The Death and Life of Great American Cities opens with a bold attack on orthodox planning in the United States, followed by proposals for urban renewal. Jacobs dispels the myth that money is the key to solving urban blight. Additionally, she points to the negative impact planning has on urban environments, including the loss of small businesses. Jacobs opposes orthodox planners, whose policies and actions negatively impact cities. Using a medical analogy, she compares orthodox planning to bloodletting, arguing that both are pseudo-scientific and do more harm than good. She grounds her study in “the real world” (13) and “the most ordinary scenes and events” (13), with the dual aim of understanding successful cities and offering directions for their improvement.

Jacobs provides a brief history of the most influential ideas underlying orthodox planning. She begins with Ebenezer Howard’s conception of the Garden City, which was taken up in the 1920s by the so-called decentrists. This group of American planners sought to deconcentrate or decentralize cities. The discussion then shifts to Le Corbusier, the designer of the unrealized Radiant City, who aimed to create a physical and social utopia comprising towers and parks.