Genius Of Common Sense: Jane Jacobs And The Story Of The Death And Life Of Great American Cities

Synopsis

In 1961, Jane Jacobs? book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, not only revolutionized the fields of city planning and city architecture, but forever changed the way we thought about how life is lived in densely packed urban centres. This was during a time when the "urban renewal? movement was at its most aggressive, and Jacobs correctly perceived that the new structures being built to replace the aging housing of older cities were often far worse, both in their impact on society and their architectural sterility, than that which urban planners saw as "the problem." She was ridiculed and pilloried by the establishment, but her ideas quickly took hold, and no one ever looked at inner cities the same way again.