Jane Jacobs, sociologist, urban commentator, dead at 89.

[no_hypocrisy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/books/25cnd-jacobs.html?hp&ex=1146024000&en=c74b882dbb18bb74&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Jane Jacobs, the writer and thinker who brought penetrating eyes and ingenious insight to the sidewalk ballet of her own Greenwich Village street and came up with a book that challenged and changed the way people view cities, died today in Toronto, where she lived. She was 89.

She died at a Toronto hospital, said a distant cousin, Lucia Jacobs, who gave no specific cause of death.

In her book "Death and Life of Great American Cities," written in 1961, Ms. Jacobs's enormous achievement was to transcend her own withering critique of 20th-century urban planning and propose radically new principles for rebuilding cities. At a time when both common and inspired wisdom called for bulldozing slums and opening up city space, Ms. Jacobs's prescription was ever more diversity, density and dynamism — in effect, to crowd people and activities together in a jumping, joyous urban jumble.

Ms. Jacobs's thesis was supported and enlarged by her deep, eclectic reading. But most compelling was her description of the everyday life she witnessed from her home above a candy store at 555 Hudson Street.


Missing from the article is Jacobs' historic battle with Robert Moses against his intent to build a highway through the middle of Greenwich Village in the late 50s. Up to that point, Moses had been getting whatever he wanted. He destroyed intact neighborhoods in the Bronx to build the Cross Bronx Expressway, and Jacobs was determined not to allow him to destroy the Village with his prestige, money, and government muscle. This is one of the few times that "the People" stood up, protested, and won, led by Jane Jacobs.

Another American patriot leaves us . . .

[JeffR]

1. Last saw her two years ago

Walking in her neighborhood, very frail. She smiled and nodded when I said hello.

She was a giant, and the world is poorer without her.

Rest in peace.

[DemExpat]

2. Thanks, I am interested in this because

her work is prominently featured in my present urban studies course on Understanding Cities.

DemEx

[JeffR]

7. Before Jane Jacobs

No-one really understood cities. She turned the conventional wisdom on its head. As I said above, she was a giant.

[Swamp Rat]

11. You and I both

:D

[Minstrel Boy]

3. Very sad to learn this

I saw her a year ago and she was very frail then. She had a lot of wisdom.

Jacobs in 1997:


From The Toronto Star:

An American who chose to be Canadian, Mrs. Jacobs was a leader in the fights to preserve neighbourhoods and kill expressways, first in New York City, and then in Toronto.

Her efforts to stop the proposed expressway between Manhattan Bridge on east Manhattan and the Holland tunnel on the west ended contributed toward saving SoHo, Chinatown, and the west side of Greenwich Village.

In Toronto, her leadership galvanized the movement that stopped the proposed Spadina Expressway. It would have cut a swath through the lively Annex neighbourhood and parts of the downtown.

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”.

[smirkymonkey]

8. Thank You Jane!

For all you've done!

If it weren't for Jane Jacobs, my beautiful neighborhood would be Freeway right now. She stopped the evil Robert Moses dead in his tracks.

[ReadTomPaine]

4. Photos of Jane...

[JeffR]

6. Thanks for posting these

:yourock:

[beingthere]

5. Recommend fabulous book about Rob't Moses,

"The Power Broker" by Robert Caro.

[JeffR]

9. Kicking this because

1) I revere Jane Jacobs, who has been a hreo(ine) of mine since I was 18.

2) This is far and away the most important news story of the day. Ms. Jacobs kept working every day, right until the end of her long and amazing life, for progressive change.

3) Her death saddens me, but her life and her work inspire me even more.

:party:

[no_hypocrisy]

10. She also was a heroine to me.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060425/D8H79DFG3.html