Rereading Jane Jacobs: Reflections on “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”
I recently finished rereading Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities. It wasn’t my first encounter with the book. I first read it in graduate school over 15 years ago. At the time, it was eye-opening. I wasn’t particularly familiar with the planning profession then, beyond a vague desire to make places better—a motivation that probably leads many people into the field.
Having grown up in Saginaw, Michigan, I witnessed firsthand the fallout of deindustrialization. The once-thriving city was marked by vacancies, crumbling infrastructure, and a declining tax base. As a kid, I often daydreamed about living in a place with vibrancy and life—something Saginaw lacked. Later, as I became more aware of the systemic forces that shaped my hometown, I started to ask deeper questions: Why was it like this? Could it have been avoided?
When I was introduced to urban planning, I naïvely thought planners were benevolent actors, fighting against the damage inflicted on industrial cities by the forces of capitalism. That’s why Jacobs’ critique of planners—delivered with unflinching candor—was so jarring to me. It challenged my core assumptions about the field. Her account of political figures like Robert Moses and the catastrophic decisions of mid-century planners was hard to digest. Projects like urban renewal, slum clearance, and highway construction—initiatives that were touted as progress—often caused irreparable harm, particularly to communities of color.
Jacobs exposed planning’s paternalistic streak, where decisions made “for the greater good” disregarded the lived experiences of the people most affected. Reading her work in the 2010s, it was almost offensive to me that this book was being used as an introduction to planning. It forced me to question whether this was the right field for me at all. Perhaps in that way the book was used in the most appropriate way possible.
After graduate school, I gravitated toward housing and community development, working with federal grants and local nonprofits at a state housing authority and later in local government. It was an enlightening experience and I got to work with some great people. I was a grant manager on several high profile projects in Detroit and later in Portland. After about 10 years, though, I grew frustrated with the limited impact I felt I was making. That led me back to land-use planning, where I stayed for another six years.
Over time, I came to realize that municipal planning is largely administrative. Grand visions and master planning? Those are often reserved for the private sector—or for architects, landscape architects, and engineers. My idealistic notions of planning as a transformative profession gradually gave way to a more measured understanding of its limits.
When I returned to Jacobs’ book recently, with more than 15 years of experience in community development and land-use planning behind me, her critiques resonated differently. I could see the validity of her skepticism toward the government’s ability to manage the countless complexities of urban life. At the same time, I found myself questioning her faith in the free market to deliver the kind of neighborhoods she championed.
Jacobs celebrated the organic development of neighborhoods like those in Boston and New York, where fine-grain commercial spaces and mixed-use buildings emerged seemingly without regulation. But modern development doesn’t happen that way. Today, large-scale developers dominate, creating projects that cater to automobiles rather than pedestrians. Even when new buildings mimic the façades of traditional urban neighborhoods, their functionality often falls short.
In my experience, small-scale developers who might build the kind of vibrant, walkable neighborhoods Jacobs loved are rare. Instead, large tracts of land are developed in ways that prioritize parking lots and inward-facing designs. Housing above retail—a hallmark of Jacobs’ ideal urban fabric—is almost nonexistent in new developments, especially in suburban areas.
In Portland’s suburbs, I see the opposite dynamic of my Michigan hometown. Here, rapid economic growth fueled by industries like tech and apparel has led to sprawling development that’s difficult to manage. Despite a relatively robust transit system, much of the land use still prioritizes cars. It’s hard not to feel that planners missed an opportunity to mold this region into something more human-scaled and accessible. While positive changes are being made and less auto-dominated development is occurring, much of it still feels like urban intensity of development and population density without urban levels of amenities.
As much as I respect Jacobs’ prose and the timelessness of some of her ideas, her lack of empirical evidence is striking. Her observations are compelling, but they rely heavily on anecdotes and personal experiences. It’s easy to criticize a book written half a century ago, but I wonder what Jacobs would think of today’s cities. Would she still be so critical of government programs, especially considering that some have been among the few examples of humanistic, dignity-centered development since her time?
Reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities again, I’m left with as many questions as answers. It’s a book that continues to challenge me, even after years of working in the field. Perhaps that’s its greatest strength—forcing us to reckon with the complexities of planning and reminding us that cities, like people, defy easy solutions.
