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.
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.
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.
Jane Jacobs 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, 2nd 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
