Jane Jacobs 1916-2006

Everyone who loves cities and cares about their future will miss the voice and presence of Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Her approach to cities, which stressed the importance of neighborhoods and argued that population density was one of the virtues of urban life, changed city planning forever. When she first wrote, the conventional wisdom was that cities could be saved by knocking down established neighborhoods and building highways and high-rise buildings in parkland. Few believe that now, largely because of the thinking and writing of one woman who took the trouble to look at cities on the ground and learn how they worked.

We are still learning from her.