Jane Jacobs, author of “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” (1961) and patron saint to urban planners the world over, died today, at the age of 89. She will be missed. (And, isn’t she cute?)
(note: That third link will take you to an interview Jacobs did with our new friend Jim “Fuck You – We Shall Ride Again” Kunstler a few years ago.)
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Cute? Yes. But she reminds me in a way of Jad Fair.
http://muledesign.com/images/ourwork_fr_demojad.jpg
funny, I thought she kinda resembled Jar Jar Binks
From the Toronto Sun:
And when I said that Jane Jacobs was cute, I meant it. I wasn’t trying to be funny. I really do think that she looks like a lovely, kind person…
“The Nature of Economies” is a brilliant and beautiful little book.
Her last (?) book ” Dark Age Ahead” was good. She laid out a similar cause/ effect downfall of America based on history, not unlike ( it sounds ) Mr. Kunstler.
She is cute, in the sense that her eyes are like soft tractor beams ready at a moments notice to gently body slam you.
It’s a shame that the tough ones always have something in their past that keeps a fire lit under their ass. It gave her the strength to take on Robert Moses though.
I recommend “The Economy of Cities” and “Cities and the Wealth of Nations”; they manage to be both fast reads and the best alt-economics texts that my friends in relevent phd fields can recommend.
You’ll come away wondering just how she predicted the current state of the Michigan economy in 1970, and convinced that Michigan will have to secede and set up its own economy with its own currency before things will get better. (See also her book “Quebec: The Case for Separatism” or some such.)
She was hugely impressive, and will be sorey missed in this day and age of vampire like gentrification.