The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Jane Jacobs’

This is what we talked about on The Invisible Mentor Blog this week: Dan Zarrella’s, Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness, Wise People: Jane Jacobs, Urban Theorist and Writer and Helen Roditis, Leadership Coach, Essence Coaching.

Mondays at the Salon

I’ve been thinking that I’m not always as grateful as I could be because there are times when I take things for granted. I also asked myself if I make the most of what I already have. Each of us is unique in our own way. We have talents that others don’t have, but are we using them well? Are we using them to serve others? When someone offers us their talents, are we gracious in accepting them, or are we dismissive? I am writing this post for you and for me.

Make the Most of What You Have 

Booked on Tuesdays

We’ve all seen videos, blog posts and ideas that spread like wildfire over the internet. But what makes them spreadable? Is it because they are good? Not necessarily, says Dan Zarrella – Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas - since some of those videos, blog posts and ideas aren’t good. They spread because they have contagiousness factors.  They spread because they are able to reproduce themselves.

Booked on Tuesdays: Review – Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas 

Wisdom Wednesdays

Jane Jacobs had no formal training in urban planning and design, yet she wrote a seminal book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which is still referred to five decades later. She opposed plans for an expressway to run through her neighbourhood in New York City and others rallied with her resulting in the Mayor nixing the plans. Jacobs demonstrates that a small group of committed people can change the world.

Wise People: Jane Jacobs, Urban Theorist and Writer 

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

When I think of Jane Jacobs, US Anthropologist, Margaret Mead’s famous quotation comes to mind. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Jane Jacobs had no formal training in urban planning and design, yet she wrote a seminal book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which is still referred to five decades later. She opposed plans for an expressway to run through her neighbourhood in New York City and others rallied with her resulting in the Mayor nixing the plans. Jacobs demonstrates that a small group of committed people can change the world.

Name: Jane Jacobs

Birth Date: May 1916 – April 2006

Job Functions: Urban Theorist/Visionary, Writer, and Activist

Fields: Urban Planning

Known For: Stopping the expansion of the Spadina Expressway in Toronto and the Proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway in New York City

After Jacobs graduated from high school in Scranton, Pennsylvania, she worked a year as an unpaid reporter for Scranton Tribune where she got a firsthand look at the problems of working-class districts. After that, she spent six months at a community centre for the Presbyterian home missions that her aunt ran in the mountains of North Carolina. In 1934, Jacobs left for New York City where her older sister was living, and eventually settled in Greenwich Village. While living in New York City, Jacobs initially worked in stenographic and secretarial jobs, and later as a freelance writer contributing articles to several New York publications. She didn’t limit herself to the types of articles she wrote because she was a quick study and would focus on any subject matter she needed to at the time.

During that time, Jacobs was unemployed a lot so she often took the subway and got off at random stops and walked around investigating the neighbourhoods and industrial districts, while at the same time seeking employment. Jane Jacobs learned about the city by wandering around. She was an excellent observer.

In April 1944, while she was a feature writer for the Office of War Information, Jacobs and her two roommates threw a party. One of the party guests was the architect Robert Hyde Jacobs Jr., who soon after became her husband. They had three children together – two boys and a girl.

In 1952, Jacobs took a job as associate editor at Architectural Forum. With the help and support of her husband she could master the knowledge she required to do her job well. In the role of associate editor, Jacobs had to analyze the problems of cities such as New York, Washington DC, Baltimore, San Francisco and Chicago, and became an ardent critic of tearing down old neighbourhoods to accommodate high-rise towers. The 1950s was also a time of urban renewal, and urban planners and developers were destroying the vitality of cities by “cleaning them up.” They levelled buildings in neighbourhoods and replaced them with high rises in park-like settings, thinking that they could get rid of social problems by doing so.

Jacobs wrote about these issues in her articles because she wanted to change the attitudes. She advocated for mixed-use buildings and proposed combining both residential and commercial needs in the same neighbourhood. Jacobs delved deeper into urban planning and design and contributed an article to Fortune magazine for its “The Exploding Metropolis” series. Her husband, and William H. Whyte, the editor of Fortune suggested that she write a book to capture her innovative ideas and thoughts on healthy and unhealthy cities, and The Death and Life of American Cities came into being in 1961. This book turned out to be Jacob’s most influential.

Jane Jacobs on her book “Dark Age Ahead”

If you cannot view this YouTube video please click here.

