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Archive 1 |
The Criticism section states: "One of the recurring criticisms of Jacobs is that her work is impractical and does not reflect the reality of urban politics". On a related note, my reading of The Nature of Economies led me to feel that Jacobs placed too much importance on the theoretical negative feedback effect of Adam Smith's Invisible Hand, mentioning that it can be upset by taxes and subsidies, but not recognizing the much greater debilitating distortions caused in practice by large corporations and by externalities, as discussed for example in David Korten's work. Can anyone cite specific published criticism? JimR 07:18, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
If these criticisms have really been levelled at Jacobs, it may be valid to represent them in the article, so as to show what other points of view exist, even though as you say they seem absurd. Maybe you could quote briefly from her writings and/or give references to show how she rebuts the criticisms. However, it's also true that Seglea's point that the criticisms are unsourced still stands. -- JimR 10:20, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, good — thanks! It's also worth having a look at the articles David Crombie, Municipal expressways in Toronto, and Spadina Expressway, where similar criticisms appear. -- JimR 11:02, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I quite agree that the other articles do not necessarily support the criticisms in Jane Jacobs: they merely repeat them. My aim in pointing them out was to indicate that if the Jacobs article is to be improved, the other articles could also be amended.
Under NPOV I think it's reasonable that these articles should indicate that there are different points of view on whether or not the consequences of the cancellation of the expressways were all positive. Your plan of responding to the criticisms in Jacob's own terms by finding suitable quotations from her later books may be the best answer to this.
On "development", the controversy may be in the interpretation of the term. I think Jacobs uses it to mean a deepening in complexity and richness of economic activity, while exponents of expressways may be thinking of a simplification of what they see as a transport problem. -- JimR 06:44, 23 October 2005 (UTC) -- JimR 06:44, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the kind words! I agree with your critique of the criticisms. I couldn't find an "unreferenced section" template, so I've added a POV-section template to the Criticisms section, in the hope it will attract other people to comment and contribute to achieving balance.
You are also quite right about " development": the meanings of "economic development" and "business development" are not always in tune. I've attempted to make the last paragraph of the Criticisms section reflect the distinction. But like you I'm still not happy with the whole section, principally because of the lack of sources, references or quotations. -- JimR 11:11, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, JimR, for drawing my attention to this ongoing attempts to sort this one out. I think both you and Markmtl deserve a lot of credit for trying to achieve insight and balance from what I suspect are opposed points of view - this is how Wikipedia progresses from the weird to the not so weird (probably the most we can hope for in an uncertain world). But the brute fact remains that no-one has even said who is making these criticisms and where they are making them, and until we have that information they are just useless. So my modest proposal is to dump the whole section, perserve it and explain why in this discussion page, and see whether anyone comes back with a properly sourced rewrite. But this really isn't my field, so I hesitate to do it myself - I only got here because I found Systems of Survival incredibly useful in understanding a peculiar job I was doing, which was a desperate hybrid of her two systems. seglea 20:52, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
It's a curious argument that admitted unsourced POV argument is to be protected, while removing it is rejected because seen as POV. However, let's see how far we can get with Boothy443's suggestion. A Google search leads to a Citizens Transportation Alliance of Toronto web page which criticises Jacobs, saying for example: "Toronto’s socialist planning based on Jane Jacobs’ unprofessional ideas have completely failed the city." I suggest that following Boothy443's reasoning, we should rewrite the Criticism section based on and referring to this page. Can anyone find any other similar pages to incorporate as well? -- JimR 10:34, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I quite agree that the Citizens Transportation Alliance critique is weak, and you have done a great job of arguing against it. I still think this could be incorporated into the article (briefly), together with the counter-argument, in place of the existing hypothetical unsourced criticism. But do go ahead looking for a "better" criticism reference ( [1] may give an idea). Of course if you find a really good one, it will be harder to refute :-) -- JimR 06:57, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I think this is a useful section (BTW I know and have collaborated with Mrs. Jacobs since the Washington Square resitence of 1958/59) - but I would like to suggest that the author put it in the form of either Q&A, or maybe Challenge and Response. I find the challenges interesting and quite representative of those who don't much like her or her approacn - and I am absolutey certain that Mrs.Jabos would have fun with this as well. She has never shied away from criticism. ericbritton 16:05, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
The following informative list has been deleted without any clear justification. I would like to solicit opinions on retaining this list. If this list hinders the flow of the article, then a separate Wikipedia article could be made.
