How long does it take to read The Death and Life of Great American Cities?
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs takes about 8 hours 39 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 8 hours 39 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 1961. 472 pages, about 129,800 words.
18 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 14 hours 25 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 8 hours 39 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 5 hours 25 minutes |
The page count is the median across 47 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Published in 1961, this book by writer and activist Jane Jacobs challenges the urban planning approaches of the 1950s, which she blames for the decline of many American city neighborhoods. She targets planners such as Robert Moses and the earlier ideas of Le Corbusier, arguing that modernist planning oversimplifies the complexity of life in diverse communities. Jacobs opposes large urban renewal schemes and freeways cut through inner cities. She favors dense, mixed-use development, walkable streets watched over by passers-by, and the preservation of existing buildings and communities.
This summary was written by AI and checked by a second AI model. How these are chosen.
Subjects: City planning, Urban renewal, Urban policy, Cities and towns, United States, Stedenbouw
