the life and death of the great american city

Here Jacobs does not simply advocate “Diversity” in the post-1990s sense – agreed-upon code for a preponderance of non-Northern European ethnic influences – although we can infer from her book that she’s a proponent of that type of diversity as well. So, we may acknowledge upfront that she’s a teensy bit narrow in her praise and appreciation for large parts of urban America.Īnd yet, when I think about the Leave It To Beaver America of 1960 to which she’s comparing Greenwich Village, can you blame her? And when I think about the monstrosities of city planning that has led to unbounded suburban sprawl from 1960 to the present day, she’s far more right than wrong.Īs to the keys to successfully rejuvenating cities and the common errors of urban planning, as far as I can see, she was absolutely Capital R Right about it all then and even more so today. The rest of urban and suburban America she refers to sweepingly as “The Great Blight of Dullness.”

She considers and praises certain other successfully rejuvenated neighborhoods within great American cities, such as Boston’s North End, Chicago’s Back-of-the-Yards, Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, and Georgetown, in the District of Columbia.īut virtually all other cities she ignores or – like Los Angeles – actively denigrates. She loves her Greenwich Village circa 1960 ( The Death and Life was first published in 1961), and she returns again and again to the ways in which her diverse neighborhood outshines anywhere else.

If there’s any obvious critique of Jane Jacobs, she’s what the sports fan world calls a serious homer. “Homer.” If you’ve heard this song, you know what we mean.

The life and death of the great american city