National Review's List of the Top 100 Nonfiction Books of the 20th Century
The significance of Jane Jacobs's book is really twofold. One
reason is specific; it offers a devastating critique of urban planning.
The other is more general; it lies in the degree to which this amateur's
analysis calls into question the very concepts of bureaucratic expertise
and centralized planning. On cities specifically, Jacobs was an early
and prescient voice warning that what was being billed as urban renewal--big
housing projects, highway building, creation of business districts, etc.--was
actually destroying neighborhoods and creating more problems than it was
solving. Subsequent events of the past forty years have certainly borne
out her argument that the planners were killing cities. An apt companion
piece for her book would be The
Power Broker : Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro,
wherein the author demonstrates in detail that these plans came to be more
about the exercise of power by the civil "servants" than about actually
helping city dwellers. The high rise housing projects that blight
our urban landscape stand as eloquent testimony to the fact that, regardless
of their original intentions, the bureaucrats of the Great Society wasted
billions of dollars pursuing disastrous policies and left only ruin in
their wake.
Of course, Urban Renewal was just one aspect of the liberal do-gooders
sustained assault on the poor families of our great cities. Similarly
interventionist--and equally deleterious in their effect--were ideas like
Welfare, the Sexual Revolution, and so on... The entire panoply of
supposedly benevolent government programs of the post-Depression era all
had presumably unintended, though entirely foreseeable, adverse consequences
for their supposed beneficiaries. Jacobs' thesis is easily expanded,
as indeed she has in successive books, to encompass all centralized government
planning. The alternative vision she offers, of more organic development
(basically allowing Free Market forces to function), is certainly the prevailing
notion today, at least rhetorically. It is surely no coincidence
that the rebirth of cities like New York has come about under the leadership
of Republican mayors. But one need only look at New York's schools
to realize that the bureaucrats are fighting a tenacious rearguard action.
Virtually the entire book could be applied to today's education system.
One surefire sign that this book still strikes a nerve among the liberal
elites is its inexcusable exclusion from the Modern
Library Top 100 List. Of course, that list includes instead the
insipid The City in History (1961) (Lewis Mumford 1895-1990)(see
Orrin's
review). Mumford's book is mostly self evident historical analysis,
devoid of ideas. In sharp contrast, Jacobs' book is all idea, timeless
ideas, and a slap in the face of the modern statists of the Left and the
enormous hubris which convinces them that they should make our decisions
for us.
One thing I especially love about books like Jacobs', is that they remind
folks that conservatives aren't merely reactionaries--sniping at noble
but misguided social policies only after they've failed--but actually foresaw
the catastrophic effect that Big Government would have on our lives and
warned against it at the time. On the other hand, it's kind of frightening
how much of this book remains timely and germane today; but in recent years
it does at least seem as if Jacobs' vision is finally winning. Let
us hope so.
(Reviewed:22-May-00)
Grade: (A-)
Websites:
Jane Jacobs Links:
Jane Jacobs, 89; Writer, Activist Spoke Out Against Urban Renewal (Adam Bernstein, April 26, 2006, Washington Post)
Jane Jacobs, Urban Activist, Is Dead at 89 (DOUGLAS MARTIN, 4/25/06, NY Times)
She wrote the book on cities (WARREN GERARD, Apr. 26, 2006, Totonto STAR)
-Jane Jacobs (Wikipedia)
-Jane Jacobs Writing on the Web (The Preservation Institute)
-The Jane Jacobs Home Page
-INTERVIEW: Jane Jacobs Interviewed by Jim Kunstler (Metropolis Magazine, March 2001)
-INTERVIEW: City Views: Urban studies legend Jane Jacobs on gentrification, the New Urbanism, and her legacy. (Interviewed by Bill Steigerwald, June 2001, Reason)
-T.O. owes debt to Jacobs (CHRISTOPHER HUME, 4/26/06, Toronto Star)
-Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) (FEE, April 26, 2006)
-Building on Ideas for Urban Conservation (LINDA BAKER, March 4, 2001, NY Times)
-ARTICLE: Jane Jacobs still helping to shape cities: "Death and Life of Great American Cities" author influential guide to new generation of urban planners (CNN, November 23, 2000)
