The Death and Life of Great American Cities

In the first four chapters of this book, the author, Jane Jacobs discusses why sidewalks are so important to a city and what makes them so significant. Jacobs differs with Howard's and La Corbusier's ideas and says that they are all irrelevant to how cities work.
She starts off by saying the three primary uses of sidewalks which are safety, contact, and assimilating children. She says that street safety is promoted by pavements which shows the public and private seperation. She says that people are more so protected or feel protected from the eyes of all the pedestrians on the streets and those watching out of their office building windows. By this she basically meant that over time pavements contribute to building trust between neighbors and in the community. Also, because of so many stores on the sidewalks of cities, the social life is enhanced because of all the storekeepers finding out about retail news and spreading it to pedestrians that enter their stores. A great point that she states is that sidewalk contact and safety combined together, puts a nice block on racial discrimination and segregation. It forms bonds and brings more people together.
Jacobs then goes ahead to say that trust cannot be built in artificial public places such as a game room in a housing project. She is going against the idea of the Radiant City and the Garden City. She further goes against these theories by saying that the sidewalks are a safe environment for children unlike big city parks because of the lack of security and surveillance in the parks. She says successful parks are those under a lot of use from companies and residents.
Overall Jacobs has her own ideas of what should make a great American city and it doesn't have anything to do with what Howard or La Corbusier think. To read further about Jane Jacobs and her ideas click on her homepage. http://bss.sfsu.edu/pamuk/urban/