Compassionate, bracingly indignant, and keenly detailed, a monumental work that provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of all cities.

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. --The New York Times

A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great American Cities has, since its first publication in 1961, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured.

In prose of outstanding immediacy, Jane Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what constitutes a neighborhood, and what function it serves within the larger organism of the city; about why some neighborhoods remain impoverished while others regenerate themselves. She writes about the salutary role of funeral parlors and tenement windows, the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity.

Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of its initial publication, this special edition of Jane Jacobs's masterpiece, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, features a new Introduction by Jason Epstein, the book's original editor, who provides an intimate perspective on Jacobs herself and unique insights into the creation and lasting influence of this classic.

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, Jane Jacobs's tour de force is a blueprint for the humanistic management of cities. It remains sensible, knowledgeable, readable, and indispensable.

In this book, Jane Jacobs, building on the work of her debut, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, investigates the delicate way cities balance the interplay between the domestic production of goods and the ever-changing tide of imports. Using case studies of developing cities in the ancient, pre-agricultural world, and contemporary cities on the decline, like the financially irresponsible New York City of the mid-sixties, Jacobs identifies the main drivers of urban prosperity and growth, often via counterintuitive and revelatory lessons.

From the revered author of the classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities comes a new book that will revolutionize the way we think about the economy.

Starting from the premise that human beings exist wholly within nature as part of natural order in every respect, Jane Jacobs has focused her singular eye on the natural world in order to discover the fundamental models for a vibrant economy. The lessons she discloses come from fields as diverse as ecology, evolution, and cell biology. Written in the form of a Platonic dialogue among five fictional characters, The Nature of Economies is as astonishingly accessible and clear as it is irrepressibly brilliant and wise-a groundbreaking yet humane study destined to become another world-altering classic.

In this eye-opening work of economic theory, Jane Jacobs argues that it is cities--not nations--that are the drivers of wealth. Challenging centuries of economic orthodoxy, in Cities and the Wealth of Nations the beloved author contends that healthy cities are constantly evolving to replace imported goods with locally-produced alternatives, spurring a cycle of vibrant economic growth. Intelligently argued and drawing on examples from around the world and across the ages, here Jacobs radically changes the way we view our cities--and our entire economy.

In this indispensable book, urban visionary Jane Jacobs argues that as agrarianism gives way to a technology-based future, we're at risk of cultural collapse. Jacobs--renowned author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities and The Economy of Cities--pinpoints five pillars of our culture that are in serious decay: community and family; higher education; the effective practice of science; taxation, and government; and the self-regulation of the learned professions. The corrosion of these pillars, Jacobs argues, is linked to societal ills such as environmental crisis, racism, and the growing gulf between rich and poor.

But this is a hopeful book as well as a warning. Drawing on a vast frame of reference--from fifteenth-century Chinese shipbuilding to Ireland's cultural rebirth--Jacobs suggests how the cycles of decay can be arrested and our way of life renewed. Invigorating and accessible, Dark Age Ahead is not only the crowning achievement of Jane Jacobs' career, but one of the most important works of our time.

With intelligence and clarity of observation, the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities addresses the moral values that underpin working life.

In Systems of Survival, Jane Jacobs identifies two distinct moral syndromes--one governing commerce, the other, politics--and explores what happens when these two syndromes collide. She looks at business fraud and criminal enterprise, government's overextended subsidies to agriculture, and transit police who abuse the system the are supposed to enforce, and asks us to consider instances in which snobbery is a virtue and industry a vice. In this work of profound insight and elegance, Jacobs gives us a new way of seeing all our public transactions and encourages us towards the best use of our natural inclinations.

Desde la publicació n en 1961 de su obra mí tica Muerte y vida de las grandes ciudades, el respeto y la fascinació n por la mirada lú cida e incisiva de Jane Jacobs acompañ ó para siempre a la intelectual norteamericana. Este libro recoge cuatro entrevistas, iné ditas en castellano, en las que descubrimos la cara má s humana y vivencial de Jacobs: desde los añ os de precariedad laboral, el descubrimiento de la metró polis o sus paseos aleatorios y sin rumbo por el Manhattan de la dé cada de 1930, hasta su incursió n en el activismo polí tico y sus reflexiones má s afiladas contra la planificació n urbana y los grandes dogmas de la modernidad. Una lectura imprescindible de una de las grandes voces del siglo xx.

In this, her third and least-known book, first published in 1980, Jane Jacobs examines not only the particular question of Quebec and Canada, but also the larger issue of sovereignty and autonomy in general. Using Norway as a model, Jacobs details that country's campaign of peaceful persistence that led to breaking ties with Sweden--and suggests that Canada and Canadians should be inspired by the example. An essential component of Jacobs's urban activism, this new edition of the book incorporates and expands the 1979 Massey Lectures, Canadian Cities and Sovereignty-Association, commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Also included is a previously unpublished exclusive interview with Jane Jacobs in her Toronto home in 2005, 25 years after the book appeared and 10 years after the 1995 Quebec referendum. In these musings, she reasserts and updates her thoughts on Separatism--and addresses new issues such as tar sand development in Alberta, the finance of gambling, and the future of the Euro and of Europe.

In The Death and Life of Great American Cities durchleuchtet Jane Jacobs 1961 die fragwurdigen Methoden der Stadtplanung und Stadtsanierung in Amerika. Die deutsche Ausgabe wurde schnell auch im deutschsprachigem Raum zu einer viel gelesenen und diskutierten Lekture. Sie ist jetzt wieder in einem Nachdruck zuganglich, mit einem Vorwort von Gerd Albers (1993), das nach der Aktualitat dieser Streitschrift fragt.

In The Death and Life of Great American Cities durchleuchtet Jane Jacobs 1961 die fragwürdigen Methoden der Stadtplanung und Stadtsanierung in Amerika, der New Yorker nannte es das unkonventionellste und provozierendste Buch über Städtebau seit langem. Die deutsche Ausgabe wurde schnell auch im deutschsprachigem Raum zu einer viel gelesenen und diskutierten Lektüre. Sie ist jetzt wieder in einem Nachdruck zugänglich, mit einem Nachwort von Gerd Albers (1993), das nach der Aktualität dieser Streitschrift fragt.