{"product_id":"the-death-and-life-of-great-american-cities-9780375508738","title":"The Death and Life of Great American Cities","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis book is an attack on current methods of city planning and re-building. It is also an explanation of new principles and an argument for different methods from those now in use. It is the first real alternative to conventional city planning that we have had in this century. Its author  herself a city dweller and an editor of Architectural Forum  is direct and practical in her approach. What  she asks  makes cities work? Why are some neighborhoods full of things to do and see and why are others dull? Why does the crime rate soar in our public housing developments and why are some of our older neighborhoods  despite their evident pov-erty  so much more safe  stable and congenial? Why do some neighborhoods attract interested and responsible populations and why do others degenerate? Why are Bostons North End and the eastern and western extremes of Greenwich Village good neighborhoods and why do orthodox city planners consider them slums? What alternatives are there to current city planning and rebuilding?  Conventional city planning holds that cities decline because they are blighted by too many people  by mixtures of commercial  industrial and residential uses  by old buildings and narrow streets and by small landholders who stand in the way of large-scale development. Such neighborhoods  they insist  breed apathy and crime  discourage investment and contaminate the areas around them. The response of con-ventional city planning is to tear them down  scatter their inhabitants  lay out super-blocks  and rebuild the area accord-ing to an integrated plan  with the result  as often as not  that the crime rate rises still higher  the new neighborhood is more lifeless than the old one  and the surrounding areas deteriorate even more  until the life of the whole city is threatened.  But Mrs. Jacobs observes that in any number of cases these very conditions--mixed uses  dense population  old buildings  small blocks  decentralized ownership--create the very opposite of slums  neighborhoods that regenerate themselves spontaneously  that are full of variety and diversity  that attract large numbers of casual visitors and responsible new residents  that encourage investment and revitalize the areas around them. Bostons North End (condemned as a slum by or-thodox planners) is such a neighborhood  and so is Greenwich Village. Rittenhouse Square and Telegraph Hill are others. Nearly every large city can produce still other examples.  Why then do some city neighborhoods die and why do others flourish? And what can city planners do to avoid the death and encourage the life of our great American cities? The solutions proposed by Mrs. Jacobs in this book represent a sharp break with conventional thinking on the subject and they carry with them the ring of simple truth which marks this book as an inevitable classic of social thought.  This edition is set from the first American edition of 1961 and commemorates the seventy-fifth anniversary of Random House.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45960446279733,"sku":"ByrdShop_0375508732","price":46.3,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780375508738.jpg?v=1788287405","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-death-and-life-of-great-american-cities-9780375508738","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}