Comments on: Thinking Urbanly

Thinking Urbanly

warbaby — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 12:30:48 -0800

This year's Shaugnessy Cohen Prize goes to Jane Jacobs, a social critic and commenter on urban planning. She's probably best known for her book, Systems of Survival. [previously here]

By: trharlan

trharlan — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 12:43:55 -0800

Misesian Gene Callahan wrote favorably about Ms. Jacobs.

By: duck

duck — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 12:48:32 -0800

For instance, the hope of building a community based around public transit in Toronto was scuppered as the city allowed its core to be surrounded by tracts of suburban sprawl, to spread out to make public-transit sustainable. Amen.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 12:58:56 -0800

Surely she's best known for The Life and Death of Great American Cities?

By: warbaby

warbaby — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 13:04:32 -0800

Here's the forward to The Life and Death of Great American Cities

By: cgc373

cgc373 — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 13:46:47 -0800

Um, it's The Death and Life of Great American Cities, it's not one of the Modern Library's 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the 20th Century (for shame!), and it's a foreword, not a forward, but many of you knew that, already, right?

By: Popular Ethics

Popular Ethics — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 13:53:18 -0800

The title is "The Death and Life of Great American Cities", which is an important distinction I think, since the book is fundamentally about the social life which drive cities, no matter how hard modernists try(ied) to snuff it out. A wonderful read for anyone wanting to understand why cities work or don't. It's also a grim story of how much damage idealism can do when applied to governance, but we already knew that ;)

By: Popular Ethics

Popular Ethics — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 13:57:46 -0800

Weird cgc373. Our comments begin and end in near perfect synchronicity. I should probably have read the preview closer, but then I wouldn't have an excuse to type the twilight zone sound: Noo nee noo noo, noo nee noo noo....

By: madokachan

madokachan — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 14:12:29 -0800

Thanks for posting this. Good job Ms. Jacobs! I find that Jane Jacobs deals with issues (economics, urban planning etc) that have traditionally been quite technical and specialized from a layperson's perspective. She is highly intelligent and she brings breath of fresh air and a good dose of common sense into the areas that she writes about. As duck mentioned she has been very vocal in Toronto and has had much positive impact. I'd love to get my hands on all of her books.

By: bshort

bshort — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 14:41:41 -0800

I just got done reading Dark Ages Ahead. Gloomy, but she's probably right.

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 11:14:15 -0800

My thought on reading the FPP was awesome, and also, isn't she best known for Death and Life... Thanks for the links.

By: warbaby

warbaby — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 16:34:07 -0800

and it looks like I survived my first FPP.....