Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Happy birthday, Jane!

Jane Jacobs, the most important urban thinker of all times

Read the whole story at PPS!

- Jane Jacobs at 100 Roundup
“We should honor Jacobs’s memory today by redesigning our cities as she might have. It’s not just a matter of livability or quality of life, but a long-term strategy for a denser urban future, one that is environmentally rational and economically vital.” —Janette Sadik-Khan & Seth Solomonow, in CityLab

“For all the love Jane Jacobs has received from urban planners and policymakers since her first book was published, her greatest theoretical innovation seems to be largely disregarded. Cities across the country continue to centrally plan the minutiae of urban life, from obsessively detailed land-use regulations to impossibly ambitious comprehensive plans.” —Nolan Gray, in Strong Towns

“Jane was anything but anti-development and anti-change […]. She saw government planners as too-often rigid freezers of development, and mocked regulations that prevented, for example, commercial activities in residential districts. She held strong views about what worked and what didn’t in cities—diverse neighbourhoods did, slum clearances didn’t—but had no desire for centrally planned solutions.” —Lawrence Solomon, in Financial Post

“At the very center of Jacobs’ work, I have come to believe, lies a great concern over the darker, more pessimistic forces of standardization, top-down planning, bureaucracy, and globalization that have acted against diversity and human progress.” —Richard Florida, in CityLab

“In order to become more like Jane Jacobs and help save our cities, if not our civilization, we should heed her warnings and fight our present-day enemies—which, as much as top-down forces, may include our own lack of vision, lack of action, and habits of behavior and thought.” —Peter Laurence, History News Network

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