Thursday, February 22, 2018
In 1960, Jane Jacobs' book The Death and Life of Great American Cities was a landmark for architecture, investigating the consequences of urban reconfiguration by modern urban planners and architects. Jacobs was also an activist involved in many mid-century movements in New York to halt the draconian plans of Robert Moses, a powerful builder with significant political influence.
Writer Jane Jacobs arrived on the New York scene with the unorthodox idea that cities are about people, not buildings, just as New York urban planners were tearing down housing and replacing it with projects that eliminated the pedestrian traffic she argued was precisely what made a city livable.
