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The Death and Life of Great American Cities

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The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Modern Library (Hardcover))

by Jane Jacobs

Hardcover

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None(1 Copy): Fair Connecting readers with great books since 1972. Used books may not include companion materials, some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, may not include cdrom or access codes. Customer service is our top priority!

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Used Very Good(1 Copy): Very Good 8vo-7¾"-9¾" Tall 0679600477 Clean and Solid Interior bright, unmarked.

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Used Very Good(1 Copy): Very Good. Dust Jacket Missing Academic, Scholarly, Research. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. 598 pp. Solidly bound copy with moderate external wear, crisp pages and clean text. Occassional pen markings on text. Dj missing. Synopsis: Thirty years after its publication, The Death and Life of Great American Cities was described by The New York Times as "perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning. [It] can also be seen in a much larger context. It is first of all a work of literature; the descriptions of street life as a kind of ballet and the bitingly satiric account of traditional planning theory can still be read for pleasure even by those who long ago absorbed and appropriated the book's arguments." Jane Jacobs, an editor and writer on architecture in New York City in the early sixties, argued that urban diversity and vitality were being destroyed by powerful architects and city planners. Rigorous, sane, and delightfully epigrammatic, Jacobs's small masterpiece is a blueprint for the humanistic management of cities. It is sensible, knowledgeable, readable, indispensable. The author has written a new foreword for this Modern Library edition."The most refreshing, provacative, stimulating and exciting study of this [great problem] which I have seen. It fairly crackles with bright honesty and common sense."? Harrison Salisbury, The New York Times"One of the most remarkable books ever written about the city. a primary work. The research apparatus is not pretentious? it is the eye and the heart? but it has given us a magnificent study of what gives life and spirit to the city."? William H. Whyte, author of The Organization ManFrom the Trade Paperback edition. Jane Jacobs was born on May 4, 1916, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Her father was a physician and her mother taught school and worked as a nurse. After high school and a year spent as a reporter on the Scranton Tribune, Jacobs went to New York, where she found a succession of jobs as a stenographer and wrote free-lance articles about the city's many working districts, which fascinated her. In 1952, after a number of writing and editing jobs ranging in subject matter from metallurgy to a geography of the United States for foreign readers, she became an associate editor of Architectural Forum. She was becoming increasingly skeptical of conventional planning beliefs as she noticed that the city rebuilding projects she was assigned to write about seemed neither safe, interesting, alive, nor good economics for cities once the projects were built and in operation. She gave a speech to that effect at Harvard in 1956, and this led to an article in Fortune magazine entitled "Downtown Is for People, " which in turn led to The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The book was published in 1961 and produced permanent changes in the debate over urban renewal and the future of cities. In opposition to the kind of large-scale, bulldozing government intervention in city planning associated with Robert Moses and with federal slum-clearing projects, Jacobs proposed a renewal from the ground up, emphasizing mixed use rather than exclusively residential or commercial districts, and drawing on the human vitality of existing neighborhoods: "Vital cities have marvelous innate abilities for understanding, communicating, contriving, and inventing what is required to combat their difficulties. Lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration, with energy enough to carry over for problems and needs outside themselves." Although Jacobs's lack of experience as either architect or city planner drew criticism, The Death and Life of Great American Cities was quickly recognized as one of the most original and powerfully argued books of its day. It was variously praised as "the most refreshing, provocative, stimulating, and exciting study of this greatest of our problems of living which I have seen" (Harrison Salisbury) and "a magnificent study of what gives life and spirit to the city" (William H. Whyte).

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New: New. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 624 p. Modern Library (Hardcover).

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New: New. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 624 p. Modern Library (Hardcover).

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Used Like New(1 Copy): Fine 0679600477 1st edition 1st printing-brand new clean fine copy in mylar cover-enjoy.

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About the Book

'Whenever and wherever societies have flourished and prospered rather than stagnated and decayed, creative and workable cities have been at the core of the phenomenon...Decaying cities, declining economies, and mounting social troubles travel together. The combination is not coincidental.' -- Jane Jacobs

Product Details

Media: Hardcover Book, 624 pages

Language: English

Publisher: Modern Library

Edition: Unknown

ISBN-10: 0679600477

Publication Date: Feb. 28th, 1993

ISBN-13: 9780679600473

Dimensions: 5.12 x 7.32 x 1.58 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.30 lbs

Categories: Architecture Planning Urban Sociology

REVIEW SNAPSHOT®

by PowerReviews

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

5.0

(based on 1 review)

Reviewed by 1 customer

Displaying review 1

4/26/2013

5.0

A seminal work

By AVQueiroz

from São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil

About Me Everyday Reader

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Comments about The Death and Life of Great American Cities:

This is a seminal work, quoted in almost every other work on urbanism, city planning etc. Some of its aspects have to be reviewed in function of the changes our world underwent since it was written, but, if anyone wishes to have a deep understanding of these subjects, this is a must read. And it is indeed a pleasure to read it. The author was very intelligent and very perspicacious, besides being outstanding in observing everyday human behaviour.

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