Shortly after his arrest in 1968, Jacobs moved to Toronto, eventually settling at 69 Albany Avenue in The Annex from 1971 until his death in 2006. He decided to leave the United States in part because he opposed the Vietnam War, was concerned about the fate of his two draft-age sons, and did not want to continue fighting against the New York City government. She and her husband chose Toronto because it was pleasant and offered employment opportunities, and they moved to an area of ​​Toronto that included so many Americans avoiding the draft that it became known as the "American ghetto".[25]

He quickly became a prominent figure in his new city and helped stop the proposed Spadina Expressway. A frequent theme of his work was asking whether we are building cities for people or for cars. She was arrested twice during the protests. He also had considerable influence on the regeneration of the St. Lawrence neighborhood, a housing project considered a great success. She became a Canadian citizen in 1974, and later told writer James Howard Kunstler that dual citizenship was not possible at the time, implying that she had lost her US citizenship.[26]

In 1980, he offered an urban perspective on Quebec sovereignty in his book The Question of Separatism: Quebec and the Struggle over Separation. Jacobs was an advocate for a Toronto province to separate the city proper from Ontario. Jacobs said, "Cities, to prosper in the twenty-first century, must separate themselves politically from their surrounding areas."

He was awarded the Order of Canada in 1996 for his seminal writings and thought-provoking commentaries on urban development. The Urban and Community Sociology section of the American Sociological Association gave her its Outstanding Lifetime Contribution award in 2002. In 1997, the city government of Toronto sponsored a conference titled "Jane Jacobs: Ideas That Matter", which led to a book of the same name. At the end of the conference, the Jane Jacobs Prize was created. It includes an annual stipend of $5,000 for three years to "honor Toronto's original unsung heroes by finding citizens who participate in activities that contribute to the vitality of the city."[27]

Jacobs never shied away from expressing his political support for specific candidates. He opposed the 1997 amalgamation of Metro Toronto cities, fearing that individual neighborhoods would have less power under the new structure. He endorsed an environmentalist, Tooker Gomberg, who lost the mayoral race in Toronto in 2000, and was an advisor to David Miller's successful mayoral campaign in 2003. During the mayoral campaign, Jacobs helped lobby against the construction of a bridge to link the city's waterfront to the Toronto City Center Airport (TCCA).[28] After the election, the council's earlier decision was reversed. Toronto city council approved the bridge and the bridge construction project was halted. TCCA updated the ferry service and the airport is still operational as of 2018.

Jacobs was also involved in a fight against a plan by Royal St. George's College (an established school very close to Jacobs' long-time residence in Toronto's Annex district) to reconfigure its facilities. Jacobs suggested not only that the redesign be stopped, but also that the school be forced out of the neighborhood entirely. Although Toronto council initially rejected the school's plans, the decision was later reversed, and the Ontario Municipal Board gave the project the go-ahead when opponents failed to produce credible witnesses and attempted to withdraw from the case during the hearing.[29]​.

It also influenced Vancouver's urban planning. Jacobs has been called "the mother of Vancouverism",[30]​ referring to that city's use of her philosophy of "density done right".[31]​ Renowned architect Bing Thom described Vancouverism this way:[32]​.

Jacobs died at Toronto Western Hospital at age 89 on April 25, 2006, apparently from a stroke. She was survived by a brother, James Butzner (born 2009);[34] her two sons, James and Ned of Vancouver, and a daughter, Burgin Jacobs; two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. After his death, his family stated:

Después de la muerte de Jacobs en abril de 2006, el alcalde de la ciudad de Nueva York, Michael Bloomberg, anunció el Día de Jane Jacobs, celebrado el 28 de junio de 2006. La ciudad de Toronto proclamó su cumpleaños al año siguiente, 4 de mayo de 2007, como el Día de Jane Jacobs.[36]​.

Other honors

The asteroid (6921) Janejacobs_Janejacobs "(6921) Janejacobs"), discovered in 1993, was named after this scientific communicator.[37]​.

Her most influential work was The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), in which she harshly criticized the urban renewal practices of the 1950s in the United States, whose planners (urban planning, urban design) assumed ideal schematic models that according to her led to the destruction of public space. Using innovative and interdisciplinary scientific methods (coming from both social sciences and natural sciences), the author identified the causes of violence in everyday urban life, depending on whether it was subject to abandonment or, on the contrary, to good nutrition, security and quality of life.[38]​.

His ideas about the spontaneous self-organization of urban planning were applied in the later concept of emergent systems. As Marcelo Pisarro wrote), "contemporary urban paradigms (communal spaces, reduction in vehicular traffic, preservation of historical heritage, alternative means of transportation, local economies, recycling) have something of Jacobs' book, even in the negative, since she was also full of good intentions. The hell it caused, at least in Greenwich Village, was residential elitization: gentrification turned the neighborhood into one of the most expensive and exclusive in the United States.

In addition to his literary work, Jacobs stood out for his activism in the organization of social movements self-defined as spontaneous (grassroots), aimed at paralyzing urban projects that he understood to be destroying local communities. First in the United States, where he achieved the cancellation of the Lower Manhattan Expressway; and later in Canada, where he emigrated in 1968 and where he achieved the cancellation of the Spadina Expressway")[39]​ and the network of highways that were intended to be built.[40]​.

Jacobs is credited, along with Lewis Mumford, with inspiring the New Urbanism movement.[41] She discussed her legacy in an interview with Reason magazine "Reason (magazine)").

Expansion and development are two different things. Development is the differentiation of what already existed. Virtually everything new that happens is a differentiation from an old thing, from a new shoe sole to changes in legal codes. Expansion is real growth in size or volume of activity. That's something different.

