Genius of Common Sense: Jane Jacobs and the Story of the Death and Life of Great American Cities - Hardcover

Lang, Glenna; Wunsch, Marjory

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1567923844 ISBN 13: 9781567923841

Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher Inc, 2009

Synopsis

Three books, all written by women in the early 1960s, changed the way we looked at the world and ourselves: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, and Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities. All three books created revolutions in their respective spheres of influence, and nothing affected city planning and architecture - or the way we think about how life is lived in densely packed urban centers - more than Jane Jacobs's far-sighted polemic. This was an era when the "urban renewal" movement was at its most aggressive, and Jacobs correctly perceived that the new structures that were being built to replace the aging housing of our older cities were often far worse, in both their impact on society and their architectural sterility, than what urban planners identified as "the problem." She was ridiculed and pilloried by the establishment, but her ideas quickly took hold, and no one ever looked at what made for livable and viable neighborhoods the same way again.

About this title

Product Description:

In 1961, Jane Jacobs' book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, revolutionized the fields of city planning and city architecture. Jacobs perceived that the new structures being built to replace the aging housing of older cities were often far worse. This book reveals the story of how Jacobs changed the way the world thought forever.

Review:

I -- New York Times "New York Times"

About this edition

• Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher Inc
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1567923844
• ISBN 13: 9781567923841
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 130