Death and Life of Great American Cities (Modern Library) - Hardcover

Jane Jacobs

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679600477 ISBN 13: 9780679600473

Publisher: Random House Inc, 1997

Synopsis

The Modern Library prides itself as ''The modern Library of the world's Best Books''. Since 1917 its paperback series has featured treasured classics, major translations of great works, and rediscoveries of keen literary and historical merit. Featuring introductions by leading writers, stunning translations, scholarly endnotes and reading group guides. Production values emphasize superior quality and readability. Competitive prices, coupled with exciting cover design make these an ideal gift to be cherished by the avid reader.

Thirty years after its publication, The Death and Life of Great American Cities was described by The New York Times as "perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning....[It] can also be seen in a much larger context. It is first of all a work of literature; the descriptions of street life as a kind of ballet and the bitingly satiric account of traditional planning theory can still be read for pleasure even by those who long ago absorbed and appropriated the book's arguments." Jane Jacobs, an editor and writer on architecture in New York City in the early sixties, argued that urban diversity and vitality were being destroyed by powerful architects and city planners. Rigorous, sane, and delightfully epigrammatic, Jacobs's small masterpiece is a blueprint for the humanistic management of cities. It is sensible, knowledgeable, readable, indispensable. The author has written a new foreword for this Modern Library edition

About this title

Review:

The most refreshing, provacative, stimulating and exciting study of this [great problem] which I have seen. It fairly crackles with bright honesty and common sense --Harrison Salisbury, The New York Times

One of the most remarkable books ever written about the city... a primary work. The research apparatus is not pretentious it is the eye and the heart but it has given us a magnificent study of what gives life and spirit to the city. --William H. Whyte, author of The Organization Man

One of the most remarkable books ever written about the city... a primary work. The research apparatus is not pretentious it is the eye and the heart but it has given us a magnificent study of what gives life and spirit to the city. --William H. Whyte, author of The Organization Man

Book Description:

A groundbreaking critique of 20th-century urban planning and a classic of post-war social thought.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Inc
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0679600477
• ISBN 13: 9780679600473
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 624