I have done it two different ways. A long time ago, when I wrote The Economy of Cities, I wrote about import substitution and how that expands, not only the economy of the place where it occurs, but also economic life in general. As a city replaces imports, it displaces its imports. It doesn't matter less. And yet it has everything it had before.

While Jacobs saw his greatest legacy as his contribution to economic theory, it is in the realm of urban planning that he has had his greatest impact. Her observations about the ways in which cities function revolutionized the urban planning profession and discredited many accepted planning models that dominated mid-century planning.[42] Economist Edward Glaeser, known for his work in urban studies, acknowledged that Jane Jacobs (1960) had been prescient in attacking Moses for "replacing well-functioning neighborhoods with towers inspired by Le Corbusier." Glaeser agreed that these housing projects proved to be Moses' greatest failures, "Moses spent millions and evicted tens of thousands of people to create buildings that became centers of crime, poverty and despair."[43]​.

She was also famous for introducing concepts such as "eyes on the street", a reference to what would later be known as natural surveillance. The concept had a great influence on planners and architects such as Oscar Newman, who put the idea into practice through a series of studies that would culminate in his theory of defensible space. Jacobs and Newman's work would affect US housing policy through the HOPE VI Program, an effort by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to demolish the high-rise public housing projects so maligned by Jacobs and replace them with low-rise mixed-income housing.

Throughout his life, he fought to change the way the city's development was approached. Arguing that cities were living things and ecosystems, he advocated ideas such as "mixed-use" development and bottom-up planning. Furthermore, his harsh criticism of "slum clearance" and "high-rise housing" projects were instrumental in discrediting these once universally supported planning practices.[44]​.

Jacobs is remembered as an advocate for the conscious development of cities and for leaving "a legacy of empowerment so that citizens trust their common sense and become defenders of their place."[45]​.

Although Jacobs focused primarily on New York, his arguments have been identified as universal.[46] For example, his opposition against the demolition of urban neighborhoods for urban renewal projects had "particular resonance" in Melbourne, Australia. In Melbourne in the 1960s, residents' associations fought against the Victorian Housing Commission's large-scale high-rise housing projects, which they argued had little regard for the impact on local communities.[47]​.

Jacobs fought an uphill battle against dominant planning trends even though the United States remains a suburban nation,[42] Jacobs' work has contributed to city life being rehabilitated and revitalized.

Jane Jacobs indicates in her work Death and Life of Great Cities, that the sources of orthodox urbanism are:.

Jane Jacobs pasó su vida estudiando las ciudades. Sus libros incluyen:.

The death and life of great American cities

It is his most influential book and possibly the most influential book on urban planning and cities of the century. Widely read by both planning professionals and the general public, the book is a strong critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s, which she argues destroyed communities and created isolated and unnatural urban spaces. Jacobs advocated for the abolition of zoning laws and the restoration of the free market for lots, which would result in dense, mixed-use neighborhoods and frequently cited New York City's Greenwich Village as an example of a vibrant urban community.

Robert Caro has cited him as the strongest influence on The Power Broker, his Pulitzer-winning biography of Robert Moses, although Caro does not mention his name even once in the book despite Jacobs' battles with Moses over his proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway. Caro is said to have cut a chapter on Jacobs due to the length of his book.[48]

Beyond the practical lessons in city design and planning that Death and Life offers, the theoretical foundations of the work challenge the mindset of modern development. Jane Jacobs defends her positions with common sense and anecdotes.

The economy of cities

The thesis of this book is that cities are the main drivers of economic development. Their main argument is that explosive economic growth derives from urban import replacement. Import replacement occurs when a city begins to produce goods locally that it previously imported, for example Tokyo bicycle factories replacing Tokyo bicycle importers in the 20th century. Jacobs says import replacement builds local infrastructure, skills and production. Jacobs also claims that increased production is subsequently exported to other cities, giving those other cities a new opportunity to engage in import substitution, producing a positive cycle of growth.

In an interview with Bill Steigerwald in Reason Magazine, Jacobs said that if she is remembered for being a great intellectual, she will be remembered not for her work related to urban planning, but for the discovery of import replacement. Critics wrongly claim that his ideas repeat the idea of ​​import substitution advanced by scholars such as Andre Gunder Frank. Import substitution was a national economic theory that implied that if a nation substituted its imports with domestic production, the nation would become richer, while Jacob's idea is based entirely on cities and could be called urban import substitution. However, even this would cause confusion because, in practice, import substitution in India and Latin America was subsidized and mandated by the government, while Jacobs's concept of import substitution is a process of discovery and division of labor within a city.[49]​.

In the second part of the book, Jacobs argues that cities preceded agriculture. She argues that in cities the trade in wild animals and grains enabled the initial division of labor necessary for the discovery of agriculture; These discoveries were then moved out of town due to competition for land. Another interpretation of history, generally considered contradictory to that of Jacobs, is supported by the Marxist archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe and in recent times by another historical materialist Charles Keith Maisels[50]​ who argue that agriculture preceded cities. The apparent opposition between Childe and Jacobs' theories rests on their definition of 'city', 'civilization' or 'urban'. Childe, like other materialists such as Maisels or Henri Lefebvre, defines "urban" or "civilization" as synecism - as a monolithic, literate, socially stratified political community,[51] while, as can be seen in The Economy of Cities or Cities and the Wealth of Nations, Jacobs defines the city purely along the lines of geographically dense commerce giving way to entrepreneurial discovery and subsequent improvements in the division of labor. Without the requirements of literacy, monumental construction, or signs of specialized civil and armed forces, "cities" can be accurately interpreted as existing thousands of years before Childe and Maisels place them. However, Jacobs' definition is an assumption, as "city" is defined simply as a large city or "a large human settlement" indicating permanence. The first remains of humanity discovered by archaeologists do not give us more information than that of hunter-gatherers, since there is still no evidence of agriculture or settlement, implying a nomadic lifestyle until new discoveries are made.[52]​.

The question of separatism: Quebec and the fight for sovereignty

The Question of Separatism incorporated and expanded Jacobs' presentation of the 1979 Massey Lectures, titled Canadian Cities and Sovereignty-Association. It was published in 1980 and reprinted in 2011 with a previously unpublished 2005 interview with Robin Philpot on the subject in which he evokes the relative disapproval of that book among his regular readers. This was, in fact, the first time he was asked to discuss it in an interview. Columnist Richard Gwyn noted that although she was not openly criticized, English-speaking Canadian readers thought she did not understand how Canadian politics worked and that she was not being useful at a time of anguish over national unity (the 1980 referendum was defeated by a 60% vote). The issue of separatism was also not mentioned in the bibliography of his 2006 obituary in The Globe and Mail.[53]​.

Jacobs' book advances the view that Quebec's eventual independence is better for Montreal, Toronto, the rest of Canada, and the world; and that such independence can be achieved peacefully. As a precedent, he cites Norway's secession from Sweden and how it enriched both nations. The origins of the contemporary secessionist movement in the Silent Revolution are examined, along with Canada's historical dependence on natural resources and foreign ownership for its own economic development. Jacobs claims that such an approach is colonial and therefore retrospective, citing for example that Canada buys its skis and furniture from Norway or from Norwegian-owned factories in Canada, the latter procedure a product of Canadian tariffs designed specifically to encourage such factories. The relevant public opinions of René Lévesque, Claude Ryan, and later Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau are also critically analyzed. One example is his failure to recognize that two respective independent currencies are essential to the success of an independent Quebec and a resulting smaller Canada, a problem that is central to his book. Jacobs emphasizes the need for Montreal to continue developing its leadership of Quebec culture, but that such a need ultimately cannot be met by Montreal's growing tendencies toward regional city status, trends that presage economic, political, and cultural subservience to English-speaking Toronto. Such an outcome, according to Jacobs, would in the long run doom Quebec's independence as much as it would hamper Canada's own future. He concludes with his observation that the popular equation of political secession with political and economic failure is the result of the Enlightenment, which perceived nature as a force for "standardization, uniformity, universality, and immutability." Since then, naturalists and their readers have gradually realized that nature is a force for diversity, and that, "diversity itself is the essence of excellence." The right kind of secession, Jacobs claims, can lead to the right kind of diversity.

Cities and the wealth of nations

Cities and the Wealth of Nations attempts to do for economics what The Death and Life of Great American Cities did for modern urban planning, although it has not received the same critical attention. Beginning with a concise treatment of classical economics, this book questions one of the fundamental assumptions of the great economists. Classical (and neoclassical) economists consider the nation-state to be the main actor in macroeconomics. Jacobs argues that it is not the nation-state, but rather the city that is the true actor in this global game. He reaffirms the idea of ​​import replacement from his previous book, The Economy of Cities, while speculating on the additional ramifications of considering the city first and then the nation, or not.

Survival systems

Survival Systems: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics, moves outside the city, studying the moral foundations of work. As with his other works, he used an observational approach. This book is written as a Platonic dialogue. It appears that she (as described by the characters in her book) took newspaper clippings of work-related moral judgments, compiled them, and sorted them to find those that fit two patterns of moral behavior that were mutually exclusive. She calls these two patterns “Moral Syndrome A,” or commercial moral syndrome, and “Moral Syndrome B,” or guardian moral syndrome. He states that the business moral syndrome is applicable to business owners, scientists, farmers, and merchants. Likewise, he claims that the moral gatekeeper syndrome is applicable to government, charities, hunter-gatherers, and religious institutions. It also states that these Moral Syndromes are fixed and do not fluctuate over time.

It is important to emphasize that Jane Jacobs provides a theory about the morality of work and not about all moral ideas. Moral ideas that are not included in their patterns are applicable to both.

Jane Jacobs goes on to describe what happens when these two moral standards mix, showing the foundations of the work of the Mafia and Communism, and what happens when the New York subway police are paid bonuses here, reinterpreted as part of a larger analysis.

The nature of economies

The Nature of Economies, a dialogue between friends on the premise: "human beings exist entirely in nature as part of the natural order in all aspects" (p.xx), argues that the same principles underlie both ecosystems and economies: "development and co-development through differentiations and their combinations, expansion through various multiple uses of energy and self-maintenance through self-refueling "(p.82).

Jacobs' characters discuss the four methods by which "dynamically stable systems" can evade collapse: "bifurcations, positive feedback loops, negative feedback controls, and emergency adaptations" (p.98). Their conversations also cover the "dual nature of survival fitness" (traits to avoid destruction of one's habitat and success in competition to feed and reproduce), and unpredictability, including the butterfly effect characterized in terms of multiplicity of variables as well as disproportionate response to cause and self-organization where "a system can be created as it goes" (p.137).

Through dialogue, Jacobs' characters explore and examine the similarities between the functioning of ecosystems and economies. Topics include environmental and economic development, growth and expansion, and how economies and environments are kept alive through "refueling." Jacobs also comments on the nature of economic and biological diversity and its role in the development and growth of the two types of systems.

The book is filled with many real-world economic and biological examples, which help keep the book "grounded" and understandable, even though it is dense. The concepts are provided with economic and biological examples, showing their coherence in both worlds.

A particularly interesting idea is the creation of "something from nothing", an economy from nothing. In the biological world, free energy is given through sunlight, but in the economic world, human creativity and natural resources supply this free energy, or at least starting energy. Another interesting vision is the creation of economic diversity by combining different technologies, for example the typewriter and television as inputs and outputs of a computer system: this can lead to the creation of "new species of work."

Dark Age Ahead

Published in 2004 by Random House, Dark Age Ahead posits Jacobs's argument that "North American" civilization shows signs of a downward spiral comparable to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Their discussion focuses on "five pillars of our culture that we depend on to stay strong," which can be summarized as the nuclear family and community; quality in education; free thought in science; representative government and responsible taxation; and corporate and professional responsibility. As the book's title suggests, Jacobs's point of view is much more pessimistic than that of his previous works. However, in the conclusion, she admits: "At any given moment it is difficult to know whether the forces of cultural life or death are in the ascendant. Is suburban sprawl, with its murders of communities and waste of land, time and energy, a sign of decay? Or is the growing interest in the means to overcome sprawl a sign of vigor and adaptability in American culture? Arguably, either statement could prove true."[54]

As a tribute to Jacobs, the Rockefeller Foundation, which had awarded grants to Jacobs in the 1950s and 1960s, announced on February 9, 2007, the creation of the Jane Jacobs Medal, to "recognize individuals who have contributed significantly to design thinking, specifically in New York City."[55] Recipients:

The Urban Institute of Canada offers an award in Jacobs' name, the Jane Jacobs Lifetime Award, to recognize an individual "who has had a significant impact on the health of their region in line with Jane Jacob's belief that successful cities foster a place-based community."

The 2011 winner was Eberhard Zeidler, while his daughter, Margie Zeidler, won the 2015 award. In 2012, Anne Golden took the award "for her public policy leadership, academic work, and varied leadership experience in the business, nonprofit, and government sectors."[58] William (Bill) Teron accepted the 2013 Award "for his influential career in public policy and passionate advocacy for quality design and commitment to development in the Ottawa area".[59]​ In 2014, Jack Diamond was recognized for his "contribution to improving the shape and defense of cities and the future of the Greater Toronto Area".[60]​.

Después de asistir a la Escuela de Estudios Generales de la Universidad de Columbia durante dos años, Butzner encontró un trabajo en la revista Iron Age. Su artículo de 1943 sobre el declive económico en Scranton tuvo buena acogida y llevó a la Corporación Murray a ubicar allí una fábrica de aviones de combate. Alentada por este éxito, Butzner solicitó a la Junta de Producción de Guerra que respaldara más operaciones en Scranton. Al experimentar la discriminación en Iron Age, también abogó por la igualdad salarial para las mujeres y por el derecho de los trabajadores a sindicalizarse.[6]​.

America

She became a writer for the Office of War Information and then a reporter for Amerika, a State Department publication[7]​ for distribution in the Soviet Union. While working there he met Robert Hyde Jacobs Jr., a Columbia-educated architect who was designing fighter jets for Grumman. They married in 1944. Together they had a daughter, Burgin, and two sons, James and Ned. They purchased a three-story building at 555 Hudson St.

Jane continued writing for Amerika after the war, while Robert left Grumman and returned to his work as an architect.

The Jacobs rejected the rapidly growing suburbs as "parasites," preferring to stay in Greenwich Village. They renovated their new house, in the middle of a mixed residential and commercial area, and created a garden in the backyard.[8]​.

Working for the State Department during McCarthyism, Jacobs was given a questionnaire about his political beliefs and loyalties. Jacobs was anti-communist and had left the Federal Workers Union because of his apparent communist sympathies. However, he was in favor of syndication and supposedly appreciated Saul Alinsky's writing; therefore, he was under suspicion. On March 25, 1952, Jacobs gave a now famous response to Conrad E. Snow, chairman of the Loyalty Security Board of the United States Department of State. In her preface to her response, she said:.

Architectural forum

Jacobs left Amerika in 1952 when she announced she was moving to Washington, D.C.. She found a well-paying job at Architectural Forum, published by Henry Luce of Time Inc.[9] After early success on the job, Jacobs began working on files on urban planning and "urban decay." In 1954, she was chosen to cover a development in Philadelphia designed by Edmund Bacon. Although her editors expected a positive report, Jacobs criticized Bacon's project, reacting against the apparent lack of attention shown by poor African Americans who were directly affected. When Bacon showed Jacobs examples of undeveloped and developed blocks, she concluded that "development" seemed to end active community life on the street.[10] When Jacobs returned to the Architecture Forum offices, she began to question the 1950s consensus on urban planning.[11]

In 1955, Jacobs met William Kirk, an Episcopalian minister who worked in East Harlem. Kirk arrived at the Architecture Forum offices to describe the impact "revitalization" had on East Harlem, and introduced Jacobs to the neighborhood.

In 1956, Jacobs gave a lecture at Harvard University, replacing Douglas Haskell of the Architectural Forum.[9] He addressed leading architects, urban planners, and intellectuals (including Lewis Mumford), speaking on the subject of East Harlem. He urged this audience to "respect, in the deepest sense, urban fragments of chaos that have a strange wisdom of their own that is not yet included in our concept of urban order." Contrary to her expectations, the talk was received with enthusiasm, but it also marked her as a threat to established urban planners, real estate owners and developers. Architectural Forum printed the speech that year, along with photographs of East Harlem.[12]​.

Rockefeller Foundation and Death and Life of Great American Cities

After reading the text of his Harvard speech, William H. Whyte invited Jacobs to write an article for Fortune magazine "Fortune (magazine)"). The resulting article, "Downtown Is for People," appeared in a 1958 issue of Fortune, and marked his first public criticism of Robert Moses. His stance, particularly his criticism of Lincoln Center, was not popular with urban renewal supporters at Architectural Forum and Fortune.[13]​ It particularly outraged C. D. Jackson, the editor of Fortune "Fortune (magazine)"), who demanded of Whyte over the phone: "Who is this crazy woman?"[14]​.

The Fortune article caught the attention of Chadbourne Gilpatric, then associate director of the Rockefeller Foundation's Humanities Division. The foundation had moved heavily into urban issues, with a recent award to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for studies in urban aesthetics that would culminate in the publication of Kevin A. Lynch's *Image of the City.[9] In May 1958, Gilpatric invited Jacobs to begin work as a reviewer of grant proposals. Later that year, the Rockefeller Foundation awarded a grant to Jacobs to produce a critical study of urbanism and urban life in the United States. (From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, the foundation's Humanities Division sponsored a research program, of which Jacobs was the best-known beneficiary.) Gilpatric encouraged Jacobs to "explore [...] the field of urban design for ideas and actions that might improve thinking about how the design of cities could better serve urban life, including cultural and human value." Affiliated with The New School (then called The New School for Social Research), she spent three years conducting research and writing drafts. In 1961, Random House published the product of his research: The death and life of the great cities of the United States").

The work remains one of the most influential books in the history of American urban planning.[15] She coined many terms such as "social capital," "mixed primary uses," and "eyes on the street," which were adopted professionally in urban design, sociology, and other fields. Jacobs painted a devastating picture of the entire urban planning profession, labeling it a pseudoscience. This provoked angry responses from several rich and powerful men. Jacobs was criticized as a "militant lady" and a "housewife": an amateur who had no right to interfere with an established discipline. His book was also criticized by the left for ignoring race and embracing gentrification.[16]

In 1962 she resigned from her position at Architectural Forum to become a full-time author and mother. In addition to her activity in local politics, she was a notable opponent of the Vietnam War and marched to the Pentagon in October 1967. She criticized the construction of the World Trade Center "World Trade Center (1973-2001)") as a disaster for the port of Manhattan.[17]

Fight for Greenwich Village

During the 1950s and 1960s, Jacobs' Greenwich Village neighborhood was transformed by City and State efforts to build housing (see, for example, Jacobs' fight to build West Village Houses instead of large apartment houses), private developers, the expansion of New York University (NYU), and the urban renewal plans of Robert Moses. Moses' plan, funded as "slum clearance" by Title I of the Housing Act of 1949, also called for the demolition of several blocks and their replacement with high-rise skyscrapers. The plan forced 132 families from their homes and displaced 1,000 small businesses; The result was Washington Square Village.[18]​.

As part of his efforts to revitalize the area, Moses first proposed extending Fifth Avenue through Washington Square Park in 1935. Facing community opposition, Moses shelved the project, but revived the idea in the 1950s. Moses argued that the Fifth Avenue extension would improve traffic flow through the neighborhood and provide access to the planned Lower Manhattan Expressway (LOMEX), which would connect the Manhattan Bridge and Williamsburg Bridge to the Holland Tunnel.[19]​.

In response, local activist Shirley Hayes created the "Committee to Save Washington Square Park," a coalition of dozens of local neighborhood groups that opposed the highway extension. Raymond S. Rubinow eventually took over the organization, changing its name to "Joint Emergency Committee to Close Washington Square to Traffic." Jacobs had joined the committee under Hayes, but took a more prominent role under Rubinow, reaching media outlets like the Village Voice, which provided more detailed coverage than publications like the New York Times. The committee gained support from notables such as Margaret Mead, Eleanor Roosevelt, Lewis Mumford, Charles Abrams, and William H. Whyte, as well as Carmine De Sapio, a Greenwich Village resident and influential Democratic leader. De Sapio's participation was decisive. On June 25, 1958, the city closed Washington Square Park to traffic, and the joint committee held a ribbon-tying (rather than cutting) ceremony.[20]

Plans for the LOMEX Expressway continued, however, despite growing community opposition in areas such as Little Italy ("Little Italy (Manhattan)"). In the 1960s, Jacobs chaired the Joint Committee to Stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway. Newspapers like The New York Times were sympathetic to Moses, while the newly created Village Voice covered community rallies and was against the freeway. Jacobs continued to fight the highway when the plans resurfaced in 1962, 1965, and 1968, and became a local hero for her opposition to the project. She was arrested by a plainclothes police officer on April 10, 1968, at a public hearing during which the crowd charged the stage and destroyed the stenographer's notes. She was charged with inciting riots, damage and obstruction of public administration. After months of testing in New York, his charge was reduced to disorderly conduct.[22]

Shortly after his arrest in 1968, Jacobs moved to Toronto, eventually settling at 69 Albany Avenue in The Annex from 1971 until his death in 2006. He decided to leave the United States in part because he opposed the Vietnam War, was concerned about the fate of his two draft-age sons, and did not want to continue fighting against the New York City government. She and her husband chose Toronto because it was pleasant and offered employment opportunities, and they moved to an area of ​​Toronto that included so many Americans avoiding the draft that it became known as the "American ghetto".[25]

He quickly became a prominent figure in his new city and helped stop the proposed Spadina Expressway. A frequent theme of his work was asking whether we are building cities for people or for cars. She was arrested twice during the protests. He also had considerable influence on the regeneration of the St. Lawrence neighborhood, a housing project considered a great success. She became a Canadian citizen in 1974, and later told writer James Howard Kunstler that dual citizenship was not possible at the time, implying that she had lost her US citizenship.[26]

In 1980, he offered an urban perspective on Quebec sovereignty in his book The Question of Separatism: Quebec and the Struggle over Separation. Jacobs was an advocate for a Toronto province to separate the city proper from Ontario. Jacobs said, "Cities, to prosper in the twenty-first century, must separate themselves politically from their surrounding areas."

