![]() ![]() Jacobs tears back the layers of city life to focus on simple building blocks that make neighborhoods thrive or decline. ![]() Required reading for anyone who's ever wondered why American cities kind of suck. And now, a good moment to reabsorb the book, as a whole, and heed its revolutionary common sense. One of the most profoundly impactful books on my life, and an iconic work that goes beyond being a high-water mark for its genre. If you've ever lived in an American city (but especially New York), this book will peel back a layer of mystery you didn't even realize existed, and reveal both the elegant blueprint and the shimmering soul you've always sensed were there. Nevermind that a major highway would be tearing through Little Italy a block away if it weren't for her. Her love for the city is so deep as to be religious, and her knowledge of it is the accumulated musings of a lifelong urban monk. Though it's currently the scourge of more leftist urbanist circles, Jacobs' work is not to be associated with its (rightfully hated) misapplications. Writing about present-day urban revitalization projects, George Baird notes that some ideas are "too susceptibly open to co-optation by the contemporary forces of commodification." This applies to the work of pseudo-mythological New York activist Jane Jacobs. ![]()
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