More than fifty years has it taken our cities to earnestly subject their developmental objectives to revision, and make them address life more directly. It was Jane Jacobs who brought about this change of direction. The question “Where are the people?” – which she famously asked Edmund Bacon, head of Philadelphia’s urban planning programs – remains pertinent today. Jacobs also bequeathed to us a special sensitivity and respect for urban fragments of daily life, that everyday chaos with a rare wisdom of its own that does not fall within our usual idea of order. In contrast with the monsters inspired by the ‘dreams of reason’ of rationalist urbanism, these fragments of chaos – in the words of Manuel Delgado – lend diversity and conflict to the urb while showing designers’ passion for order through their interest in creating a peaceful, predictable city... [+]