He was awarded the Order of Canada in 1996 for his seminal writings and thought-provoking commentaries on urban development. The Urban and Community Sociology section of the American Sociological Association gave her its Outstanding Lifetime Contribution award in 2002. In 1997, the city government of Toronto sponsored a conference titled "Jane Jacobs: Ideas That Matter", which led to a book of the same name. At the end of the conference, the Jane Jacobs Prize was created. It includes an annual stipend of $5,000 for three years to "honor Toronto's original unsung heroes by finding citizens who participate in activities that contribute to the vitality of the city."[27]

Jacobs never shied away from expressing his political support for specific candidates. He opposed the 1997 amalgamation of Metro Toronto cities, fearing that individual neighborhoods would have less power under the new structure. He endorsed an environmentalist, Tooker Gomberg, who lost the mayoral race in Toronto in 2000, and was an advisor to David Miller's successful mayoral campaign in 2003. During the mayoral campaign, Jacobs helped lobby against the construction of a bridge to link the city's waterfront to the Toronto City Center Airport (TCCA).[28] After the election, the council's earlier decision was reversed. Toronto city council approved the bridge and the bridge construction project was halted. TCCA updated the ferry service and the airport is still operational as of 2018.

Jacobs was also involved in a fight against a plan by Royal St. George's College (an established school very close to Jacobs' long-time residence in Toronto's Annex district) to reconfigure its facilities. Jacobs suggested not only that the redesign be stopped, but also that the school be forced out of the neighborhood entirely. Although Toronto council initially rejected the school's plans, the decision was later reversed, and the Ontario Municipal Board gave the project the go-ahead when opponents failed to produce credible witnesses and attempted to withdraw from the case during the hearing.[29]​.

It also influenced Vancouver's urban planning. Jacobs has been called "the mother of Vancouverism",[30]​ referring to that city's use of her philosophy of "density done right".[31]​ Renowned architect Bing Thom described Vancouverism this way:[32]​.

Jacobs died at Toronto Western Hospital at age 89 on April 25, 2006, apparently from a stroke. She was survived by a brother, James Butzner (born 2009);[34] her two sons, James and Ned of Vancouver, and a daughter, Burgin Jacobs; two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. After his death, his family stated:

Después de la muerte de Jacobs en abril de 2006, el alcalde de la ciudad de Nueva York, Michael Bloomberg, anunció el Día de Jane Jacobs, celebrado el 28 de junio de 2006. La ciudad de Toronto proclamó su cumpleaños al año siguiente, 4 de mayo de 2007, como el Día de Jane Jacobs.[36]​.

Other honors

The asteroid (6921) Janejacobs_Janejacobs "(6921) Janejacobs"), discovered in 1993, was named after this scientific communicator.[37]​.

Her most influential work was The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), in which she harshly criticized the urban renewal practices of the 1950s in the United States, whose planners (urban planning, urban design) assumed ideal schematic models that according to her led to the destruction of public space. Using innovative and interdisciplinary scientific methods (coming from both social sciences and natural sciences), the author identified the causes of violence in everyday urban life, depending on whether it was subject to abandonment or, on the contrary, to good nutrition, security and quality of life.[38]​.

His ideas about the spontaneous self-organization of urban planning were applied in the later concept of emergent systems. As Marcelo Pisarro wrote), "contemporary urban paradigms (communal spaces, reduction in vehicular traffic, preservation of historical heritage, alternative means of transportation, local economies, recycling) have something of Jacobs' book, even in the negative, since she was also full of good intentions. The hell it caused, at least in Greenwich Village, was residential elitization: gentrification turned the neighborhood into one of the most expensive and exclusive in the United States.

In addition to his literary work, Jacobs stood out for his activism in the organization of social movements self-defined as spontaneous (grassroots), aimed at paralyzing urban projects that he understood to be destroying local communities. First in the United States, where he achieved the cancellation of the Lower Manhattan Expressway; and later in Canada, where he emigrated in 1968 and where he achieved the cancellation of the Spadina Expressway")[39]​ and the network of highways that were intended to be built.[40]​.

Jacobs is credited, along with Lewis Mumford, with inspiring the New Urbanism movement.[41] She discussed her legacy in an interview with Reason magazine "Reason (magazine)").

Expansion and development are two different things. Development is the differentiation of what already existed. Virtually everything new that happens is a differentiation from an old thing, from a new shoe sole to changes in legal codes. Expansion is real growth in size or volume of activity. That's something different.

I have done it two different ways. A long time ago, when I wrote The Economy of Cities, I wrote about import substitution and how that expands, not only the economy of the place where it occurs, but also economic life in general. As a city replaces imports, it displaces its imports. It doesn't matter less. And yet it has everything it had before.

While Jacobs saw his greatest legacy as his contribution to economic theory, it is in the realm of urban planning that he has had his greatest impact. Her observations about the ways in which cities function revolutionized the urban planning profession and discredited many accepted planning models that dominated mid-century planning.[42] Economist Edward Glaeser, known for his work in urban studies, acknowledged that Jane Jacobs (1960) had been prescient in attacking Moses for "replacing well-functioning neighborhoods with towers inspired by Le Corbusier." Glaeser agreed that these housing projects proved to be Moses' greatest failures, "Moses spent millions and evicted tens of thousands of people to create buildings that became centers of crime, poverty and despair."[43]​.

She was also famous for introducing concepts such as "eyes on the street", a reference to what would later be known as natural surveillance. The concept had a great influence on planners and architects such as Oscar Newman, who put the idea into practice through a series of studies that would culminate in his theory of defensible space. Jacobs and Newman's work would affect US housing policy through the HOPE VI Program, an effort by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to demolish the high-rise public housing projects so maligned by Jacobs and replace them with low-rise mixed-income housing.

Throughout his life, he fought to change the way the city's development was approached. Arguing that cities were living things and ecosystems, he advocated ideas such as "mixed-use" development and bottom-up planning. Furthermore, his harsh criticism of "slum clearance" and "high-rise housing" projects were instrumental in discrediting these once universally supported planning practices.[44]​.

Jacobs is remembered as an advocate for the conscious development of cities and for leaving "a legacy of empowerment so that citizens trust their common sense and become defenders of their place."[45]​.

