This book received Honorable Mention in the category of Architecture and Urban Studies in the 1993 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Awards Competition presented by the Association of American Publishers, Inc. Which are the world's best streets, and what are the physical, designable characteristics that make them great? To answer these questions, Allan Jacobs has surveyed street users and design professionals and has studied a wide array of street types and urban spaces around the world. With more than 200 illustrations, all prepared by the author, along with analysis and statistics, Great Streets offers a wealth of information on street dimensions, plans, sections, and patterns of use, all systematically compared. It also reveals Jacobs's eye for the telling human and social details that bring streets and communities to life. An extensive introduction discusses the importance of streets in creating communities and criteria for identifying the best streets. The essays that follow examine 15 particularly fine streets, ranging from medieval streets in Rome and Copenhagen to Venice's Grand Canal, from Parisian boulevards to tree-lined residential streets in American cities. Jacobs also looks at several streets that were once very fine but are less successful today, such as Market Street in San Francisco, identifying the factors that figure in their decline. To broaden his coverage, Jacobs adds briefer treatments of more than 30 other streets arranged by street type, including streets from Australia, Japan, and classical antiquity in addition to European and North American examples. For each of these streets he has prepared plans, sections, and maps, all drawn at the same scales to facilitate comparisons, along with perspective views and drawings of significant design details. Another remarkable feature of this book is a set of 50 one square-mile maps, each reproduced at the same scale, of the street plans of representative cities around the world. These reveal much about the texture of the cities' street patterns and hence of their urban life. Jacobs's analysis of the maps adds much original data derived from them, including changes of street patterns over time. Jacobs concludes by summarizing the practical design qualities and strategies that have contributed most to the making of great streets.

Great Streets

Politics & Social Sciences

Jacobs, Allan B.

Sociology

Mit Pr

Silver Award Winner for Architecture in the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards. and Winner of the 2001 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Awards Competition presented by the Association of American Publishers, Inc. in the category of Excellence in Design and Production. First built in Europe and grandly imported to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, the classic multiway boulevard has been in decline for many years, victim of a narrowly focused approach to street design that views unencumbered vehicular traffic flow as the highest priority. The American preoccupation with destination and speed has made multiway boulevards increasingly rare as artifacts of the urban landscape. This book reintroduces the boulevard, tree-lined and with separate realms for through traffic and for slow-paced vehicular-pedestrian movement, as an important and often crucial feature of both historic and contemporary cities. It presents more than fifty boulevards?-as varied as Avenue Montaigne, in Paris; C. G. Road, in Ahmedabad, India; and The Esplanade, in Chico, California—celebrating their usefulness and beauty. It discusses their history and evolution, the misconceptions that led to their near-demise in the United States, and their potential as a modern street type. Based on wide research, The Boulevard Book examines the safety of these streets and offers design guidelines for professionals, scholars, and community decision makers. Extensive plans, cross sections, and perspective drawings permit visual comparisons. The book shows how multiway boulevards respond to many issues that are central to urban life, including livability, mobility, safety, interest, economic opportunity, mass transit, and open space.

The Boulevard Book: History, Evolution, Design of Multiway Boulevards

Arts & Photography

MacDonald, Elizabeth

Rofé, Yodan

Architecture

Which are the world's best streets, and what are the physical, designable characteristics that make them great? To answer these questions, Allan Jacobs has surveyed street users and design professionals and has studied a wide array of street types and urban spaces around the world. With more than 200 illustrations, all prepared by the author, along with analysis and statistics, Great Streets offers a wealth of information on street dimensions, plans, sections, and patterns of use, all systematically compared. It also reveals Jacobs's eye for the telling human and social details that bring streets and communities to life.
An extensive introduction discusses the importance of streets in creating communities and criteria for identifying the best streets. The essays that follow examine 15 particularly fine streets, ranging from medieval streets in Rome and Copenhagen to Venice's Grand Canal, from Parisian boulevards to tree-lined residential streets in American cities. Jacobs also looks at several streets that were once very fine but are less successful today, such as Market Street in San Francisco, identifying the factors that figure in their decline. 
To broaden his coverage, Jacobs adds briefer treatments of more than 30 other streets arranged by street type, including streets from Australia, Japan, and classical antiquity in addition to European and North American examples. For each of these streets he has prepared plans, sections, and maps, all drawn at the same scales to facilitate comparisons, along with perspective views and drawings of significant design details. 
Another remarkable feature of this book is a set of 50 one square-mile maps, each reproduced at the same scale, of the street plans of representative cities around the world. These reveal much about the texture of the cities' street patterns and hence of their urban life. Jacobs's analysis of the maps adds much original data derived from them, including changes of street patterns over time. 
Jacobs concludes by summarizing the practical design qualities and strategies that have contributed most to the making of great streets.