WpZurp 17:18, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
As someone who read these lists in law school a while back and was actually looking to remember them, I think it's useful that they're there (somewhere - i agree they might need some explanation, though. I am not the one to give it). -- Kalanchoe77 18:28, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
I removed the paragraph at the bottom that mentioned an obscure voice actor by the same name. I don't think this person is notable enough for Wikipedia, but if anyone disagrees, then they can make a different entry for her and create a disambiguation page. 24.84.41.147 17:08, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Congratulations to the authors of this article, there's little higher praise than this: "Jane Jacobs died this week. There are many online resources devoted to the woman perhaps most responsible for keeping our cities as livable as they are, but her Wikipedia entry may be the best place to start to learn about her." [2]. Good work! — Catherine\ talk 21:11, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
"Jacobs continues to tell it like it is" Srnec 21:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
The {{cleanup-spam}} tag was added to the External links section on 12 May 2006. As far as I can see from this diff, the external links haven't changed since then. So no one seems to have found actual spam links. Can the tag now be removed? If not, which of the links are the dubious ones, and is there agreement to get rid of those? -- JimR 11:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
There is a non-working link in the article to the topic of The Jane Jacobs Prize. There is an excellent website, maintained by the adminsitrators of the prize, at Ideas that Matter. There are specific pages relating to the Prize itself at People that Matter and The Jane Jacobs Prize. Would it be desirable to obtain permission from the copyright holders to "lift" their text and place it here, or should the reference in the article just be an external link to some or all of these pages? There is already a link to Ideas that Matter in the External links / Websites section. I don't know what the best / usual practice is in these situations; there's always the possibility that the other website will go away. It seems it would be better to get permission to quote the site as needed and incorporate the material into an article here. -- Chidom 20:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I've just spent some time eliminating instances on this Talk page where the word "development" linked to the Development disambiguation page. If a link is created on the word "development" alone ([[development]]), that's where it points. The goal is to have links point to the article that is specific to the usage of the word. I (hopefully) changed them to more appropriate links such as
Economic development,
Urban development,
Corporate development,
Subdivision (land), etc. There were some instances where I added links that didn't previously exist. If you care to, please review the changes I've made and if you feel that a link now points to the wrong article, or that another instance of the word "development" needs to link somewhere, please go ahead and make the edits you feel are appropriate. I tried to limit the use of each of the unique links to one or two places in the text here, but that may not have been the best methodology, either. Thoughts / comments / edits are welcome. Thanks!--
Chidom 19:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)—
Chidom
21:05, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Tremendously influential Lewis Mumford's lifespan overlapped with Jacobs', and he also wrote insightfully and critically about cities, technology, and history. Very many thoughtful people involved with urban and technological issues read Mumford. Values (as proved out by history) were the central concern of both Mumford and Jacobs. Is there something obvious being missed in this Wikipedia article about Jacobs? What might she have drawn from his thinking, what might she have disagreed with or reacted against?-- Joel Russ 21:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
The article mentions her support of ecologist Tooker Gomberg in the Toronto mayoral election of 2000, stating that Gomberg won. I know nothing about the man, but according to his page he lost that election by a wide margin. 148.166.86.83 ( talk) 18:45, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
The article had said for some time that Jacobs was of Jewish background, but these edits changed that to Protestant, and removed two categories, Jewish American writers and Jewish Canadians. Is the new version correct? -- JimR 07:38, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
This really bothers me. I have no idea why people are trying to hide her Jewish ethnicity. I have edited the page to reflect the reality of the situation. There is ABSOLUTELY no dispute she was Jewish.
