Rereading Jane Jacobs: 10 Lessons for the 21st Century from "The Death and Life of Great American Cities"
This article was originally published by Common Edge as "10 Lessons Learned by Rereading Jane Jacobs."
Image <a href='https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jane_Jacobs.jpg'>via Wikimedia</a>, photograph by Phil Stanziola (Public Domain)
This article was originally published by Common Edge as "10 Lessons Learned by Rereading Jane Jacobs."Last week I was in the middle of packing and came across a well-thumbed copy of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. I don?t remember when I read the book, but it was way more than twenty years ago (and predates my professional involvement with cities). As a very belated tribute to the anniversary of her 100th birthday, I decided to dip back into that remarkable book. Here?s ten takeaways from the godmother of the American city.1. The mythical ?ballet of the streets? motif is a tiny portion of the book.That section, which occurs early on, is electric. It?s like an early John Cheever story. But the rest of Death and Life is a dense, meticulously constructed attack on the city planning orthodoxies of the day. Today it reads as a sort of literary polemic, fused with an urban planning and economics manual for cities. No wonder everybody?s head exploded in 1961.2. Having said that: Jane?s magic world of Hudson Street feels as distant as Colonial Williamsburg.It?s a Lost World. Her famous house at 555 Hudson Street sold in 2009 for the ?bargain price? of $3.5-million.3. Jacobs was re...
Image <a href='https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jane_Jacobs.jpg'>via Wikimedia</a>, photograph by Phil Stanziola (Public Domain)
This article was originally published by Common Edge as "10 Lessons Learned by Rereading Jane Jacobs."Last week I was in the middle of packing and came across a well-thumbed copy of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. I don?t remember when I read the book, but it was way more than twenty years ago (and predates my professional involvement with cities). As a very belated tribute to the anniversary of her 100th birthday, I decided to dip back into that remarkable book. Here?s ten takeaways from the godmother of the American city.1. The mythical ?ballet of the streets? motif is a tiny portion of the book.That section, which occurs early on, is electric. It?s like an early John Cheever story. But the rest of Death and Life is a dense, meticulously constructed attack on the city planning orthodoxies of the day. Today it reads as a sort of literary polemic, fused with an urban planning and economics manual for cities. No wonder everybody?s head exploded in 1961.2. Having said that: Jane?s magic world of Hudson Street feels as distant as Colonial Williamsburg.It?s a Lost World. Her famous house at 555 Hudson Street sold in 2009 for the ?bargain price? of $3.5-million.3. Jacobs was re...
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