A classic “common-sense” demolition of the orthodoxies of mid-twentieth-century urban planning. Jacobs argues that planners trying to improve city neighbourhoods should abandon their giant master-plans and the quest for theoretical perfection, which have so often resulted in unliveable spaces full of terrible social problems, and instead focus on observing the way residents are actually using the places they live in now, and make small, incremental changes targeted at helping people to improve their current surroundings. For her, the essential qualities a neighbourhood needs to survive and function well are high population density, diversity of uses, and the flexibility to respond to changing demands. Those things usually get broken if you bulldoze a neighbourhood and try to rebuild the whole place in one go.

Jacobs’s ideal neighbourhood, where kids play in the street under the watchful eyes of neighbours and local tradespeople and there is a constant coming and going on foot between homes, shops, workplaces, schools, bars and restaurants, is probably rather unrealistic sixty years on, and of course it was only ever meant to apply to inner-city areas — as far as she is concerned, the suburbs are a lost cause anyway. But the arguments she makes against single-use zoning and against inflexible large-scale projects embodying someone’s paternalistic vision of how (other) people should live remain very valid. And there’s a lot of detailed and mostly sensible-sounding advice in the book about things like street layout, rent subsidies, lending policies, how to lay out parks, and much more. ( )

Very informative, but got repetitive after a while. One can only use the adjective 'lively' so many times before it gets old... ( )

Deserving of its reputation as one of the most important books ever written in the field of American City Planning. It is a fascinating book, and I will never look at cities the same after reading it.

Jane Jacobs does a remarkable job of breaking down an incredible complex topic, making easily digestible, providing examples of good and bad, and building off of the idea in order to introduce her next idea.

She is not a planner, or engineer, or academic. Just a concerned citizen, who has a really good eye for understanding the complex processes of cities, and how they function. She also has a pretty compelling way with words, I really enjoyed some of her prose at times, and her extended metaphors could really have a lot of teeth. ( )

In an age when architects and planners were spouting all kinds of brave-new-world nonsense (or mindlessly absorbing it, or even worse – building it), Jacobs burst onto the scene with an incredible dose of sanity mixed with common sense and wisdom, carefully observing the urban environment and drawing a host of remarkably sensible conclusions. For some reason we architects seem always at risk of believing our own nuttiest fantasies. Jacobs is a perennial corrective. ( )

The first half of this book is a phenomenal introduction to thinking about /how to live in a city./ On every page I was struck by an insight that codified what was the difference between cities I loved living in, and ones I didn't. Furthermore, the same analysis can be viewed as advice about how to choose a place to live, and what to do when you get there. As someone working on a big, unstructured move of my own in the next few months, this is particularly timely advice.

The second half is very clearly not meant for me; it talks about what to do with a city in order to avoid its death and promote its liveliness. While this is certainly an interesting topic, it's not one I have much agency over, nor do I plan to ever be in such a situation. After several chapters with low insight density, I decided to skim the remainder of the book, and I don't feel like I missed much.

Jacobs' argument rests on four pillars:
1) city streets are not just thoroughfares, they are where life in the city is /actively lived/
2) a neighborhood must bring in diverse people for diverse reasons in order to make streets safe
3) blocks must be short in order to facilitate many paths through them
4) there is a critical mass of humans necessary for city life, and thus high density residences are a necessity

Amidst these points, Jacobs discusses how parks fail, raising children in urban environments, what's wrong with housing projects, the ruinous effects of borders on neighborhoods and districts, along with a bevy of other somewhat tangential points. I suspect if I were a city planner I would have found a lot more value in these sections, but, well, I'm not and so I didn't.

In terms of how this book actually changed my thoughts on choosing a place to live, the following insights were particularly influential to me:

* When choosing where to live, work top down. Select a city based on stereotypes about the people who live there, and then drill down from there. Don't begin with the question of "what do I like in a city" and find a place that optimizes that.
* Life occurs in densely populated streets. Find a neighborhood that reflects this, and make an effort to spend your time outside.
* Neighborhoods run by way of an implicit, unofficial local government of citizens who have the interests of the neighborhood at heart. Think small business owners, church leaders, home owners, postal workers, etc. Being such a public figure is not a particularly hard thing to do, and should be strived for if you're looking for a sense of belonging, because everybody knows these people.
* Take responsibility for your neighborhood. Help people who look lost, even if they don't ask for it; keep an eye out for suspicious characters; let people know if they've missed the last bus; etc.
* Avoid places with large amounts of concurrent growth; these places will lose their diversity and die sooner than later.
* Old buildings gain economic value over time, in terms of the riskier ventures their low rent can afford.
* Aim to live on the seam between two neighborhoods; the juxtaposition of the two cultures is what creates an interesting place to live.

I'd rate the first half of this book as one of the top five books I've ever read. Very strongly recommended. ( )