Foreword Vyacheslav Glazichev
Moscow, Europe Publishing House, 2006, pp 264
Jane Jacobs is the author of «The Death and Life of Great American Cities» in the ‘60s. That book has for the first time allowed the reader the benefit of doubt regarding the professionals’ real awareness of public needs and the best way to satisfy them. The genre of the «Dark Age Ahead» can be best described as a warning. However, it is interesting, in the first place, for the simple interpretation of plain facts. Brought together, these facts do not leave a stone standing from the myths that life is much better across the ocean.
Those who cherish such myths will be disappointed to discover that the housing problem is not any easier – and may be even harder in North America, that there is not much left of the corporate professional ethics, that mass production of diplomas is taking the place of schools that still preserve rapport between the student and teacher, that the creation of huge suburbs is finishing off the traditional urban values. At the same time, the author belongs to the generation of 20th century’s «mastodons» who never lose optimism, however modest it may be.
