Summary of the introduction

In the introduction of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs expresses her feelings toward city planners. She doesn’t agree on their approach to constructing a city. Jacobs acknowledges the readers that city planners are more concerned about the representation rather than, what will ultimately be beneficial for the residents. For example, in an orthodox city like New York they built a very noticeable rectangular lawn in the housing project of East Harlem. The tenants were outraged by their actions and the misusage of money. Ironically, they saw this situation in a completely different perspective. They thought since there is a nice green lawn everyone is a winner and even lower class people have it all. But once again the city planners came about the problem all wrong. They thought more about the visual appearance of the neighborhood instead of the essential needs of the tenants. Building a pharmacy, mall or grocery store would have been a great addition to the neighborhood and also, would have worked toward their convenience. Unfortunately, cities are becoming slums due to their poor judgements. Jacobs is disappointed because the same methods of construction are being taught to future city planners. She basically gives us her feed back on how things should be done and highlights the numerous flaws that are done when creating the city.