Jacobs, Jane, 1916–2006, American-Canadian urbanologist, b. Scranton, Pa., as Jane Butzner. In the 1930s she moved to New York City, where she was (1952–64) an editor of Architectural Forum magazine. Living in Greenwich Village, she became active in efforts to preserve the neighborhood. Her first book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), proved to be one of the most influential works in the history of city planning and has been particularly important to America's New Urbanists. In it, Jacobs advocated the free and spontaneous growth of cities, condemned modernist planning, decried urban renewal's wholesale destruction of communities, and argued for high-density neighborhoods and multiple-use buildings as the foundations of vital, socially successful city living. In 1968, Jacobs and her family moved to Toronto, where she again became active in city development; she became a Canadian citizen in 1973. Her later books, focused on urban and regional economies as well as on broader topics, include The Economy of Cities (1969), Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984), Systems of Survival (1992), The Nature of Economies (2000), and Dark Age Ahead (2004).

Bibliography

See M. Allen, Ideas that Matter: The World of Jane Jacobs (1997).

Jacobs, Jane

orig. Jane Butzner

(born May 4, 1916, Scranton, Pa., U.S.—died April 25, 2006, Toronto, Ont., Can.) U.S.-born Canadian urbanologist. She became active in urban community work while living in New York City with her architect husband. For 10 years she was an editor at Architectural Forum. Her highly influential The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) is a brash, passionate, and highly original reinterpretation of the multiple needs of modern urban places. The Economy of Cities (1969) discusses the importance of diversity to a city's prospects. Later works include Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984), Edge of Empire (1996), and Dark Age Ahead (2004). See also urban planning.

Jacobs, Jane (b. Butzner) (1916– ) urban theorist, author; born in Scranton, Pa. Associate editor of Architectural Forum (1952–68), she gained a reputation for attacking urban planners for destroying diverse older neighborhoods with expressways and housing projects; her most influential work was The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961). She served on the New York Community Planning Board and was active in trying to save communities such as Greenwich Village. In 1968 she moved to Toronto, Canada, where her architect-husband, Robert Hyde Jacobs Jr., had accepted a position. There she was briefly a consultant to the urban-legal program of the University of New York Law School, but she concentrated on her own writings such as Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1989) and Systems of Survival (1992).