Event: WalkBoston’s Talk The Walk Session: “Jane Jacobs,” 5/5 12pm On Zoom

WalkBoston’s Talk the Walk Session
“Jane Jacobs”
May 5, 12-1pm
Register for this event

Lunch hour discussion session on Zoom. Open to all. Eating is encouraged. Video is optional.

This is our second topic-driven discussion session (not just books!). These discussion sessions may include articles, podcasts, videos, and yes, maybe even a book or two. This session will cover Jane Jacobs (brief bio on Wikipedia). The event coincides with the Jane’s Walk Festival Weekend (May 6-7-8), which features citizen-led free walks around the globe.

This Talk the Walk Session will feature a presentation by author Anthony Flint, who wrote “Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City.”

Sixty years after the publication of “The Death and Life of American Cities,” the legacy of Jane Jacobs endures. She would be cheered by the pandemic-driven transformation of urban environments to accommodate outdoor dining, biking, scooting, and walking; the support of local businesses and grassroots local climate action; and the resilience of transit systems enabling the “15-minute city,” a 21st-century version of how she lived her life in Greenwich Village. But what wouldn’t she be happy with? Quite probably the scourge of “Not in My Backyard” responses to multifamily housing, amid dizzying increases in housing costs.

We’ve included a few relevant links about Jane Jacobs below. If you have read something related that others might find interesting or a question you’d like to include, send it our way—we can include it in our event reminder email and add to this post.

Discussion questions to consider:

For whom does Jane Jacobs’ concepts work? For whom don’t they work?
What makes Jane Jacobs’ arguments exciting to planners?
How do Jane Jacobs’ theories/ideas hold up today, particularly with the latest challenges cities are facing in 2022 (ongoing pandemic, remote/hybrid work, online shopping, rising housing costs, gentrification, etc?)
What are some of the critiques of Jane Jacobs’ concepts?

Register for this meeting:

https://www.givesignup.org/TicketEvent/TalkTheWalk
You will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Articles to get you started:

Boston Globe: “An urban legacy in need of renewal”
- “And her legitimate call for more citizen involvement has led to a kind of paralysis in many cities. Activists who claim the mantle of Jacobs are often simply saying “not in my backyard.’’
NPR: “‘Wrestling With Moses’: How We Saw Our Cities Anew”
Urban Omnibus: “What About Jane”
Vox: “The tragic irony of Jane Jacobs’s Greenwich Village”