Great Streets (Mit Press)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Thrillers & Suspense

The MIT Press

A celebration of the multiway boulevard and an argument for its revival, with design guidelines and historic examples.
First built in Europe and grandly imported to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, the classic multiway boulevard has been in decline for many years, victim of a narrowly focused approach to street design that views unencumbered vehicular traffic flow as the highest priority. The American preoccupation with destination and speed has made multiway boulevards increasingly rare as artifacts of the urban landscape. This book reintroduces the boulevard, tree-lined and with separate realms for through traffic and for slow-paced vehicular-pedestrian movement, as an important and often crucial feature of both historic and contemporary cities. It presents more than fifty boulevards―as varied as Avenue Montaigne, in Paris; C. G. Road, in Ahmedabad, India; and The Esplanade, in Chico, California―celebrating their usefulness and beauty. It discusses their history and evolution, the misconceptions that led to their near-demise in the United States, and their potential as a modern street type.
Based on wide research, The Boulevard Book examines the safety of these streets and offers design guidelines for professionals, scholars, and community decision makers. Extensive plans, cross sections, and perspective drawings permit visual comparisons. The book shows how multiway boulevards respond to many issues that are central to urban life, including livability, mobility, safety, interest, economic opportunity, mass transit, and open space.

The Boulevard Book: History, Evolution, Design of Multiway Boulevards (Mit Press)

Graphic Design

The Good City: Reflections and Imaginations

Cities, Allan B. Jacobs contends, ought to be magnificent, beautiful places to live. They should be places where people can be fulfilled, where they can be what they can be, where there is freedom, love, ideas, excitement, quiet and joy. Cities ought to be the ultimate manifestation of society’s collective achievements.  Allan B. Jacobs is one of the world’s best known planners and urban design practitioners, with a long and distinguished international career. Drawing on his professional experience of almost sixty years, Jacobs guides the reader through the lessons he’s learnt as a planner and lover of cities.  Cities from Brazil, Italy, India, Japan, China and the US are featured. Written with a wonderfully engaging, humorous tone and Jacobs’ own drawings, The Good City transfers lessons on city design, building and urban change to all those willing to help cities become the magnificent, beautiful places they should be - and encourages all inhabitants to learn to appreciate and explore their own cities.

Social Sciences

Routledge

Cities, Allan B. Jacobs contends, ought to be magnificent, beautiful places to live. They should be places where people can be fulfilled, where they can be what they can be, where there is freedom, love, ideas, excitement, quiet and joy. Cities ought to be the ultimate manifestation of society’s collective achievements. Allan B. Jacobs is one of the world’s best known planners and urban design practitioners, with a long and distinguished international career. Drawing on his professional experience of almost sixty years, Jacobs guides the reader through the lessons he’s learnt as a planner and lover of cities. Cities from Brazil, Italy, India, Japan, China and the US are featured. Written with a wonderfully engaging, humorous tone and Jacobs’ own drawings, The Good City transfers lessons on city design, building and urban change to all those willing to help cities become the magnificent, beautiful places they should be - and encourages all inhabitants to learn to appreciate and explore their own cities.

Allan Jacobs has written a city planning book for everyone with a passion for urban environments. His message--conveyed in word and vivid image--is that the people who make changes in cities base their decisions upon what they see, and that their visions and actions, which affect the lives of millions, have too often been faulty. This book is about how to look at and understand urban environments. 
 In order to plan sensitively, the city and regional planner must walk in, look at, wonder about, and simply enjoy cities. Careful observation is a crucial tool for the kind of analysis and questioning necessary to achieve good planning. Through observation the city planner and urban activist can learn when an area was built, for whom it was built, who lives there now, how it has changed, and how it might be improved for present and future inhabitants. 
 Jacobs shows us how to read cities by identifying and discussing the many visual clues and their various meanings in different environments. Case studies of American and European cities--San Jose, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Bologna, Rome--and over two hundred striking photographs, drawings, and maps by the author present ways to read the environment that will prove indispensable for urban planners and will delight all city watchers.

Looking at Cities

Harvard University Press

Allan Jacobs has written a city planning book for everyone with a passion for urban environments. His message--conveyed in word and vivid image--is that the people who make changes in cities base their decisions upon what they see, and that their visions and actions, which affect the lives of millions, have too often been faulty. This book is about how to look at and understand urban environments.   In order to plan sensitively, the city and regional planner must walk in, look at, wonder about, and simply enjoy cities. Careful observation is a crucial tool for the kind of analysis and questioning necessary to achieve good planning. Through observation the city planner and urban activist can learn when an area was built, for whom it was built, who lives there now, how it has changed, and how it might be improved for present and future inhabitants.   Jacobs shows us how to read cities by identifying and discussing the many visual clues and their various meanings in different environments. Case studies of American and European cities--San Jose, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Bologna, Rome--and over two hundred striking photographs, drawings, and maps by the author present ways to read the environment that will prove indispensable for urban planners and will delight all city watchers.

Making City Planning Work

Politics & Government

Amer Planning Assn

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jacobs, Allan B.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Jacobs, Allan B.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jacobs, Allan B.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Great Streets

The Boulevard Book: History, Evolution, Design of Multiway Boulevards

Great Streets (Mit Press)

The Boulevard Book: History, Evolution, Design of Multiway Boulevards (Mit Press)

The Good City: Reflections and Imaginations

The Good City: Reflections and Imaginations

Looking at Cities

Looking at Cities

Making City Planning Work