was introduced to this book in about 1970 by a girl who'd completed an M.A. on England's first council estate. Both she, and this book, impressed me. I now have, thanks to Amazon, a plump 'Modern Library' Edition, thicker but of similar dimensions to that paperback. It was first published in 1961 as a single volume; but 'portions' were published before this. So this dates to the late 1950s/ 1960.

Jacobs was not popular with architects; I had an architect's journal of the relevant date which snipes at her.

What suddenly occurred to me and causes me puzzlement now is the fact that some towns known to me, in England - e.g. Reading, Blackburn, Bristol I think, parts of London - had their Victorian guts removed AFTER 1960 - typically in the 1970s. (Test yourself here: if you're old enough, and took an interest, when did rebuilding take place? If not, check the history of a town known to you. And I was struck by the fact that nothing at all, not one thing, remained of Atlanta, Georgia, from the 19th century). Suggesting, or proving, that she was ignored, or at least that greater powers defeated her.

IF Jane Jacobs was so influential, how come a lot of what she preached against, took place long after her book? Let me suggest a possibility: maybe Jane Jacobs knew perfectly well - after all, her husband was an architect - that fortunes could be made by demolishing old housing and filling the land with apartments, malls, and the rest. Nothing mysterious about that. And trams, trains, buses, transit schemes could be elbowed out in favour of more profitable private transport. Why not write about this, and how, in her view, cities could be remodelled or developed or left or improved in optimum ways? In fact this book is descriptive, but low on analysis. Compare Chomsky: he wrote on the Vietnam War. How many American generals or airforce people were condemned as war criminals? What actually happened? The answer is - nothing. Even utter ***^ like Kissinger gets kid glove treatment. Maybe Jane Jacobs is in the same mode as regards towns? Could she have been a decoy, an irrelevance, trotted out to pretend something is being done, peoples' deep concerns are being addressed? Someone, please, show I'm wrong.

Still a seminal work on cities and urban life

In spite of the modest shortcomings that have emerged with age, I still have a deep and abiding fondness for this book... after all, it is what decided me on a career change into urban planning. And unlike much of the specialist literature that I've had to read since then, this book is thrilling, passionate, accessible, and inspiring.

For me, at a certain point -- probably about 2/3rds of the way through Death and Life -- Jacobs seems to start to repeat herself a bit, but many of her insights as to what creates vibrant neighbourhoods and vibrant cities remain as applicable today as they were when she was feuding with Robert Moses over the future of the West Village. This book should be required reading for all planners, highway engineers, and developers; many neighbourhood associations would also probably be the better for having a copy to hand.

But Jacobs' greatest strength, I believe, is that she combines great insight with clear prose that is devoid of the 'fancy' specialist terminology that practicing planners and academics use to talk about the forces driving change in neighbourhoods, towns, and metropolises. Anyone can read this book, and everyone should.

A 'Must Have" for a student of Urban Studies

My son is a college senior who is taking a seminar class in urban studies. He was born in Manhattan so it was not a surprise that he should develop an interest in the subject. While I was purchasing another 'leisure read' to send to him, I saw this book as a suggested other possibility. It got very high marks in all the reviews and I thought it would be a great addition to his collection of books in this area. I was not wrong. He loved the book and when he brought it to class, his professor was delighted that he had a copy and called it "the classic for studies of cities". He has even introduced me to Jane Jacobs' work as he reads more and more of this book. I hope to read it from cover to cover when he brings it home from college later this year.

A must for anyone interested in how cities work

Jacobs argues masterfully against the popular assumption that urban density leads to slums and decay. Instead she describes how a dense concentration of people gives a city vitality and provides a built-in source of security through "eyes on the street". Throughout the book she discusses various ways to achieve this density and manage the vitality it brings, all the while challenging misconceptions about how cities work.