In the mid-20th century, “city planners” such as Robert Moses, gleefully tore down New York City’s wonderful neighborhoods in favor of utopian housing schemes and massive expressways. The buildings would become known as “the projects,” and look how that turned out. They would’ve destroyed the rest of the city were it not for writer and activist Jane Jacobs, who recognized that it is the people and their complex interactions that make a city, not buildings and roads. Her prescient 1960 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, still resonates strongly in light of today’s global urbanization. (92 min)