Jane Jacobs, a writer and activist died this morning in Toronto at the age of 89. An American born who chose to be Canadian, her relentless fight to preserve neighbourhoods and kill expressways, first in New York City, and then in Toronto earned her international fame. She is best known for her efforts to stop the proposed expressway between Manhattan Bridge on east Manhattan and the Holland tunnel on the west which contributed toward saving SoHo, Chinatown, and the west side of Greenwich Village.
Her first book, ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’, published in 1961, became a bible for neighbourhood organizers and what she termed the ‘foot people’.
She was a staunch believer in small-scale homely neighbouhoods who prefers short winding streets to long straight ones, low-rise housing to impersonal towers and intermixing of residential and commercial activity.
Via: The Star.Com
