An urban legacy in need of renewal

By Anthony Flint

FIFTY YEARS ago this month, Random House published “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.’’ The author was Jane Jacobs, a housewife from Scranton who had no formal training in urban planning, but had managed to get a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and was encouraged to write a book that would change the world. And that it did. The book took on city governments, planners, the business establishment, modernist architecture, and the policy of urban renewal, charging that all were misguided, ravaging our cities with ill-conceived plans that sucked the life out of communities, while depriving residents of any say in their future.

For cities, it was the equivalent of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,’’ the sounding of an alarm, and an audacious assault on the status quo. Jacobs battled the master builder Robert Moses and rallied New Yorkers to fight City Hall.

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more abour Jane Jacobs:

Moses v. Jacobs: Who Lived the Abogo Lifestyle?

Jane Jacobs was the seer of the modern city

To walk the path of Jane Jacobs – review of What We See, Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs