Readers may learn a new word in the
opening pages of Genius of Common Sense: Jane Jacobs and the Story of The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Obstreperous, meaning “rowdy” or “boisterous.” That was the word used by
teachers to describe Jane Jacobs in her elementary classrooms, and the same
word could be used to describe the energy that powered Jacobs to become,
mid-twentieth century, one of the most influential thinkers and activists in
the world of urban development and city planning. One of Jane’s favorite
pastimes as she grew up in the “Electric City” of Scranton, Pennsylvania, was
to take the trolley downtown and absorb the variety and vitality of its busy
streets. Not yet twenty years old, she moved to New York with her sister and
took many opportunities to walk the city’s neighborhoods. She imagined how she
would describe modern life to people in the distant past: what might Benjamin
Franklin make of Times Square today? Her love of observing, analyzing and
describing led to her articles in Vogue and Cue magazines, and
she worked as a writer for U.S. government agencies. Jacobs and her husband
established their home in New York’s West Village in the 1940s, and a few years
later Jacobs began her work as associate editor at Architectural Forum
magazine. All the while she voiced her opinions about cities: that the mix of
housing, businesses and people characteristic of urban neighborhoods was the
heart’s-blood of strong communities, that having many ordinary “eyes on the
street” kept neighborhoods strong and safe. Her passion for preserving
neighborhoods prevented, through community action, a huge highway bisecting
lower Manhattan’s Washington Square Park. City planners and developers were
forced to think twice about the effects of wholesale urban renewal and
“planned” communities on the fabric of people’s lives. In 1961 her landmark
book The Death and Life of Great American Cities was published, a
treatise that informs us still today about the vital core of cities and
neighborhoods. Author Glenna Lang has captured beautifully the essence of
Jacobs’s independent thinking and influence in this book for young people.
Wonderful descriptive illustrations by Marjory Wunsch open each chapter, and
profuse archival photographs throughout amplify our understanding of this
fascinating subject. Ages 11 up.
