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Abstract
Art has the dual role of being life-releasing and life-enhancing. Faced with tasks of design in the rebuilding of cities, neither Utopian surgery nor nibbling at bits and pieces (in reliance upon a spontaneous order) is satisfactory in meeting the need for master planning. A confederated attack on problems of metropolitan development is the right strategy for a pluralistic society. Such strategy, in steering clear of monolithic authoritarianism, steers away also from the atomistic, laissez faire advocacies of Jane Jacobs prompted by her distrust of city designers. While sharing in her concern for variety and individuality lodged in places in the city, exception is taken to her abstracting of art from life supported by her contention that our social traits incapacitate us for common and coordinated action in environmental design.