The Death & Life of Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs, author of the 1961 classic, Death and Life of Great American Cities, died at age 89 at her home in Toronto.

From today’s Toronto Star:

Her first book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961, became a bible for neighbourhood organizers and what she termed the “foot people”.

It made the case against the utopian planning culture of the times — residential high-rise development, expressways through city hearts, slum clearances, and desolate downtowns.

She believed that residential and commercial activity should be in the same place, that the safest neighbourhoods teem with life, short winding streets are better than long straight ones, low-rise housing is better than impersonal towers, that a neighbourhood is where people talk to one another. She liked the small-scale.

Not everyone agreed. Her arch-critic, Lewis Mumford, called her vision “higgledy-piggledy unplanned casualness.”

From an Associated Press article in USA Today

Her impact transcended borders. Basing her findings on deep, eclectic reading and firsthand observation, Jacobs challenged assumptions she believed damaged modern cities — that neighborhoods should be isolated from each other, that an empty street was safer than a crowded one, that the car represented progress over the pedestrian.

Her priorities were for integrated, manageable communities, for diversity of people, transportation, architecture and commerce. She also believed that economies need to be self-sustaining and self-renewing, relying on local initiative instead of centralized bureaucracies.Her impact transcended borders. Basing her findings on deep, eclectic reading and firsthand observation, Jacobs challenged assumptions she believed damaged modern cities — that neighborhoods should be isolated from each other, that an empty street was safer than a crowded one, that the car represented progress over the pedestrian.

Her priorities were for integrated, manageable communities, for diversity of people, transportation, architecture and commerce. She also believed that economies need to be self-sustaining and self-renewing, relying on local initiative instead of centralized bureaucracies.

From the Project for Public Spaces:

Jacobs had no professional training in the field of city planning, nor did she hold the title of planner. She instead relied on her observations and common sense to illustrate why certain places work, and what can be done to improve those that do not. Together with William H. Whyte, Jacobs led the way in advocating for a place-based, community-centered approach to urban planning, decades before such approaches were considered sensible.

Her efforts to stop downtown expressways and protect local neighborhoods invigorated community-based urban activism and helped end Parks Commissioner Robert Moses’s reign of power in New York City.

The PPS link above includes a great amount of detail of her life and a list of sources. For your convenience here are some selected books by Jane Jacobs from locally owned Left Bank Books:

Death and Life of Great American Cities: Paperback, Hardcover

The Nature of Cities: Paperback

Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principals of Economic Life: Paperback

The Nature of Economies: Paperback

Dark Age Ahead: Paperback, Hardcover

It is no secret that I am attempting to follow in her footsteps; writing about my observations, stopping freeways (or drive-thrus) and advocating better planning. She has left some mighty big shoes to fill.

The world has just lost the greatest urbanist of our lifetime.

– Steve