Books and Articles By And About Jane Jacobs

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Books and Articles By And About Jane Jacobs

“A city street equipped to handle strangers, and to make a safety asset, in itself, our of the presence of strangers, as the streets of successful city neighborhoods always do, must have three main qualities:

First, there must be a clear demarcation between what is public space and what is private space. Public and private spaces cannot ooze into each other as they do typically in suburban settings or in projects.

Second, there must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be oriented to the street. They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind.

And third, the sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce the people in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks in sufficient numbers. Nobody enjoys sitting on a stoop or looking out a window at an empty street. Almost nobody does such a thing. Large numbers of people entertain themselves, off and on, by watching street activity.”
— Jane Jacobs, ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’

Online Resources
• Project For Public Spaces
• Healthy Cities, Urban Theory, and Design: The Power of Jane Jacobs
• Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York, an exhibition created by the Municipal Art Society of New York
• KunstlerCast: Jane Jacobs, Urban Thinker
• Ideas That Matter

Books by Jane Jacobs
Jacobs, J., The Death and Life of Great American Cities, New York: Random House, 1961.
Jacobs, J., The Economy of Cities, New York: Random House, 1969.
Jacobs, J., The Question of Separatism: Quebec and the Struggle over Sovereignty. New York: Random House, 1980.
Jacobs, J., Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life, New York, Random House, 1984.
Jacobs, J., The Girl on the Hat, London: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Jacobs, J., Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics, New York: Random House, 1992.
Jacobs, J., ed. A Schoolteacher in Old Alaska, the diaries of Hannah Breece (Jane Jacobs’ great-aunt). New York: Random House, 1997.
Jacobs, J., The Nature of Economies, New York, Modern Library, 2000.
Jacobs, J., Dark Age Ahead, New York: Random House, 2004.
Jacobs, J., The Lost Massey Lectures: Recovered Classics From Five Great Thinkers, Toronto: Anansi, 2007.

Articles by Jane Jacobs
“Downtown is for People,” Fortune, April 1958.
“Vital Little Plans,” in Conference Report titled, “Safdie/Rouse/Jacobs: An Exchange.”
“Putting Toronto’s Best Self Forward,” Places, 7:2.
“Market Nurturing Run Amok,” Openair-Market Net, October 1995.
“Why TVA Failed,” The New York Review of Books, vol 31, num 8, May 10, 1984.
Essay on Charles Dickens’s Hard Times, in The New York Review of Books, 48 (12), July 19, 2001.
Introduction to the new edition of Hard Times, by Charles Dickens, New York: Modern Library, 2001.
Introduction to the new edition of The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, New York: Modern Library, 2002.
Introduction to the new edition of Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain, New York: Modern Library, 2003.

Books and Articles About Jane Jacobs
T. Mennel, J. Steffens, and C. Klemek, eds. Block by Block: Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York. New York: Municipal Art Society of New York and Princeton Architectural Press, 2007.
Canadian Cities and Sovereignty Association, Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1980.
Ideas That Matter: The Worlds of Jane Jacobs, edited by Max Allen, Owen Sound, Ontario: The Ginger Press, 1997.
Block By Block: Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 2007.
Alexiou, Alice Sparburg, Jane Jacobs: Urban Visionary, Rutger’s University Press, 2006.
Urban Villages and the Making of Communities, ed. Peter Neal, Routledge, 2003.
Ethics in Making a Living: The Jane Jacobs Conference, ed. Fred Lawrence, Atlanta: Scholar Press, 1989.
Desrochers, Pierre and Gert-Jan Hospers. “Cities and the economic development of nations: an essay on Jane Jacobs’ contribution to economic theory” in Canadian Journal of Regional Science, v. 30, no. 1, 2007.
Daniere, Amrita. “Canadian urbanism and Jane Jacobs” in Journal of Urban Affairs, v. 22, no. 4, 2000.
Glaeser, Edward L. “Cities and ethics: an essay for Jane Jacobs” inJournal of Urban Affairs, v. 22, no. 4, 2000.
Jacobs, Ned. “Changing the world by saving place” in Alternatives Journal, v. 28, no. 3, 2002.
Klemek, Christoper. “From political outsider to power broker in two ‘great American cities’: Jane Jacobs and the fall of the urban renewal order in New York and Toronto” in Journal of Urban History, v. 34, no. 2, 2008.
Montgomery, Roger. “Is there still life in ‘The Death and Life?’” in Journal of the American Planning Association, v. 64, no. 3, 1998.
Sancton, Andrew. “Jane Jacobs on the organization of municipal government” in Journal of Urban Affairs, v.22, no. 4, 2000.
Saunders, Doug, “Citizen Jane,” The Globe and Mail, 11 Oct 1997.
Kapusta, Beth, “How Jacobs Changed a City,” The Globe and Mail, 11 Oct 1997.
Hume, Christopher, “Jacobs sees humanity among urban concrete,” Toronto Star, 18 Sep 1997.
Martin, Sandra, “An urban legend,” Maclean’s, 20 Oct 1997.
Barber, John, “Jacobs embraced as economic guru,” The Globe and Mail, 15 Oct 1997.

Lang, Glenna and Marjory Wunsch. Genius of Common Sense: The Story of Jane Jacobs and The Death and Life of Great American Cities. David R. Godine, Publisher. 2009.
Genius of Common Sense is the first book to introduce young people to influential author and activist Jane Jacobs. Her now-classic 1961 book convinced people to value their cities, called for an end to the wrecking ball of “urban renewal,” and ultimately changed the world. In words and pictures, Genius follows the obstreperous young Jane from her childhood in Scranton, Pennsylvania, through her groundbreaking work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and her involvement in battles to save the very neighborhoods she wrote about.
Jane Jacobs’s lifelong principle of trusting her own observations more than conventional wisdom will inspire young readers to contemplate their surroundings, think for themselves, and participate in their communities. Readers of all ages will learn something new and enjoy this tale, abundantly illustrated with the authors’ drawings and photographs as well as many vintage photographs never before published.
Some links to choose from:
www.godine.com
www.glennalang.com/genius1.html

Interviews with Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs Interviewed by Jim Kunstler, September 2000.
Urban planning guru Jane Jacobs on the traps we set for ourselves, by Anne-Marie Tobin, Canoe, March 27, 2000.
The COnvention Follies, Part 5: A Conversation with Jane Jacobs, by Hank Bromley, ARTVOICE, vol 11 num 30, July 27, 2000.
City Views: Urban studies legend Jane Jacobs on gentrification, the New Urbanism, and her legacy, by Bill Steigerwald, Reason Magazine, June 2001.
Urban Economy and Development: Interview of Jane Jacobs, by Roberto Chavez, Tia Duer, and Ke Fang, The World Bank Group, February 4, 2002.
Cities and Economies: Interview with Jane Jacobs, by Blake Harris, The New Colonist, December 1, 2002.