The Death and Life of Great American Cities | Themes

The Death and Life of Great American Cities Themes

The Errors of City Planning

The whole purpose of this book has been to point out the errors of city planning. These errors are not new errors, for the most part. They are repeats of errors that have been made for hundreds of years. They are not the fault of the city planners; they are the fault of the theorists. Jacobs is not so much attacking the people who do the planning as she is attacking the educators who teach the planners. Jacobs totally disagrees with their policy of tearing down and slum shifting.

In Jacobs' eyes, the planners don't look at the right things. They don't look at successful neighborhoods and ask what makes them successful, then try to create the conditions for success. They don't look at what causes slums years before they become slums and try to ascertain the factors so that they can be prevented. Twentieth century planning theory has been...
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