Jane Jacobs

With a new edition of The Death and Life of Great American Cities releasing this week, Sam Lewis looks at a handful of "planebrities" to see how they would measure up for Ms. Jacobs.

September 17, 2011 - WNET

Glaeser argues that Jane Jacobs was attempting to preserve affordability with her historic preservation efforts, which he says is wrong-headed.

July 29, 2011 - Governing Magazine

Kaid Benfield shares this video from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that includes audio and video of Jane Jacobs, a rarity.

July 23, 2011 - SustainableCitiesCollective

In the new book of essays Reconsidering Jane Jacobs, Thomas J. Campanella says that noteworthy to practicing planners in 2011 is the final essay by Thomas J. Campanella wonders if urban planning is at risk of becoming trivial.

June 15, 2011 - South Bend Examiner

Urban designer and architect Ken Greenberg writes "an eloquent, personal, compelling and persuasive argument for more enlightened city-building," says Michael Dudley in this review of Greenberg's new book [...]

May 26, 2011 - Michael Dudley

On the occasion of Jane Jacobs' birthday (and the international "Jane's Walks" held in her honor), Stephen Wickens muses on Jane Jacobs' legacy and the ways in which her ideas are used -- and misused -- in an age of superficial mass media.

May 11, 2011 - Globe and Mail

Architecture critic Christopher Hume writes an homage to urban planning icon Jane Jacobs, highlighting the resiliency of her positions on density and diversity.

May 6, 2011 - Toronto Star

In comparing the legacies of artist Andy Warhol and urban thinker Jane Jacobs, this essay suggests that the sort of urban community we think of today is more a result of Warhol.

May 6, 2011 - Places

As just about everyone in the planning profession now knows, this is the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Death and Life of Great American Cities by urbanist icon Jane Jacobs. While Death and Life was itself iconic, Jane Jacobs was also a great public intellectual who continually built on her ideas in subsequent books and articles. 

May 2, 2011 - Samuel Staley

Community leaders hope to raise awareness and the profile of a beloved city daughter.

May 1, 2011 - The Scranton Times Tribune

Is urban planning losing its relevance as a profession? Some say yes. In this essay from Places, Thomas Campanella suggests that the roots of this fall from grace lie in the era of Jane Jacobs.

April 27, 2011 - Places

When it comes to Jane Jacobs, planners pick and choose what they find useful, says Roberta Brandes Gratz, missing Jacobs central argument for grass-roots, bottom-up planning. Gratz reviews a new book "Reconsidering Jane Jacobs."

April 25, 2011 - Roberta Brandes Gratz

Was Jane Jacobs a NIMBY? Did she despise density? These sort of reevaluations of Jacobs' legacy are hot at the moment. Roberta Brandes Gratz explains why the naysayers are off base.

January 24, 2011 - Roberta Brandes Gratz

Jarrett Murphy reviews The Battle for Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs" by Roberta Brandes Gratz, and concludes that it is a nuanced interpretation of the classic showdown.

January 13, 2011 - City Limits

Physicist Geoffrey West of the Santa Fe Institute applied his talents to unraveling urban issues like population growth in a similar vein that he did earlier with biology. He found answers that explain how all cities work if enough data is supplied.

December 20, 2010 - The New York Times - Magazine

There are two magnetic poles in the realm of urban planning: Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs. But do we have to always be stuck in this tug-of-war?

October 30, 2010 - Urban Omnibus

Bill Barnes of the National League of Cities argues that we don't need acolytes of Jane Jacobs; we need people who will think as hard and as well as she did about "the kind of problem a city is."

August 23, 2010 - Nation's Cities Weekly

Jane Jacobs, often viewed as the patron saint of the progressive urban planning world, maybe be given too much credit, according to this piece from Andrew Manshel.

June 30, 2010 - The Wall Street Journal

Jane Jacobs is probably the most well-regarded writer on urban issues in American history. But, as economist Edward L. Glaeser argues, her stance on urban density is a little bit off-target.

May 5, 2010 - The New York Times

Roberta Brandes Gratz has released her own account of the showdown between Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses, with her own history of growing up in New York interwoven. George Beane has this review.

April 2, 2010 - Metropolis Magazine