-PROFILE: CITIES AND SONGS (Adam Gopnik, 2004-05-17, The New Yorker)
-Ideas
That Matter (A Quarterly to Stimulate Public Discourse)
-ESSAY:
Jane Jacobs: Why TVA Failed, NY Review of Books
-EXCERPT:
Jane Jacobs on Urban Renewal in Hyde Park-Kenwood (from The Death and
Life of Great American Cities)(
Urban
Planning at the University of Chicago)
-LECTURE:
The Separation of Norway from Sweden (Jane Jacobs, excerpted from the
1979 CBC Massey Lectures)
-INTERVIEW:
Jane Jacobs: Urban Agitator (Adele Freeman, Architecture Magazine)
-INTERVIEW:
Whole Earth: Vital Cities: An Interview with Jane Jacobs (Stewart Brand,
Whole Earth Magazine)
-DISCUSSION:
Beyond the Car (A Panel Discussion with Olivia Chow, Joan Doiron, Jane
Jacobs, Marilou McPhedran, Lisa Salsberg and Sue Zielinski)
-DISCUSSION:
After the Megacity: What Next? (MegaCouncil Watch)
-PROFILE:
When Jane Jacobs Took On the World (Robert Fulford, NY Times)
-PROFILE:
Jane Jacobs: Still a Pioneer (Paul Goldberger, NY Times)
-PROFILE:
An Expert on Cities, at Home in the World (MICHAEL KIMMELMAN, NY Times)
-PROFILE:
The Metropolis Observed: Jane Jacobs at 81 (Lisa Rochon, Metropolis
Magazine)
-PROFILE:
Radical Dreamer: Jane Jacobs on the streets of Toronto (
Robert
Fulford, Azure, October-November 1997)
-PROFILE:
JANE JACOBS: EYES ON THE STREET "Meaningful change doesn't come
about through lots of clout and lots of money. It comes about through lots
of little changes everywhere." (David Dillon, Preservation Magazine)
-ARTICLE:
Grooving with Jane Jacobs (Christina Varga, University of Toronto Varsity)
-ARTICLE:
Jane Jacobs talks city business (Paul-Mark Rendon, University of Western
Ontario Gazette)
-ESSAY:
Why Jane Jacobs Stopped the Spadina (Debbie Gillies, 32CP1)
-SUMMARY:
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs (ONTARIO
ROUND TABLE ON ENVIRONMENT AND ECONOMY TRANSPORTATION AND CLIMATE
CHANGE COLLABORATIVE SEARCH CONFERENCE LITERATURE REVIEW )
-LINKS:
Jane Jacobs: writing on the web (Preserve Net)
-ESSAY: The Life And Death Of England's Cities (Ed Driscoll, August 07, 2005)
-REVIEW:
of THE NATURE OF ECONOMIES By Jane Jacobs (CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT,
NY Times)
-REVIEW:
of The Nature of Economies By Jane Jacobs (Robert Kuttner, NY Times
Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of The Nature of Economies by Jane Jacobs Economies of Truth (ROBERT
M. SOLOW, New Republic)
-REVIEW:
of The Nature of Economies By Jane Jacobs (mike davis, Voice Literary
Supplement)
-REVIEW:
Alan Ryan: Cautionary Tales, NY Review of Books
Systems of Survival: A Dialogue
on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics by Jane Jacobs
-REVIEW:
of SYSTEMS OF SURVIVAL A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce
and Politics. By Jane Jacobs (Alan Wolfe, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of Systems of Survival A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce
and Politics By Jane Jacobs (CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
Peter Bauer: City Lights, NY Review of Books
Cities and the Wealth of
Nations: Principles of Economic Life by Jane Jacobs
-REVIEW:
of CITIES AND THE WEALTH OF NATIONS Principles of Economic Life. By
Jane Jacobs (Richard J. Barnet, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of CITIES AND THE WEALTH OF NATIONS. Principles of Economic Life. By
Jane Jacobs (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
Richard Sennett: An Urban Anarchist, NY Review of Books
The Economy of Cities by
Jane Jacobs
-REVIEW:
E.Z. Friedenberg: Splitting Up, NY Review of Books
The Question of Separatism:
Quebec and the Struggle Over Sovereignty by Jane Jacobs
-REVIEW: of THE NATURE OF ECONOMIES By Jane Jacobs (CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT, NY Times)
-REVIEW: of DARK AGE AHEAD By Jane Jacobs (MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NY Times)
-REVIEW: of Cities and the Wealth of Nations by Jane Jacobs (John Chamberlain, The Freeman)
-REVIEW: of Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics by Jane Jacobs (Peter J. Boettke, The Freeman)
Book-related and General Links:
GENERAL:
-Congress for the
New Urbanism
-ESSAY:
Toronto, Canada: A Big City that Works (Jay Walljasper, Utne
Reader)
-ESSAY:
The New Urban Studies : Los Angeles scholars use their region and their
ideas to end the dominance of the 'Chicago School' (D.W. MILLER, Chronicle
of Higher Education)
-ESSAY
: The Big City: Woody Allen and Some Curious Logic (JOHN TIERNEY, April
10, 2001, NY Times)
-BOOK
LISTS: Utne Reader Loose Canon
-LINKS:
Internet Resources for Public Planning
Comments:
Orrin welcomes reader comments on his reviews.
Add yours here.
