Jane Jacobs has written a book that may well survive the cities which, as she so vividly shows, are being ridden and planned to death by the people supposed to preserve and renew them. Living in non-cities such as Los Angeles, in vast conglomerations of suburbs, in homogeneous aggregates along highways, our heirs at least will know what they lost, and why. Nessun maggior dolore che ricordarsi del tempo felice nella miseria. Certainly—but perhaps pain and nostalgia will generate the impulse to rebuild what we are so energetically destroying.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs. Random House, $5.95
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