I can tell you one thing. Mrs. Jacobs would be exasperated by this discussion. She is, she told me often, defined by her work and not her person. So out with the labels! A bit of respect for this wonderful person and her wishes. ericbritton 07:30, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
As it reads now, identifying her as a Protestant and as a 'minority' in a majority-Catholic town is a bit of a throwaway line, as there's no context for why it's important. (Had she been, say, a religious organizer, it might be relevant.) A discussion of her religious background might be relevant in a full biography. But is her religion relevant at all for the limited purposes of a Wikipedia entry? MariaMitchell ( talk) 18:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Given conflicting sources, either mention the conflicts in sources or mention nothing. Carol Moore 14:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC) Carolmooredc {talk}
Added link to freelance writer Greenopedia ( talk) 19:26, 29 January 2010 (UTC)greenopedia 1/29/10
The article reads "She became a Canadian citizen in 1974, and she later told writer James Howard Kunstler that dual citizenship was not possible at the time, implying that her US citizenship was lost."
But this is clearly untrue! Any American who immigrated to Canada in the 1960s or 1970s would know that this is absolute nonsense.
Why would she say something like that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mardiste ( talk • contribs) 00:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
This section misrepresents the ideas of Jacobs and it misrepresents the ideas of Childe, Maisels, and others. The simple fact is that Jacobs was very wrong in suggesting that cities preceded agriculture. There is voluminous, clear archaeological evidence from several areas of the world that support my claim (this is my professional specialty). I would re-edit the entry to correct the errors, but when I made this very change in the entry under "cities" some Jacobs fanatics quickly erased my edits and restored the erroneous information (claiming that Jacobs's ideas are not in error). This kind of things give a bad name to Wikipedia. Michael E. Smith ( talk) 22:14, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
This paragraph was attached to the summary of The Economy of Cities:
I moved it into the Criticism section, as it's not part of the actual book and doesn't belong in a book summary.
However, it smells like original research to me. Should it be removed entirely?
Lpetrazickis ( talk) 15:47, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
It should go. It's original research, and addresses one point in one of her books. I doubt that there is any generally recognized school of opposition to Jacobs' ideas outside the government/developer camp. BruceSwanson ( talk) 19:24, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
References
[Moved from my talk page]: Hi Carol. Jane Jacobs is described as "proto-radical middle" on page 30 of Mark Satin's book Radical Middle (Westview Press and Basic Books, 2004). As you well know, she is a hero to many of those whose radicalism is grounded in careful research, creative thinking, and hands-on activism. How I wish all radical centrists were like that! But some of us are, and we loved her. - Babel41 ( talk) 07:04, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
I just did some extensive editing of this section.
1. I reinserted the para. (with some tweaks) about Toronto planners faulting her (and Bill Davis, for that matter) for blocking expressway development. Yes, the para. needs a citation (need duly noted), but I have heard several planners say that (yes, I know about WP:NOR), so let's look for the citation rather than delete.
2. I toned down the next para which started off blaming Jacobs for Toronto's businesses' move to the suburbs. I had several reasons.
3. I also toned down a bit the over-assertions about how her policies always lead to yuppie-dom. I'm in my 60s myself, as are my neighbours in downtown Toronto.
As Jane would never say, YMMV. Bellagio99 13:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Jbacu1985 00:05, 16 October 2007 (UTC) Suburbanization is a widespread phenomenon in North American cities since the end of WWII - but there is plenty of evidence that Toronto (as a overall urban agglomeration) is one of the most suburban. Toronto has the highest proportion In Canada of office space outside the business center/downtown (Colliers publishes the square footage of various classes of commercial space in the different cities in N.A. and globally. )
If you look at Statistics Canada on types of commute, Toronto has by far the fastest rate of job movement to the suburbs - as measured by where people travel to/from work. From 1981 to 2001 the proportion of commutes in the city core dropped in Toronto in absolute numbers - and by far the most in terms of percentages of Canadian cities. Toronto's percentage fell from 63% in 1981 to 42.2% in 2001. [3]
It's thus hard to find evidence in contributing to the stopping of the Spadina Expressway, that Jacobs helped stave of suburbanization. Montreal's parallel project - the Decarie Expressway - was completed. Montreal does have suburbs - but not to the extent of Toronto's. While impossible to prove, the evidence suggests that Toronto's suburbanization sped up following the demise of the municipal expressways.
