Almost a decade after her death, the shadow of Jane Jacobs keeps growing as architects, urban planners and city makers discover (and worship) her acute understanding of how cities work. We owe Jane Jacobs the exploit of placing humans at the center of urbanism, in a time where cities were planned, designed and built for cars.
Jane Jacobs wrote her most renowned books during the splendour age of Detroit. Her disruptive ideas were the product of close observation, deep reasoning and naïf romanticism. Just like Einstein’s theories about relativity came too early to be tested, Jane Jacobs thoughts about cities were formulated with decades of anticipation. Fifty years after urban practitioners from around the globe witness in awe how her predictions have materialized. Continue reading