Thinking Urbanly

April 14, 2005 12:30 PM

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]
posted by warbaby (10 comments total)

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.
posted by duck at 12:48 PM on April 14, 2005

Surely she's best known for The Life and Death of Great American Cities?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:58 PM on April 14, 2005

Here's the forward to The Life and Death of Great American Cities
posted by warbaby at 1:04 PM on April 14, 2005

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?
posted by cgc373 at 1:46 PM on April 14, 2005

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 ;)
posted by Popular Ethics at 1:53 PM on April 14, 2005

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....
posted by Popular Ethics at 1:57 PM on April 14, 2005

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.
posted by madokachan at 2:12 PM on April 14, 2005

I just got done reading Dark Ages Ahead. Gloomy, but she's probably right.
posted by bshort at 2:41 PM on April 14, 2005

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

Thanks for the links.
posted by OmieWise at 11:14 AM on April 15, 2005

and it looks like I survived my first FPP.....
posted by warbaby at 4:34 PM on April 15, 2005