The Death and Life of Great American Cities
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| Author | Jane Jacobs |
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| Language | English |
| Publisher | Random House, New York |
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Publication date
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1961 |
| OCLC | 500754 |
| Followed by | The Economy of Cities |
The Death and Life of Great American Cities is a 1961 book by writer and activist Jane Jacobs. The book is a critique of 1950s urban planning policy, which it holds responsible for the decline of many city neighborhoods in the United States. Going against the modernist planning dogma of the era, it proposes a newfound appreciation for organic urban vibrancy in the United States.
Reserving her most vitriolic criticism for the "rationalist" planners (specifically Robert Moses) of the 1950s and 1960s, Jacobs argued that modernist urban planning rejects the city, because it rejects human beings living in a community characterized by layered complexity and seeming chaos. The modernist planners used deductive reasoning to find principles by which to plan cities. Among these policies she considered urban renewal the most violent, and separation of uses (i.e., residential, industrial, commercial) the most prevalent. These policies, she claimed, destroy communities and innovative economies by creating isolated, unnatural urban spaces.
In their place Jacobs advocated "four generators of diversity" that "create effective economic pools of use":
Her aesthetic can be considered opposite to that of the modernists, upholding redundancy and vibrancy against order and efficiency. She frequently cites New York City's Greenwich Village as an example of a vibrant urban community. The Village, like many similar communities, may well have been preserved, at least in part, by her writing and activism. The book also played a major role in slowing the urban redevelopment of Toronto, Canada, where Jacobs was involved in the campaign to stop the Spadina Expressway.
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