Jane Jacob’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities is one of those books I’d always meant to get around to reading, and now that I’ve done so, I thoroughly regret not doing so earlier. I have a few quibbles with it–while I agree that odd intersections make things interesting, I believe the grid is one of the greatest features of American cities–but for the most part find it a fantastic work, and highly recommend it to anyone curious about how effective large cities grow and thrive.

Much of the recent criticism I’ve read of the book and Jacob’s philosophy centers around the belief that her ideas are outdated, that they were OK for a half century ago but aren’t really relevant to a society where people move around a lot, cities are increasingly losing families for young couples and empty-nesters, and industrial jobs are replaced by knowledge or service work. At best I think these criticisms are missing the point, at worst I think those pushing them are being disingenuous. (While I have seen academic criticism, most of it has come from news articles where some developer or architect is justifying some huge development project they’re involved in.)  If a city does turn into a place that’s just for the wealthy, retired, or young and childless, how can it retain the mix of life and cultures that made people want to move there in the first place? This book better illustrates than anything else that I’ve read that a disappearance of families, children, or industry is not just a demographic shift that should just be accepted but a serious warning sign that demands attention.

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For what it’s worth, I’ve found that this book works nicely with How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand, in which Brand explains in detail the value of the kinds of buildings Jacobs frequently spends time defending. It also works well with a trip to Toronto, arguably the most effective large city in North America, which happens to be the place Jacobs currently calls home.