The role of provincial tax policy is debatable. Toronto's disadvantage in business property tax rates goes back many years - well before the restructuring of services financing in the 1990's. Toronto has a higher Business Education Tax than competing municipalities because the rate reflects the rate in place before the province introduced equity in education funding. Following the Local Services Relalignment (LSR), municipalities were given the opportunity to have the BET rate reduced in exchange for parallel reductions in the municipal rate. For example. Hamilton saved its ratepayers about $10 million annually by agreeing to the restructuring (this is documented in the Ontario Ministry of Finance website.) Toronto never negotiated such an agreement with the Province.
--How are some of these charges against Jacobs, criticism of Jacobs herself and not at some other larger issue? So she was influental in stopping the Spadina, does that mean she is responsible for the end of highway construction all over North America? I believe she was never outright against suburbs and freeways, she just prefered cities and didnt want suburban-population-serving freeways plowing through the heart of cities at the expense of urban residents. The cost comparision and efficiency of freeways and transit does not belong as a criticism of Jacobs, there is a place elsewhere on wikipedia for that. i really dont see what toronto business opinion, suburban growth and toronto tax rate has to do with jacobs she was not mayor of toronto. there are valid criticisms of jacobs but the ones listed i think are quite weak and have little relevance to jacobs. she could be criticized for not writing more about suburbs in death and life at a time when auto-suburbs were the new thing (although suburbs are not her expertise). she could be criticized for being against large scale urban renewal projects that might be viewed as necessary. she could be criticized for leaving the US and moving to Canada in response to the vietnam war. she could be criticized for being a rebel against power and authority. these to me are valid criticisms of jacobs, the growth rate of the toronto to its suburbs has nothing to do with jacobs. Pdxstreetcar 18:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Jbacu1985 18:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC) Those are excellent questions. It's certainly not fair to assign Jacobs' blame for all of Toronto's crises. However, most Torontonians - whether they are on one side or the other - give Jacobs a good portion of the credit in stopping the Spadina Expressway's construction. Hence when Torontonians experience crippling transportation problems (which is usually) many trace the state of affairs back to Jacobs. I don't think this is exactly fair to Jacobs. We can't blame Jacob's for Toronto's not building the 3rd/4th etc. subway lines that would have provided arterial people-moving capacity in lieu of the Expressway. I'm not sure if Jacobs proposed alternatives to Spadina - or was simply bent on stopping it and letting others figure that out. If the latter is true, I think this is a basis for criticism.
In terms of 'apples and oranges' arguments, these are commonplace place in the discussions of urban planning. Montreal and Toronto are different - but have many similarities that make them a logical pair for comparison purposes.
If anyone is doing research in this general field, be sure to check out Urban Villagers by Herbert J. Gans about Boston's West End. I believe there are a few more books of that "type" (sociological studies of various cities during urban renewal) for other cities. AdderUser ( talk) 08:39, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
How do we add the template on the main page of this article stating that this is today's Google Logo?? Ilikeguys21 ( talk) 13:11, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
I've added citation needed tags to the claim that Jane Jacobs stopped the Lower Manhattan expressway from going through Washington Square park. I've never seen any reference that shows that this was the route of the expressway. The point is not that she didn't stop a large road from being built there (I believe that, although I don't see a citation). The question is whether it was the same as the Lower Manhattan Expressway. After reading the relevant section of Hillary Ballon and Kenneth Jackson's book, Robert Moses and the Modern City, I think it is fairly clear that this road might have been mean to "connect" to the Lower Manhattan Expressway, but was never actually a part of the proposed plan. Nonetheless the "battle for Washington Square park" is an important turning point in city planning... Fixifex ( talk) 15:15, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
It is very plain from photographic documentation that the LOMEX was not to go through Washington Square Park...
. I am looking through The Power Broker to see if we can find a better way to describe the fight against a road through Washington Square Park--
130.132.173.241 (
talk)
02:41, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Shouldn't the subject heading "America" be changed to the magazine's title, "Amerika"?
Also, wouldn't the first sentence of the next section ("Architectural Forum") -- "Jacobs left America in 1952 ..." -- be clearer if it read instead as "Jacobs left the staff of Amerika magazine in 1952 ... "? On first reading, I thought it was describing when she left the U.S. for Canada. If AF was published in NYC at that time, then the second sentence in this section might be improved to read: "She found a well-paying job at Architectural Forum, published in New York City by Henry Luce of Time Inc."
