The Death and Life of Great American Cities
EUR 8,91
Better than Smarth Growth - A stunning and essential book, but the reviewer who describes New Urbanism and Smart Growth as Jane Jacobs repackaged insults her. Her comments are much more finely qualified. For example: I hope that no reader will try to transfer my observations into guides as to what goes on in towns, or little cities, or in suburbs which are still suburban. Towns, suburbs and even little cities are completely different organisms from great cities. It would be more accurate to call Smart Growth an attempt to apply Jacobs ideas to the places to which she warned they shouldn t be applied.
She said it first - If we d listened to Jane Jacobs in the first place, we wouldn t be confronting enormous problems with sprawl. Smart growth, the New Urbanism... It s only Jane Jacobs re-packaged... How long it s taken us to understand her wisdom about cities and civilization.
Changed the way I look at the city where I was born and live - I first read this book about ten years ago, and it changed the way I look at and interact with New York (and other cities that I have visited since). This should be required reading for metropolitan dwellers as it gives a very logical framework for understanding how large cities are unique in their physical and sociological structure. Absolutely fascinating!
Complexity, chaos theory and fractals... alive in cities - Alright, she doesn t actually use the chaos theory and fractal words. At the end of this fascinating book, however, is a tie-in to what we are only beginning to harness in the world of problem-solving. Jane Jacobs hints at her understanding of complexity throughout the book, but her basis is made clear in the last chapter as she exposes the way to grasp the problems of cities. The reason her book has outlasted her critics is that she applied rational observation and empiricism to a realm that was dominated by artists trying to build pretty things. While styles of art may change quickly, she has demonstrated that human behaviour and needs are a bit more timeless.
Excellent book --- but used by zealots - This is one of the fundamental books on the successful strcuturing of large cities. The ideas proesented here about the principles that will generate a liviable settlement are applicable to settlements of all sizes. Jacob shows how these principles can be met within the structure of large cities and how some of the convnetional designs of such cities hinder thme and create non-ideal living spaces.The book is excellent. Unfortunalely however its solutions have been seiezed upon by zealots who try to fit Jacob s solutions for large cities to settlements of every size. Jacobs ideas and name are used constantly in discussions on city planning. It would be better if the people bandying her ideas about would read her books. They might be surprised to find that theirs and her ideas about the role of government in city planning may be quite dissimilar.