A Conversation With Jane Jacobs

"The preservation of some of New York’s communities, so threatened in Jacobs’s day, pleases her, but their gentrification worries her...acobs has closely followed the Ground Zero plans and debates, and she thinks that the right thing to do is not to do anything right away...Her new book, despite its title, 'is not gloomy,' she said. 'But it is a wake-up call.' She believes that the fight for the soul of America is still on, and that it will be a battle, essentially, between cars and songs."