![]() ![]() ![]() 'Perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning. Jane Jacobs was the legendary author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a work that has never gone out of print and that has transformed the disciplines of urban planning and. It is only when we appreciate such fundamental realities that we can hope to create cities that are safe, interesting and economically viable, as well as places that people want to live in. Book Review: Genius of Common Sense: Jane Jacobs and the Story of the Death and Life of Great American Cities Contents. ![]() The real vitality of cities, argues Jacobs, lies in their diversity, architectural variety, teeming street life and human scale. Yet they seldom stop to look at what actually works on the ground. Inspired by the ideals of the Garden City or Le Corbusier's Radiant City, they have dreamt up ambitious projects based on self-contained neighbourhoods, super-blocks, rigid 'scientific' plans and endless acres of grass. Throughout the post-war period, planners temperamentally unsympathetic to cities have been let loose on our urban environment. The result is one of the most stimulating books on cities ever written. In this classic text, Jane Jacobs set out to produce an attack on current city planning and rebuilding and to introduce new principles by which these should be governed. 56 years later, its still the best book about how cities work, and how city planners mess them up. ![]()
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