On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, alex lantsberg wrote:
> i'm just finishing up reading jane jacobs' "cities and wealth of nations"
> and finding it quite interesting. am wondering whether folks on the list
> have read this (or any other of her stuff, particulary "the economy of
> cities") and what they think.
Her _Death and Life of Great Amermican Cities_ (1961) was right when everyone else was wrong and now everyone else admits it -- her ideas are now not only the common sense of idealistic urban planners, they're still the cutting edge -- she's like the new urbanists, only better, because she has a deeper appreciation for sociology, and she's a partisan of cities where most of them care more about suburbs. A very enjoyable book, very smart and simply written. If her book had been as influential when she'd written it as it is now, we might have been spared the horrors of monolithic housing projects. And it still has ideas we aren't using that we could.
The economics on the other hand I remember wanting to believe but not back then having the knowledge to judge. So I too would be interested to hear what the economists have to say on the matter.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com