Who is jane jacobs?

Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs, OC OOnt (May 4, 1916 – April 25, 2006) was an American-Canadian writer and activist with primary interest in communities and urban planning and decay. She is best known for The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), a powerful critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s in the United States. The book has been described as "one of 20th-century architecture's most traumatic events", but also credited with reaching beyond planning issues to influence the spirit of the times.

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Famous quotes containing the words jane jacobs, jane and/or jacobs:

    Some men tend to cling to old intellectual excitements, just as some belles, when they are old ladies, still cling to the fashions and coiffures of their exciting youth.
    Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)

    Maybe now you, you don’t want to believe it. Maybe you’d like to tell yourself it didn’t happen. But Steve, you’re not the kind of person that can turn your back on something you know is true.
    —Theodore Simonson. Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.. Jane Martin (Aneta Corseaut)

    To approach a city ... as if it were [an] ... architectural problem ... is to make the mistake of attempting to substitute art for life.... The results ... are neither life nor art. They are taxidermy.
    —Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)