Introduction

The introduction of the book “The Death and life of great American cities.” is basically a direct attack on orthodox city planning. The author, Jane Jacobs, makes this point very clear from her opening sentence, “This book is an attack on current city planning and rebuilding.” The first couple of the paragraphs she briefly tells you what the goal of her book is. What she thinks is wrong with the way cities are planned and how cities should be planned. For the next several paragraphs she seem to go into a rant about how vulgar, grotesque and self-destructive American cities are, using New York, Boston and Chicago as her examples. Then she finally goes into what she thinks is wrong with orthodox city planning principles. Giving examples of the influences that shaped these principles. And finally she explains why these principles are counterproductive and self-destructive to the growth of large cities.