Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating and right on
Review: This book is an amazing analysis of cities and how they work. Jacobs begins by observing the city around her, New York. She takes note of which neighborhoods are thriving and which ones should be avoided and analyzes their differences. For instance, she notes that neighborhoods with mixed usage have people of different ages and backgrounds on the street in public places all day long. Since there are people around all day, no one is going to get away with doing anything antisocial. But empty streets or neighborhoods that don't have eyes constantly watching what is happening are risky places to leave your car or other valuables. Similarly, Jacobs discusses what kinds of park design are likely to be successful, and which parks will be shunned, and why. She argues for the necessity of diversity of people, buildings, and development. What's most amazing about this book is that Jacobs wrote this in the beginning of the 1960's, at a time when government redevelopment projects were leveling the inner-cities. At the time, Jacobs must have sounded like a crackpot because her ideas where so diametrically opposed to the accepted standards of the time. However, time has shown that she was indeed correct on so many of her points. This book is essential reading for city planners and social scientists. But it would be of interest to all.
Rating:
Summary: inspiring & surprisingly accessible
Review: This book reads like a novel rather than an ideological tome. If you think of it that way, the city is the protagonist and you feel like you're reading a bildundgsroman about this much put upon but always fascinating central character. Wow. Somebody recommended a Modern Library edition. I have to concur because this edition (paperback) is badly designed and hard to read. It's worth getting a nicer edition.
Rating: 
Summary: So meticulously presented, it exhausting to read!!
Review: This book should be required reading for every American. Mrs. Jacobs shows how the foolhardy ambitions and inept design of America's cities by every politician, architect, and urban planner had come to preclude our cities from being successful places where we want to live. What makes this book remarkable, however, is that Mrs. Jacobs offers pragmatic suggestions on how to resurrect our neighborhoods. The book's offerings fly in the face of what many scholarly urban planners accept as doctrine, but Mrs. Jacob's ideas work where the rest of us live - in real life. The book's only drawback is that it's a bit dated, and it's a bit too long. Mrs. Jacobs could have made her case in half the time. Still, this should not distract from her work. All we need are people brave enough to perform the radical surgery this book suggests.
Rating:
Summary: Great great book
Review: This is a great book, especially in times when the sprawl discussions are popular. Planners who have even little concern about the future of inner cities must read the book. People who love suburbs should also read this book, to understandand that there is a whole new world trying to survive a couple of miles away. After you read the book, you will never forget that diversity and strees are the two keys for the success of inner cities.
Rating:
Summary: inspiring & surprisingly accessible
Review: This is a great book. I read it on the subway and never lost interest. Even today it helps open your eyes to bad planning that occurs in cities that kills what otherwise could be successful neighborhoods.
Rating:
Summary: great
Review: This is a great book. I read it on the subway and never lost interest. Even today it helps open your eyes to bad planning that occurs in cities that kills what otherwise could be successful neighborhoods.
Rating:
Summary: a book that changed my thinking
Review: This is one of the books that made me realize what makes a city work and what makes it fail: Jacobs emphasizes that a healthy city neighborhood is created not by one "big box" destination like a convention center or a stadium, but by hundreds of little walkable destinations. Buffalo's downtown is a classic example: the Chippewa St. area (dominated by half a dozen little bars and coffeehouses) is relatively vibrant, while the areas near the convention center and stadium are dead, dead, dead. Similarly, in Cleveland the Warehouse District/Flats area (dominated by small, walkable businesses) are year-round destinations, while the areas surrounding the much-touted stadia and Rock Hall of Fame are utterly deserted after dark except on game days. In response to the reviewer from N.H. who said Jacobs vindicates conservatism: I don't completely agree. Jacobs' work criticizes liberal reliance on big government housing/urban renewal projects, but is equally critical of big government highway projects that a lot of conservatives seem to like.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book --- but used by zealots
Review: This is one of the fundamental books on the successful strcuturing of large cities. The ideas proesented here about the principles that will generate a liviable settlement are applicable to settlements of all sizes. Jacob shows how these principles can be met within the structure of large cities and how some of the convnetional designs of such cities hinder thme and create non-ideal living spaces. The book is excellent. Unfortunalely however its solutions have been seiezed upon by zealots who try to fit Jacob's solutions for large cities to settlements of every size. Jacobs' ideas and name are used constantly in discussions on city planning. It would be better if the people bandying her ideas about would read her books. They might be surprised to find that theirs and her ideas about the role of government in city planning may be quite dissimilar.
Rating:
Summary: The Book That Will Win Her the Nobel in Economics...
Review: This mind clearing book gets rid of the idea that cities are parasites on the innocent countryside. It tells how urban trading -- including the information trade -- are the beginning of wealth and the foundation for the supposed "agricultural revolution" of 6000 years ago. Urbanism doesn't come last, it comes first. If you get this wrong you get urban America.
A few years after writing this superb book, Jacobs moved to Toronto, which the UN, Fortune magazine, and a lot of the rest of us think is one of the world's better addresses. I think the book should also see her to Scandinavia for the Nobels
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Book
Review: Though this book is not perfect, and not everything Jane Jacobs says is right, and it sometimes feels a little dated, it is a brilliant book and she is one of the greatest thinkers about cities ever. Required reading for anyone who lives in or is interested in cities.
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