The Death and Life of Great American Cities

The Death and Life of Great American Cities is a 1961 non-fiction book written by Jane Jacobs, an American-Canadian journalist, author, and activist with expertise in urban history and theory. This guide refers to the original edition published by the Vintage Books division of Random House. The title references the killing of cities by urban planners and to Jacobs’s ideas about the processes required to breathe new life into them. Jacobs’s overarching aim is to provide a better understanding of what makes cities function well and to suggest directions for their improvement.

Jacobs opens her book with an attack on city planning as it is theorized and practiced in the United States. She positions herself against orthodox city planners, whose harmful policies are rooted in three major urban movements: the Garden City, the Radiant City, and the City Beautiful.

Part 1, “The Peculiar Nature of Cities,” addresses the main uses of sidewalks: safety, contact, and assimilating children. Safety depends on a clear demarcation of the public and the private and the spontaneous protection afforded by pedestrians and casual onlookers inside buildings. As primary points of contact and interaction, sidewalks are key to building community trust.