Pilfering from her April 26, 2005 Times obituary:
"Jane Jacobs, Social Critic Who Redefined and Championed Cities, Is
Dead at 89
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: April 26, 2006
Jane Jacobs, the writer and thinker who brought penetrating eyes and
ingenious insight to the sidewalk ballet of her own Greenwich Village
street and came up with a book that challenged and changed the way
people view cities, died yesterday in Toronto, where she moved in 1968.
She was 89."
"In her book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," written in
1961, Ms. Jacobs's enormous achievement was to transcend her own
withering critique of 20th-century urban planning and propose radically
new principles for rebuilding cities.
At a time when both common and inspired wisdom called for bulldozing
slums and opening up city space, Ms. Jacobs's prescription was ever
more diversity, density and dynamism - in effect, to crowd people and
activities together in a joyous urban jumble."
"Ms. Jacobs moved to Toronto in 1968 out of opposition to the Vietnam
War and to shield her two draft-age sons from military duty, and
quickly enlisted in Toronto's urban battles. No sooner had she arrived
than she led a battle to stop a freeway there."
" It was he [Jane Jacobs's husband Robert] who decided that the family
should move to Toronto in 1968 after their sons said they would go to
jail rather than serve in Vietnam. Mr. Jacobs died in 1996. Ms. Jacobs
is survived by her sons, James, of Toronto, and Ned, of Vancouver; her
daughter, Burgin Jacobs, of New Denver, British Columbia, and one
granddaughter."
WI the Jacobs had only had daughters, Jane, Elly and Burgin?
Presumably, even granted their opposition to American policies in
Southeast Asia, the Jacobs would not have relocated to a foreign
country.
How does her continued life in New York affect her work? She would have
been living through some of the more difficult years of New York
history as well as the cities gradual stabilization and renewed growth.
[interesting to picture her thoughts from her West Village perch on
Mayor Giuliani (assuming she doesn't affect the mayor's race in some
unforeseen way)]
How does this affect Toronto? Does the Spadina Expressway get fully
built, given she would not be involved in the fight against it? Does
the intellectual life in Toronto suffer given Ms Jacobs absence?
[One thing is certain as a New Yorker, Ms. Jacobs will never write "The
Question of Separatism: Quebec and the Struggle Over Sovereignty"]
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