Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs OC OOntwas an American-Canadian journalist, author, and activist best known for her influence on urban studies. Her influential book The Death and Life of Great American Citiesargued that urban renewal did not respect the needs of most city-dwellers. The book also introduced sociological concepts such as "eyes on the street" and "social capital"...
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth4 May 1916
CityScranton, PA
sentimentality
Sentimentality about nature denatures everything it touches.
bringing death great life people rely
You can't rely on bringing people downtown; you have to put them there, ... The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
cities architect capability
Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.
order cities different
Intricate minglings of different uses in cities are not a form of chaos. On the contrary, they represent a complex and highly developed form of order.
business successful cities
Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.... for really new ideas of any kind--no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be--there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.
cities streets sidewalk
Streets and their sidewalks-the main public places of a city-are its most vital organs.
cities creative together
Whenever and wherever societies have flourished and prospered rather than stagnated and decayed, creative and workable cities have been at the core of the phenomenon. Decaying cities, declining economies, and mounting social troubles travel together. The combination is not coincidental.
thinking might wells
While you are looking, you might as well also listen, linger and think about what you see.
cities people logic
There is no logic that can be superimposed on the city; people make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans.
dream cities imagination
Designing a dream city is easy; rebuilding a living one takes imagination.
responsibility successful cities
The first fundamental of successful city life: People must take a modicum of responsibility for each other even if they have no ties to each other. This is a lesson no one learns by being told. It is learned from the experience of having other people without ties of kinship or close friendship or formal responsibility to you take a modicum of responsibility for you.
cities ballet improvisation
The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any one place is always replete with new improvisations.
responsibility ties people
People must take a modicum of public responsibility for each other even if they have no ties to each other.
cities needs dull
Dull, inert cities, it is true, do contain the seeds of their own destruction and little else. But lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration, with energy enough to carry over for problems and needs outside themselves.