Cities, Dead or Alive

The injury was a back-sprainy thing. Still waiting on a physio appointment to say more. It is ow.
Word suggestions have been made. Choose your own favourites. I think mine is still “impershonation”.
Thanks to flatlander I read recently the book ‘The Death And Life Of Great American Cities’ by Jane Jacobs. This book was the very definition of an unexpected pleasure. It was incredible.
In this book, from 1961, Jacobs systematically explains how cities function on many different levels – economically, politically, in neighbourhoods, street behaviour, and more aspects – and knits all these levels of explanation together to argue convincingly that city-planning assumptions of the era were completely back-to-front. It was a hugely influential book, and I believe it is still influential today. It was one of the keystones of the New Urbanism, for example. (I think I comprehend a lot more of what Tom at WellUrban writes about, for example.)
Reading this book has helped me see Wellington in a new light, as I see all the phenomena Jacobs mentions in their various manifestations here. But Jacobs is explicitly writing about really big cities, and really big American cities at that – and sure enough, it has made me reassess my engagement with London, with Paris, with New York and Chicago and Houston. (Just one example of many: so *that* is where project housing came from, and why it’s such a disaster!)
The greatest pleasure of this book is having something so complex explained with such clarity and insight. It isn’t often that you get this kind of explanation. It’s satisfying, wildly satisfying, to have so many moments of “a-ha!”. Not only that, but the complex subject is easy to relate to – human existence in cities. Even those who live in small cities like Wellington will gain a huge amount from it.
I’m not going to try and summarise it here. Go see Wikipedia for more. And if you ever get a chance to read this, do it. Best book on town planning you’ll ever read.
A little bit of Friday linky: Wil Wheaton watches and reviews the Star Trek episodes in which he once starred as uber-annoying child hero Wesley Crusher. Wil is always worth reading, and if you know what TNG stands for, you probably should check these out.
Also: Musical Weeping Santa.