Although Jacobs focused primarily on New York, his arguments have been identified as universal.[46] For example, his opposition against the demolition of urban neighborhoods for urban renewal projects had "particular resonance" in Melbourne, Australia. In Melbourne in the 1960s, residents' associations fought against the Victorian Housing Commission's large-scale high-rise housing projects, which they argued had little regard for the impact on local communities.[47]​.

Jacobs fought an uphill battle against dominant planning trends even though the United States remains a suburban nation,[42] Jacobs' work has contributed to city life being rehabilitated and revitalized.

Jane Jacobs indicates in her work Death and Life of Great Cities, that the sources of orthodox urbanism are:.

Jane Jacobs pasó su vida estudiando las ciudades. Sus libros incluyen:.

The death and life of great American cities

It is his most influential book and possibly the most influential book on urban planning and cities of the century. Widely read by both planning professionals and the general public, the book is a strong critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s, which she argues destroyed communities and created isolated and unnatural urban spaces. Jacobs advocated for the abolition of zoning laws and the restoration of the free market for lots, which would result in dense, mixed-use neighborhoods and frequently cited New York City's Greenwich Village as an example of a vibrant urban community.

Robert Caro has cited him as the strongest influence on The Power Broker, his Pulitzer-winning biography of Robert Moses, although Caro does not mention his name even once in the book despite Jacobs' battles with Moses over his proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway. Caro is said to have cut a chapter on Jacobs due to the length of his book.[48]

Beyond the practical lessons in city design and planning that Death and Life offers, the theoretical foundations of the work challenge the mindset of modern development. Jane Jacobs defends her positions with common sense and anecdotes.

The economy of cities

The thesis of this book is that cities are the main drivers of economic development. Their main argument is that explosive economic growth derives from urban import replacement. Import replacement occurs when a city begins to produce goods locally that it previously imported, for example Tokyo bicycle factories replacing Tokyo bicycle importers in the 20th century. Jacobs says import replacement builds local infrastructure, skills and production. Jacobs also claims that increased production is subsequently exported to other cities, giving those other cities a new opportunity to engage in import substitution, producing a positive cycle of growth.

In an interview with Bill Steigerwald in Reason Magazine, Jacobs said that if she is remembered for being a great intellectual, she will be remembered not for her work related to urban planning, but for the discovery of import replacement. Critics wrongly claim that his ideas repeat the idea of ​​import substitution advanced by scholars such as Andre Gunder Frank. Import substitution was a national economic theory that implied that if a nation substituted its imports with domestic production, the nation would become richer, while Jacob's idea is based entirely on cities and could be called urban import substitution. However, even this would cause confusion because, in practice, import substitution in India and Latin America was subsidized and mandated by the government, while Jacobs's concept of import substitution is a process of discovery and division of labor within a city.[49]​.

In the second part of the book, Jacobs argues that cities preceded agriculture. She argues that in cities the trade in wild animals and grains enabled the initial division of labor necessary for the discovery of agriculture; These discoveries were then moved out of town due to competition for land. Another interpretation of history, generally considered contradictory to that of Jacobs, is supported by the Marxist archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe and in recent times by another historical materialist Charles Keith Maisels[50]​ who argue that agriculture preceded cities. The apparent opposition between Childe and Jacobs' theories rests on their definition of 'city', 'civilization' or 'urban'. Childe, like other materialists such as Maisels or Henri Lefebvre, defines "urban" or "civilization" as synecism - as a monolithic, literate, socially stratified political community,[51] while, as can be seen in The Economy of Cities or Cities and the Wealth of Nations, Jacobs defines the city purely along the lines of geographically dense commerce giving way to entrepreneurial discovery and subsequent improvements in the division of labor. Without the requirements of literacy, monumental construction, or signs of specialized civil and armed forces, "cities" can be accurately interpreted as existing thousands of years before Childe and Maisels place them. However, Jacobs' definition is an assumption, as "city" is defined simply as a large city or "a large human settlement" indicating permanence. The first remains of humanity discovered by archaeologists do not give us more information than that of hunter-gatherers, since there is still no evidence of agriculture or settlement, implying a nomadic lifestyle until new discoveries are made.[52]​.

The question of separatism: Quebec and the fight for sovereignty

The Question of Separatism incorporated and expanded Jacobs' presentation of the 1979 Massey Lectures, titled Canadian Cities and Sovereignty-Association. It was published in 1980 and reprinted in 2011 with a previously unpublished 2005 interview with Robin Philpot on the subject in which he evokes the relative disapproval of that book among his regular readers. This was, in fact, the first time he was asked to discuss it in an interview. Columnist Richard Gwyn noted that although she was not openly criticized, English-speaking Canadian readers thought she did not understand how Canadian politics worked and that she was not being useful at a time of anguish over national unity (the 1980 referendum was defeated by a 60% vote). The issue of separatism was also not mentioned in the bibliography of his 2006 obituary in The Globe and Mail.[53]​.

Jacobs' book advances the view that Quebec's eventual independence is better for Montreal, Toronto, the rest of Canada, and the world; and that such independence can be achieved peacefully. As a precedent, he cites Norway's secession from Sweden and how it enriched both nations. The origins of the contemporary secessionist movement in the Silent Revolution are examined, along with Canada's historical dependence on natural resources and foreign ownership for its own economic development. Jacobs claims that such an approach is colonial and therefore retrospective, citing for example that Canada buys its skis and furniture from Norway or from Norwegian-owned factories in Canada, the latter procedure a product of Canadian tariffs designed specifically to encourage such factories. The relevant public opinions of René Lévesque, Claude Ryan, and later Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau are also critically analyzed. One example is his failure to recognize that two respective independent currencies are essential to the success of an independent Quebec and a resulting smaller Canada, a problem that is central to his book. Jacobs emphasizes the need for Montreal to continue developing its leadership of Quebec culture, but that such a need ultimately cannot be met by Montreal's growing tendencies toward regional city status, trends that presage economic, political, and cultural subservience to English-speaking Toronto. Such an outcome, according to Jacobs, would in the long run doom Quebec's independence as much as it would hamper Canada's own future. He concludes with his observation that the popular equation of political secession with political and economic failure is the result of the Enlightenment, which perceived nature as a force for "standardization, uniformity, universality, and immutability." Since then, naturalists and their readers have gradually realized that nature is a force for diversity, and that, "diversity itself is the essence of excellence." The right kind of secession, Jacobs claims, can lead to the right kind of diversity.