Almadenmike ( talk) 14:15, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request to
Jane Jacobs has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
A documentary film examining Jane Jacobs’ work, legacy and her battles with Robert Moses is currently slated for release in Fall 2016. The film is directed by Matt Tyrnauer, director of Valentino: The Last Emperor, and produced by Robert Hammond, co-creator of The High Line in New York City.
[1] Grahamhigh ( talk) 03:05, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
The Criticism section states: "One of the recurring criticisms of Jacobs is that her work is impractical and does not reflect the reality of urban politics". On a related note, my reading of The Nature of Economies led me to feel that Jacobs placed too much importance on the theoretical negative feedback effect of Adam Smith's Invisible Hand, mentioning that it can be upset by taxes and subsidies, but not recognizing the much greater debilitating distortions caused in practice by large corporations and by externalities, as discussed for example in David Korten's work. Can anyone cite specific published criticism? JimR 07:18, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
If these criticisms have really been levelled at Jacobs, it may be valid to represent them in the article, so as to show what other points of view exist, even though as you say they seem absurd. Maybe you could quote briefly from her writings and/or give references to show how she rebuts the criticisms. However, it's also true that Seglea's point that the criticisms are unsourced still stands. -- JimR 10:20, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, good — thanks! It's also worth having a look at the articles David Crombie, Municipal expressways in Toronto, and Spadina Expressway, where similar criticisms appear. -- JimR 11:02, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I quite agree that the other articles do not necessarily support the criticisms in Jane Jacobs: they merely repeat them. My aim in pointing them out was to indicate that if the Jacobs article is to be improved, the other articles could also be amended.
Under NPOV I think it's reasonable that these articles should indicate that there are different points of view on whether or not the consequences of the cancellation of the expressways were all positive. Your plan of responding to the criticisms in Jacob's own terms by finding suitable quotations from her later books may be the best answer to this.
On "development", the controversy may be in the interpretation of the term. I think Jacobs uses it to mean a deepening in complexity and richness of economic activity, while exponents of expressways may be thinking of a simplification of what they see as a transport problem. -- JimR 06:44, 23 October 2005 (UTC) -- JimR 06:44, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the kind words! I agree with your critique of the criticisms. I couldn't find an "unreferenced section" template, so I've added a POV-section template to the Criticisms section, in the hope it will attract other people to comment and contribute to achieving balance.
You are also quite right about " development": the meanings of "economic development" and "business development" are not always in tune. I've attempted to make the last paragraph of the Criticisms section reflect the distinction. But like you I'm still not happy with the whole section, principally because of the lack of sources, references or quotations. -- JimR 11:11, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, JimR, for drawing my attention to this ongoing attempts to sort this one out. I think both you and Markmtl deserve a lot of credit for trying to achieve insight and balance from what I suspect are opposed points of view - this is how Wikipedia progresses from the weird to the not so weird (probably the most we can hope for in an uncertain world). But the brute fact remains that no-one has even said who is making these criticisms and where they are making them, and until we have that information they are just useless. So my modest proposal is to dump the whole section, perserve it and explain why in this discussion page, and see whether anyone comes back with a properly sourced rewrite. But this really isn't my field, so I hesitate to do it myself - I only got here because I found Systems of Survival incredibly useful in understanding a peculiar job I was doing, which was a desperate hybrid of her two systems. seglea 20:52, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
It's a curious argument that admitted unsourced POV argument is to be protected, while removing it is rejected because seen as POV. However, let's see how far we can get with Boothy443's suggestion. A Google search leads to a Citizens Transportation Alliance of Toronto web page which criticises Jacobs, saying for example: "Toronto’s socialist planning based on Jane Jacobs’ unprofessional ideas have completely failed the city." I suggest that following Boothy443's reasoning, we should rewrite the Criticism section based on and referring to this page. Can anyone find any other similar pages to incorporate as well? -- JimR 10:34, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I quite agree that the Citizens Transportation Alliance critique is weak, and you have done a great job of arguing against it. I still think this could be incorporated into the article (briefly), together with the counter-argument, in place of the existing hypothetical unsourced criticism. But do go ahead looking for a "better" criticism reference ( [1] may give an idea). Of course if you find a really good one, it will be harder to refute :-) -- JimR 06:57, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I think this is a useful section (BTW I know and have collaborated with Mrs. Jacobs since the Washington Square resitence of 1958/59) - but I would like to suggest that the author put it in the form of either Q&A, or maybe Challenge and Response. I find the challenges interesting and quite representative of those who don't much like her or her approacn - and I am absolutey certain that Mrs.Jabos would have fun with this as well. She has never shied away from criticism. ericbritton 16:05, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
The following informative list has been deleted without any clear justification. I would like to solicit opinions on retaining this list. If this list hinders the flow of the article, then a separate Wikipedia article could be made.
