Book Review

摘要

Allan Jacobs is one of the small number of American thinkers and doers whose writings and teaching have profoundly influenced the contemporary practice of city planning. His books have become classics in the field. Now retired from the University of California at Berkeley, he has given us this gem of a book of reflections on a lifetime of personal encounters with the city. Written in plain American vernacular and highlighted by his precise, evocative drawings of city-scapes, The Good City is a trove of unrelated essays, stories, observations, opinions, and sketches. This is not the usual academic book heavy with jargon, erudite footnotes, and scholarly bibliographies but, even at his most acerbic, it is his love song to the city. "It may not be the academic approach," he writes,