Cities and the wealth of nations

Cities and the Wealth of Nations attempts to do for economics what The Death and Life of Great American Cities did for modern urban planning, although it has not received the same critical attention. Beginning with a concise treatment of classical economics, this book questions one of the fundamental assumptions of the great economists. Classical (and neoclassical) economists consider the nation-state to be the main actor in macroeconomics. Jacobs argues that it is not the nation-state, but rather the city that is the true actor in this global game. He reaffirms the idea of ​​import replacement from his previous book, The Economy of Cities, while speculating on the additional ramifications of considering the city first and then the nation, or not.

Survival systems

Survival Systems: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics, moves outside the city, studying the moral foundations of work. As with his other works, he used an observational approach. This book is written as a Platonic dialogue. It appears that she (as described by the characters in her book) took newspaper clippings of work-related moral judgments, compiled them, and sorted them to find those that fit two patterns of moral behavior that were mutually exclusive. She calls these two patterns “Moral Syndrome A,” or commercial moral syndrome, and “Moral Syndrome B,” or guardian moral syndrome. He states that the business moral syndrome is applicable to business owners, scientists, farmers, and merchants. Likewise, he claims that the moral gatekeeper syndrome is applicable to government, charities, hunter-gatherers, and religious institutions. It also states that these Moral Syndromes are fixed and do not fluctuate over time.

It is important to emphasize that Jane Jacobs provides a theory about the morality of work and not about all moral ideas. Moral ideas that are not included in their patterns are applicable to both.

Jane Jacobs goes on to describe what happens when these two moral standards mix, showing the foundations of the work of the Mafia and Communism, and what happens when the New York subway police are paid bonuses here, reinterpreted as part of a larger analysis.

The nature of economies

The Nature of Economies, a dialogue between friends on the premise: "human beings exist entirely in nature as part of the natural order in all aspects" (p.xx), argues that the same principles underlie both ecosystems and economies: "development and co-development through differentiations and their combinations, expansion through various multiple uses of energy and self-maintenance through self-refueling "(p.82).

Jacobs' characters discuss the four methods by which "dynamically stable systems" can evade collapse: "bifurcations, positive feedback loops, negative feedback controls, and emergency adaptations" (p.98). Their conversations also cover the "dual nature of survival fitness" (traits to avoid destruction of one's habitat and success in competition to feed and reproduce), and unpredictability, including the butterfly effect characterized in terms of multiplicity of variables as well as disproportionate response to cause and self-organization where "a system can be created as it goes" (p.137).

Through dialogue, Jacobs' characters explore and examine the similarities between the functioning of ecosystems and economies. Topics include environmental and economic development, growth and expansion, and how economies and environments are kept alive through "refueling." Jacobs also comments on the nature of economic and biological diversity and its role in the development and growth of the two types of systems.

The book is filled with many real-world economic and biological examples, which help keep the book "grounded" and understandable, even though it is dense. The concepts are provided with economic and biological examples, showing their coherence in both worlds.

A particularly interesting idea is the creation of "something from nothing", an economy from nothing. In the biological world, free energy is given through sunlight, but in the economic world, human creativity and natural resources supply this free energy, or at least starting energy. Another interesting vision is the creation of economic diversity by combining different technologies, for example the typewriter and television as inputs and outputs of a computer system: this can lead to the creation of "new species of work."

Dark Age Ahead

Published in 2004 by Random House, Dark Age Ahead posits Jacobs's argument that "North American" civilization shows signs of a downward spiral comparable to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Their discussion focuses on "five pillars of our culture that we depend on to stay strong," which can be summarized as the nuclear family and community; quality in education; free thought in science; representative government and responsible taxation; and corporate and professional responsibility. As the book's title suggests, Jacobs's point of view is much more pessimistic than that of his previous works. However, in the conclusion, she admits: "At any given moment it is difficult to know whether the forces of cultural life or death are in the ascendant. Is suburban sprawl, with its murders of communities and waste of land, time and energy, a sign of decay? Or is the growing interest in the means to overcome sprawl a sign of vigor and adaptability in American culture? Arguably, either statement could prove true."[54]

As a tribute to Jacobs, the Rockefeller Foundation, which had awarded grants to Jacobs in the 1950s and 1960s, announced on February 9, 2007, the creation of the Jane Jacobs Medal, to "recognize individuals who have contributed significantly to design thinking, specifically in New York City."[55] Recipients:

The Urban Institute of Canada offers an award in Jacobs' name, the Jane Jacobs Lifetime Award, to recognize an individual "who has had a significant impact on the health of their region in line with Jane Jacob's belief that successful cities foster a place-based community."

The 2011 winner was Eberhard Zeidler, while his daughter, Margie Zeidler, won the 2015 award. In 2012, Anne Golden took the award "for her public policy leadership, academic work, and varied leadership experience in the business, nonprofit, and government sectors."[58] William (Bill) Teron accepted the 2013 Award "for his influential career in public policy and passionate advocacy for quality design and commitment to development in the Ottawa area".[59]​ In 2014, Jack Diamond was recognized for his "contribution to improving the shape and defense of cities and the future of the Greater Toronto Area".[60]​.