For many years I have argued that in the decades after the Second World War, economic, demographic, and spatial transformations in the United States resulted in an urban form unlike any other in history. Recently, I realized that in one important way this formulation of recent urban history misleads, for it reports the outcome of history as singular when it should be plural. “Form” should be “forms”—what we have today is an unprecedented configuration of urban places that calls into question the definition of city itself.

The April 25, 2006, death of Jane Jacobs was one of the events that prompted me to re-think my narrative of recent urban history. If any one person can be anointed patron saint of urban studies, Jacobs deserves the crown. Her 1961 Death and Life of Great American Cities must be the most widely read and influential book ever written about American cities. After more than forty years, it retains its powerful impact. I have assigned it often to students...

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