The Death And Life Of Great American Cities By Jane Jacobs

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

[Name]

[Institution] The Death and life of great American cities

Description

The book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, written by Jane Jacobs provided different ideas related to neighborhoods and districts. However, many people disregarded her ideas due to lack of planning qualification and professional architecture. The book was divided in four main parts, where the ideas related to cities are criticizes. In part first, ‘The Peculiar Natures of Cities’ Jacobs introduced ideas at micro level such as side walk safety, importance of public characters at neighborhood and numerous other issues with planning of the garden City. In part second, ‘The Generators of City Diversity’, writer

attracts people towards a district which creates secondary diversity. Thus, every district must include minimum one primary use. Jacobs demonstrated about the requirement of aged buildings that they used to be encouraging for small enterprises’ growth due to low rental charges. Moreover, small blocks were seemed to be more feasible especially for commerce that provided more routes for transportation. At last, Jacobs talked about that people concentration at particular areas must be standardised. In part third, ‘Forces of Decline and Regeneration’, Jacobs described about the chances of high diversity that could be self- destructive. Along with other cities’ destructive natures, Jacobs wrote about the functional and physical effects and border vacuums. They might exist in cities due to creation of dead ends, splitting of cities and boundaries into the small fragments (Jacobs,

The writing style of the Jacobs in this book made it more attracting to read. Jacobs’ love with the cities was shined from each and every page. The influence of ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’ and Jane Jacobs have been reflective in the urban planning and architecture world along with New York. One block on the Hudson Street in year 2009 that was Greenwich Village was renamed as ‘Jane Jacobs Way’. This was done in honor of Jacobs who offered an entirely different method of thinking with respect to cities. Yet it is also true that it seemed to be an old fashioned as well as narrow book by various scholars, but the difference of era is the main reason for its encouragement. Thus, it is also true that the book was written by keeping in mind the past structure that was existed then and not now. Another point of critique is that the book could not be justified that Jacobs did not mention any other non US part or