David versus Goliath

• In 1962, urban planner and multimillionaire Robert Moses proposed a 10-lane superhighway slated to be called the Lower Manhattan Expressway which would run through SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown and the Lower East Side. Jacobs chaired the Joint Committee to Stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway. Their efforts paid off and New York Mayor John Lindsay killed the plan.
• Jacobs first came head-to-head with Moses in 1956 when he wanted to continue Fifth Avenue (in Manhattan) as a four-lane expressway through Washington Square Park, her neighbourhood park.
• She also opposed Robert Moses’ plan to build a parking lot in Central Park.

Jacobs spoke out against Moses, and led others to oppose his plans. David prevailed over Goliath.

Jane Jacobs on the similarities between economies and nature

If you cannot view this video click here.

In the late 1960s, Jacobs opposed the Vietnam War and got arrested at one of the antiwar demonstration rallies. Her sons were at the age where they could be drafted so her husband encouraged her to move the family to Toronto in 1968, fearing that their sons would be arrested for refusing the draft. Within months of her arrival in Toronto, Jacobs was involved in opposing the Spadina Expressway which was slated to run through the City’s Chinatown, and they were successful in their efforts. She also influenced the regeneration of the St. Lawrence Market in downtown Toronto.

Jacobs felt at home in Toronto because the city represented many of her ideas and principles about what made healthy cities. Jacobs continued to get involved in issues she was interested in and wrote until she died. She was awarded the Order of Canada in 1996 for her writings.

Steps to Success

• Jacobs was very curious and learned how things worked.
• Learned about urban planning and design by walking and wandering around neighbourhoods.
• Quickly acquired the knowledge necessary for any topic she had to write about.
• Overturned current thinking in urban planning and design.
• Jacobs’ husband subscribed to Architectural Forum, and she became a regular reader. She decided that she wanted to work for them, so she applied and was given a trial assignment and then the associate editor position.
• Knew how to garner support for her cause – rallied high profile people like Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Mead and the New Yorker architectural critic Lewis Mumford.

Why Jane Jacobs’ Contribution Matters

Jane Jacobs did not have much formal education – she attended Columbia for two years in the School of General Studies taking whatever courses caught her fancy. Jacobs didn’t have a college degree like urban planners and architects, but she was vocal about what she believed in and others listened to her. She created a body of work in the form of articles and books that others refer to.

Lessons from Jane Jacobs 

• You do not need formal education to leave behind a legacy.
• One person can make a difference.
• If you don’t ask you don’t get. Jacobs liked reading Architectural Forum and wanted to work for them, so she applied for a job and got it.

 Books by Jane Jacobs

The Death and Life of Great American Cities (50th Anniversary Edition) (Modern Library) (1961)

The Economy of Cities (1969)

Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984)

Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics (1992)

The Nature of Economies (2000)

Dark Age Ahead (2004)

Works Cited/Referenced

Encyclopedia of World Biography

International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2^nd Edition

American Decades Primary Sources, 1960 -1969

American Women Writers

The Writers Directory 2008

Scribner Encyclopedia of America Lives

Ideas That Matter: The Worlds of Jane Jacobs, edited by Max Allen

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links.

YouTube Credits: Jane Jacobs on the similarities between economies and nature, Jane Jacobs on her book “Dark Age Ahead”AllanGregg; 

I am reading The Nature of Economiesby Jane Jacobs as background research for a paper that I am writing for Infed.org. Jacobs was an urban philosopher and visionary.

I have pulled five ideas from the book, and attempt to show how readers might apply the information to their work and life. I am sure that you could come up with better applications for these ideas.

The “Knowledge Age” is going to become the Lost-Age unless preserving specimens of work is taken as seriously as preserving apples and beans




Thousands of years ago, people were combining materials and devices that were radically different to form something new




People are naturally creative




People do not need to be geniuses or even extraordinarily talented to develop their work, they only need to be resourceful and show initiative




Know thyself…We learn about ourselves by learning about others and how we relate to them

Idea 1

How do you preserve your family’s history and stories? Have you been recording them for your children? Within the organization, what are you doing to record the knowledge that is in the older worker’s head?

Idea 2

How might you combine two good products that are very different, to create an extraordinary one? How might you combine a very different process in another industry with one in yours to create an entirely new way of doing things?

Idea 3

 In what ways can you exercise your natural creativity to positively impact your financial situation? How might you use your creativity to develop a new process, model or product to contribute to your organization’s bottom line

Idea 4

 In what ways could you develop the work you do by simply giving it some serious thought. What resources available to you could you use? If you systematically thought through your work process, how might you improve it? What inefficiencies could you remove or how could you expand your work?

Idea 5

When was the last time you had a meaningful conversation with someone who was very different from yourself? If you have, what insights did you glean, and what did you learn about yourself?

These are five ways that you can connect new information to what you already know. What other ways could you connect these ideas?