the death and the life of great american cities

But she observed (and I don’t know how, since most cities were in decline at the time) that lively diverse neighborhoods are always at risk for becoming victims of their own success, because newcomers invariably alter the characteristics that made these neighborhoods appealing to them in the first place. She didn’t invent the term or even use it. Jacobs was remarkably prescient on gentrification. Her famous house at 555 Hudson Street sold in 2009 for the “bargain price” of $3.5-million.ģ. Having said that: Jane’s magic world of Hudson Street feels as distant as Colonial Williamsburg. No wonder everybody’s head exploded in 1961.Ģ. Today it reads as a sort of literary polemic, fused with an urban planning and economics manual for cities. But the rest of Death and Life is a dense, meticulously constructed attack on the city planning orthodoxies of the day.

That section, which occurs early on, is electric. The mythical “ballet of the streets” motif is a tiny portion of the book. Here’s ten takeaways from the godmother of the American city.ġ. As a very belated tribute to the anniversary of her 100th birthday, I decided to dip back into that remarkable book. 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). 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. This article was originally published by Common Edge as ' 10 Lessons Learned by Rereading Jane Jacobs.'

The death and the life of great american cities