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What are readers saying about The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Modern Library Series)?
| Reviews of The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Modern Library Series) - Page 1 of 3 |
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-12-21 09:40:27.
(Language: English)
 
There is nothing quite like reading the astute observations from an organized and disciplined mind. Jacobs challenges conventional wisdom so masterfully that you immediately wonder why you've accepted all that garbage you learned about urban planning and social organization.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-09-22 02:49:23.
(Language: English)
Lays out, from careful observation, what works and what doesn't work in cities. No wonder contemporary urbanists ask "what would Jane Jacobs do"?
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-02-22 11:48:00.
(Language: English)
a must read if you're fascinated about City Planning. It's also interesting because it explains what criteria make the "best/most alive" cities - and it's not what you think... and it's certainly not suburbia. It's variety that makes for the best places to live - a mixture of old/new, tall/short, rich/poor, a vital public and local art community...
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-08-07 03:24:48.
(Language: English)
Excellent, should be required reading for all transportation specialist, urban planners and developers. Having grown up in Europe in cities with amenities close at hand and the country side right on the out skirts, this book brings hope to the US. Great, integrated, mixed use, alive, vibrant communities do exist and they can exist in the US as well. It does not all have to be a boring suburbia.
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-09-11 09:05:28.
(Language: English)
This is a classic on city planning, but I found it better to read it is spurts, like a textbook. Not to say it is not readable, but that it is a book that you should chew on a bit.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-09-23 06:47:33.
(Language: English)
Excellent Book! Jane Jacobs is one of my heroes.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-05-20 08:54:43.
(Language: English)
One of the great books of twentieth century U.S.A. Jacobs defends neighbors and neighborhoods, loving the urban, setting out not its charms but its fundamental human value.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-12-13 11:22:13.
(Language: English)
amazing
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-01-25 05:18:12.
(Language: English)
This is such an important book, and a must-read for all students of urban planning. Jane Jacobs makes valid observations that are timeless. This book stays with you long after you have read it.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-10-26 05:56:21.
(Language: English)
Shaped my view of urban development to a whole new direction.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-11-25 01:19:47.
(Language: English)
While I appreciated the viewpoint from which Jacobs was able to present her arguments, I did find her to be overly verbose at times. Aside from wishing wishing she would wrap up her arguments a little quicker, I found the book to be highly insightful on many of the issues planners were failing to consider during urban renewal. A necessary read for anyone interested in urban planning.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-01-23 08:46:31.
(Language: English)
Amazing !!
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-07-26 05:30:52.
(Language: English)
Jacobs will change the way you look at and feel about cities. Her account of the ballet of the street is eye-opening (for those who do not live in urban places) and poetic (for those who do). I am not in agreement with her support of rent controls, but this book from Jacobs is truly a masterpiece.
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-05-26 05:55:58.
(Language: English)
Many of us live in cities, but how many of us understand how cities actually work? The answer: We understand more than most city planners and administrators! Although written in 1961, this book is remarkably current and could have been written in 2010. We haven't learned much in fifty years. This book should be required reading for every person involved in city government, administration, and planning.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-11-22 10:01:29.
(Language: English)
So I want to say bad things about this book. I really, really do. But, yeah, it's great. Basically, Jane Jacobs is to be blamed for Greenwich Village now being just about the most sought-after neighborhood in the world, rather than being something buried under a Robert Moses freeway. This book is about how she theorizes cities and how she helped organize her neighborhood to stop the city's misguided plans. I come to urban planning as an outsider, but the sense of the field that I get from reading current urban planning theorists is that basically everyone working in the field today uses Jacobs' ideas as a starting point. Unlike most stuff on this topic, the writing is remarkably lucid, to the point of being almost addictively readable -- I've read it before, but after recently unpacking my copy from a box that it'd been in since my last move, I had to lend it to a friend so that I'd stop wasting time flipping through it. I kind of think that the approachability of the writing style is itself a polemical point; the content is all about how city neighborhoods need to be sufficiently human-scaled to be comprehensible and varied enough to be interesting, and in turn the form is human-scaled, lively, and varied.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-03-15 11:28:08.
(Language: Spanish)
como compendio, exhaustivo y pesado. Como analisis, profundo e incisivo, este libro marca una pauta en planificacion urbana
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-03-12 08:29:30.
(Language: English)
THis is the best. I can't find anything in the book that I disagree with. Simple and FULL of relevant information for cities. It deserves all the credit it gets.
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Jay posted a review at 2010-01-09 08:24:06.
(Language: English)
I had never been exposed to any literature about urban planning prior to reading this, and I'd heard of the book online in some news story. While reading the book, I found myself thinking of how it applied to my own city and why different portions had been successful and thrived versus falling into disrepair and 'slumming' as she used in the book. Not sure if I'll get into urban planning more, but did find this very interesting...
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-01-01 03:09:46.
(Language: English)
Fantastic stories from an interesting woman. Not much has topped her ideas of the ways streets, greens, buildings, and well-planned urban areas work.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-11-24 01:43:53.
(Language: English)
Even though this was written nearly 50 years ago, it's a great look into what makes a city "great."
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-11-05 07:19:19.
(Language: English)
This ought to be required reading for everyone who serves as a mayor, alderman/councilman, planner, etc. for a large city. Written 60 years ago, and still true today!
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-12-13 08:28:43.
(Language: English)
I must read for every planner and fields related to community development
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-09-10 05:53:32.
(Language: English)
Jacobs argues for a revolution in urban planning, complaining that the orthodoxy is based on theories that treat cities as inherently dysfunctional structures, and project designs that erase rather than embrace the diversity and vibrancy of city life. The statistical approach to urban studies, treating city dwellers as atomized, disaggregated data points, compounds the problem. Jacob's approach focuses on building and maintaining busy street life, decentralized borough governance, and an understanding of a city as a collection of processes rather than a statistical cloud of residents. Her theories are compelling, and fifty years after publication it's dissapointing to see how few of her ideas have been taken up.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-12-27 10:36:58.
(Language: English)
Classic book to understand how urban environments really work. Jacobs is an economist who has added to the urban planning and design fields more than most planners from any era.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-10-21 06:20:28.
(Language: English)
Jane Jacobs is a great entertaining writer who makes a fantastic number of points about how we've swung too far in directions that had their roots in good intentions but their consequences have not been addressed. Anyone with even a shred of interest about how our cities shape us and how we shape our cities should read this book. Be advised she has a certain point of view that not everyone will agree with.
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| Reviews of The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Modern Library Series) - Page 1 of 3 |
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