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Who is this book for?
- People interested in urban planning, architecture, and community building
- Readers who care about old streets, urban renewal, and gentrification
- People working in real estate, architecture, and public policy
- Readers who want to understand "what kind of street makes people want to walk and live there"
Who is the author?
- Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) was a journalist, writer, and activist born in the United States who later moved to Canada
- She had no formal training in urban planning, yet challenged the planning mainstream of her time from an outsider's perspective
- The book was published in 1961 and is regarded as one of the most influential works in the history of urban planning
More by this authorThe Economy of Cities；Dark Age Ahead
Book notes
A Book That Challenged the Planning Mainstream
In 1961, Jacobs published this book, sharply criticizing the mainstream urban planning thinking of the mid-twentieth century. Planners at the time advocated separating housing, commerce, and industry into zones, designing cities around the automobile, and demolishing old neighborhoods on a large scale for rebuilding.
Jacobs believed these approaches destroyed vibrant communities and created desolate, lifeless urban spaces. She had no planning degree; instead, through long observation of everyday life on the street, she offered a view completely different from the experts': cities prosper through organic complexity, not through modernist rational planning.
Sidewalks and Safety: Eyes on the Street
Small Change on the Sidewalk
The Four Conditions for Diversity
The Sidewalk Ballet of Hudson Street
Border Vacuums
Against Superblocks
Neighborhoods on Three Levels
Critique of Modernism and Garden Cities
The Fight With Moses
Residents Know Their Neighborhoods Best
The Self-Destruction of Diversity
Influence and Debate
Bottles that drifted to this book
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Shang
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Voyager's Guide
The world
The Sea of Books has 24 real islands, one for each subject. Every building on an island is a book.
What you can do now
- Tap an island on the chart to go ashore
- Tap a building to read the notes on that book
- Meet Shang, the Navigator
Coming soon
- Chapter 2: register as a voyager, sail your ship, collect building badges, send bottles
- Chapter 4: private chats with other voyagers
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