Main entry:

Jacobs, Jane, 1916-2006, author.

Title & Author:

The death and life of great American cities / Jane Jacobs.

Publication:

New York : Random House, [1961]
©1961

Description:

11 unnumbered pages, 458 pages, 1 unnumbered page : illustrations ; 24 cm

Notes:
Includes index.
Peculiar nature of cities: Uses of sidewalks, safety; Uses of sidewalks, contact; Uses of sidewalks, assimilating children; Uses of neighborhood parks; Uses of city neighborhoods -- Conditions for city diversity: Generators of diversity; Need for mixed primary uses; Need for small blocks; Need for aged buildings; Need for concentration; Some myths about diversity -- Forces of decline and regeneration: Self-destruction of diversity; curse of border vacuums; Unslumming and slumming; Gradual money and cataclysmic money -- Different tactics: Subsidizing dwellings; Erosion of cities or attrition of automobiles; Visual order, its limitations and possibilities; Salvaging projects; Governing and planning districts; Kind of problem a city is.

Summary:

Jane Jacobs critiques the comprehensive modernist approach to urban planning after 1945. By the 1950s, various American cities were pursuing ambitious urban renewal policies, influenced by Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier's concept of the "Radiant City." Jacobs sees this being utterly at odds with urban realities, and leading to the destruction of the city as a living community. This futurist vision insisted on the absolute segregation of the city's different activities into separate zones, linked (though also physically isolated) by super-highways set in wide parkland landscaping. The colossal physical destruction that was necessary to implement this vision tore apart the traditional multi-activity street and densely populated neighborhood that Jacobs avers is the bedrock of urban living.

ISBN:

0394421590
9780394421599
067974195X
9780679741954

Subject:

City planning United States.
City planning.
Urbanisme.
urban planning.
Stedenbouw.
Urban renewal United States.
Urban policy United States.
City Planning
United States.

Form/genre:

Dust jackets (Binding) NNC.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 13269
Call No.: NA9108.J3 1961
Copy: c. 2
Status: Available

Location: Library main 13268
Call No.: NA9108.J3 1961
Copy: c. 1
Status: Available