Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

By: Jane Jacobs, Jason Epstein - introduction
Narrated by: Donna Rawlins
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Thirty years after its publication, 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 60s, argued that urban diversity and vitality were being destroyed by powerful architects and city planners. Rigorous, sane, and delightfully epigrammatic, Jacobs's small masterpiece is a blueprint for the humanistic management of cities. It is sensible, knowledgeable, readable, indispensable.

The author has written a new foreword for this Modern Library edition.

©2011 Jane Jacobs (P)2011 Random House Audio
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Seeing Like a State cover art
Places of the Heart cover art
Architecture cover art
Walkable City Rules cover art
EARNER Walkable City cover art
Feminist City cover art
Why Architecture Matters cover art
Americans Against the City cover art
Detroit cover art
Street Smart cover art
Strong Towns cover art
Order Without Design cover art
Guns, Germs and Steel cover art
Confessions of a Recovering Engineer cover art
How Real Estate Developers Think: Design, Profits, and Community cover art
Town Planning in Practice cover art

Critic reviews

1961, Sidney Hillman Prize, Winner

"One of the most remarkable books ever written about the city... a primary work. The research apparatus is not pretentious - it is the eye and the heart - but it has given us a magnificent study of what gives life and spirit to the city." (William H. Whyte, author of The Organization Man)

"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." (Harrison Salisbury, The New York Times)

What listeners say about The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    22
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    14
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    14
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Conflicted

I respect this text for the fresh perspective that it was at the time. The excellent points this book makes about people being the special ingredient to baking good communities is so simple but is still even today so often missed by policy makers. Building communities around its people is critical to connecting people but…. I do have a few criticisms.

Jane was clearly very angry at the local leadership and the capitalists who were looking to pull down her community. I love that she came out fighting, inspirational! However, in doing so her argument dismisses good arguments made by the disciples of garden cities and fails to address housing shortage as an issue. The cities building plans are driven by need, need for new roads, homes etc and Jane offers no solution. Protect the existing communities by all means, build strong communities-yes but it’s not enough to say I have my little piece of geography and tough for everyone else. Local government has the challenging role of providing for all and sadly that sometimes comes at a cost. As a consultant, policy maker who often works for local government I have taken a housing application from the back Of someone’s car where they live with their children, Ive dealt with community safety and I’ve led large scale regeneration programmes when there are always those who will be against it no matter what. I suppose I’m seeing problems first hand in a growing population and this book offered few answers. Thankfully Jane won this one but the community she fought so hard to protect gentrified anyway and is ironically one of the most affluent areas which is unattainable for low to middle income earners. No doubt it’s a place people want to be which has driven property prices up -successful by someone’s measure. The success of communities is so subjective and it makes me wonder how successful Jane would think her community is now.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Cities are complex organic organisms

Jane's treatment and understanding of the fundamentals of Planning makes for an absorbing read. Highly recommend!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

The experience should be revised same as the text

The narration is too boring. Too much text, could be told everything in fewer words. The concept is great in some points. Shouldn't the examples from 60s to be revised?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!