Robert’s Reviews > The Death and Life of Great American Cities > Status Update

Hated parking lots before it was cool.

Complains about gentrification before it was cool. Her main problem with it is that the wealthier people & uses crowd out the necessary economic diversity that is required for a healthy neighborhood economy.

The discussion of different uses on a residential street, including mortuaries, makes me think about what Jacobs would say about the setting of Bob's Burgers.

The economic relationships between the ages of properties & affordability of rents were considerably changed by the early 2000s if not earlier. I wish the old-ass buildings in my neighborhood had cheaper rents!

Discussion of districts perversely makes me think of the latest installment in the Civilization computer game series. The game's conception of urban planning is pretty much opposite of Jacobs's. I wonder how much the level of community organizing has changed in major cities of the U.S. since Jacobs's time.

I like her recommendation that a sidewalk needs to be 30ft wide & have shade trees between the sidewalk & the street, & that the 30 ft figure comes from the amount of room needed to accommodate both a game of double dutch, & passerby.

Finally reading the now classic criticism of American/European urban planning written all the way back in 1961. It's easy to imagine Jacobs talking my ear off on this topic on the sidewalk outside my house. The "Seinfeld Isn't Funny" trope of urban planning writing. So many of Jacobs's criticisms of urban planning were so prescient so long ago that they almost seem cliche today.