I just started reading Emergence last night, and I begin to grasp why Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities, has started popping up on peoples’ reading lists everywhere.

Death and Life is a great book, I found it years ago, digging through my fathers urban planning collection. But until recently I would have thought it was a much cited, but little read classic from an earlier century, and I’ve been puzzled that it was expirencing a reniassance.

Has the recent gaps in the NYC skyline interested everyone in urban planning again? Nope. The book is just getting great marketting from Emergence, and its cheap to pick up at your local used bookstore.

Personally I got more of a kick out of reading her “The Economy of Cities”, which immediately sent me into throws of longing for a game that crossed SimCity and Civiliziation, though it had less to say, and was more speculative.

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