Jane Jacobs, journalist, author, activist (urban studies) "Death and Life of Great American Cities

[niyad]

Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs as chairperson of a Greenwich Village civic group at a 1961 press conference.
Born Jane Butzner
May 4, 1916
Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died April 25, 2006 (aged 89)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Cause of death Stroke
Education Graduated from Scranton High School; two years undergraduate studies at Columbia University
Occupation Journalist, author, urban theorist
Employer Amerika, Architectural Forum
Organization Joint Committee to Stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway, Stop Spadina Save Our City Coordinating Committee
Notable work The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Home town Greenwich Village, New York City
The Annex, Toronto
Spouse(s) Robert Jacobs
Awards OC, O.Ont, Vincent Scully Prize, National Building Museum

Jane Jacobs OC OOnt (born Jane Butzner; May 4, 1916 – April 25, 2006) was a Canadian and American journalist, author, and activist best known for her influence on urban studies. Her influential book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) argued that urban renewal did not respect the needs of most city-dwellers. The book also introduced sociology concepts such as "eyes on the street" and "social capital".[1][2]

Jacobs was well known for organizing grassroots efforts to protect existing neighborhoods from "slum clearance" – and particularly for her opposition to Robert Moses in his plans to overhaul her neighborhood, Greenwich Village. She was instrumental in the eventual cancellation of the Lower Manhattan Expressway, which would have passed directly through SoHo and Little Italy, and was arrested in 1968 for inciting a crowd at a public hearing on the project. After moving to Toronto in 1968, she joined the opposition to the Spadina Expressway and the associated network of expressways in Toronto planned and under construction.

As a mother and a female writer who criticized experts in the male-dominated field of urban planning, Jacobs endured scorn from established figures, who called her a "housewife" and a "crazy dame." She did not have a college degree, or any formal training in urban planning, and was criticized for being unscholarly and imprecise. She was also accused of inattention to racial inequality, and her concept of "unslumming" has been compared with gentrification.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs

[CanadaexPat]

1. She had a very neighborhood take on cities

but frankly many of us moved to cities to leave small towns and wanted the relative anonymity of a city.