![]() ![]() Jacobs was born in 1916 in the coal mining town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, the daughter of a doctor and a former school teacher and nurse. William "Holly" Whyte was her editor at Fortune Magazine, who published her seminal article " Downtown is for People" (1958)-the piece that inspired the Rockefeller Foundation to fund her to write The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Whyte, Jacobs led the way in advocating for a place-based, community-centered approach to urban planning, decades before such approaches were considered sensible. Instead, she relied on her observations and common sense to show why certain places work, and what can be done to improve those that do not. ![]() Jacobs had no professional training in the field of city planning, nor did she hold the title of planner. Her efforts to stop downtown expressways and protect local neighborhoods invigorated community-based urban activism and helped end Parks Commissioner Robert Moses's reign of power in New York City. Her 1961 treatise, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, became one of the most influential American texts about the inner workings and failings of cities, inspiring generations of urban planners and activists. ![]() Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) was an urban writer and activist who championed new, community-based approaches to planning for over 40 years. ![]()
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