The era after World War II saw America's urban planners treat the lives of city-dwellers with disdain. It spawned a philosophy of urban renewal that valued the efficient movement of cars more than it valued the lives of people, and that wiped out entire neighborhoods dismissed by bureaucrats as slums. Published in 1961, Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities examines the shortsightedness and failure of this philosophy. Despite being dismissed as "a crazy dame" and being mocked for having no formal training in urban planning, Jacobs led a grassroots movement that was ultimately successful in stopping a typical urban renewal project-the construction of the Lower Manhattan Expressway.