Jane Jacobs passes away. I’ll repeat what Marginal Revolution says: Life and Death of Great American Cities is one of the best books I have read. Here’s what I wrote after first reading it; this is a more recent praise of the book. One of the amazing things is that while the general anti-Big Planning sentiment has become popularized, there are so many small insights at nearly every corner of her argument that go beyond the “public projects are bad” tagline. If every public official had to read Jacobs, our civic space would be nicer and function better.
ADDENDUM: Charles Swift offers reflections on Jacobs and Boston’s West End. John Keith offers links to Jacobsiana. Planning Liveable Communities praises Jacobs’ radical notion that “Mixing commercial and residential use in human-scale, distinctive neighborhoods works better than suburban sprawl.”
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