WpZurp 17:18, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
As someone who read these lists in law school a while back and was actually looking to remember them, I think it's useful that they're there (somewhere - i agree they might need some explanation, though. I am not the one to give it). -- Kalanchoe77 18:28, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
I removed the paragraph at the bottom that mentioned an obscure voice actor by the same name. I don't think this person is notable enough for Wikipedia, but if anyone disagrees, then they can make a different entry for her and create a disambiguation page. 24.84.41.147 17:08, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Congratulations to the authors of this article, there's little higher praise than this: "Jane Jacobs died this week. There are many online resources devoted to the woman perhaps most responsible for keeping our cities as livable as they are, but her Wikipedia entry may be the best place to start to learn about her." [2]. Good work! — Catherine\ talk 21:11, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
"Jacobs continues to tell it like it is" Srnec 21:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
The {{cleanup-spam}} tag was added to the External links section on 12 May 2006. As far as I can see from this diff, the external links haven't changed since then. So no one seems to have found actual spam links. Can the tag now be removed? If not, which of the links are the dubious ones, and is there agreement to get rid of those? -- JimR 11:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
There is a non-working link in the article to the topic of The Jane Jacobs Prize. There is an excellent website, maintained by the adminsitrators of the prize, at Ideas that Matter. There are specific pages relating to the Prize itself at People that Matter and The Jane Jacobs Prize. Would it be desirable to obtain permission from the copyright holders to "lift" their text and place it here, or should the reference in the article just be an external link to some or all of these pages? There is already a link to Ideas that Matter in the External links / Websites section. I don't know what the best / usual practice is in these situations; there's always the possibility that the other website will go away. It seems it would be better to get permission to quote the site as needed and incorporate the material into an article here. -- Chidom 20:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I've just spent some time eliminating instances on this Talk page where the word "development" linked to the Development disambiguation page. If a link is created on the word "development" alone ([[development]]), that's where it points. The goal is to have links point to the article that is specific to the usage of the word. I (hopefully) changed them to more appropriate links such as
Economic development,
Urban development,
Corporate development,
Subdivision (land), etc. There were some instances where I added links that didn't previously exist. If you care to, please review the changes I've made and if you feel that a link now points to the wrong article, or that another instance of the word "development" needs to link somewhere, please go ahead and make the edits you feel are appropriate. I tried to limit the use of each of the unique links to one or two places in the text here, but that may not have been the best methodology, either. Thoughts / comments / edits are welcome. Thanks!--
Chidom 19:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)—
Chidom
21:05, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Tremendously influential Lewis Mumford's lifespan overlapped with Jacobs', and he also wrote insightfully and critically about cities, technology, and history. Very many thoughtful people involved with urban and technological issues read Mumford. Values (as proved out by history) were the central concern of both Mumford and Jacobs. Is there something obvious being missed in this Wikipedia article about Jacobs? What might she have drawn from his thinking, what might she have disagreed with or reacted against?-- Joel Russ 21:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
The article mentions her support of ecologist Tooker Gomberg in the Toronto mayoral election of 2000, stating that Gomberg won. I know nothing about the man, but according to his page he lost that election by a wide margin. 148.166.86.83 ( talk) 18:45, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
The article had said for some time that Jacobs was of Jewish background, but these edits changed that to Protestant, and removed two categories, Jewish American writers and Jewish Canadians. Is the new version correct? -- JimR 07:38, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
This really bothers me. I have no idea why people are trying to hide her Jewish ethnicity. I have edited the page to reflect the reality of the situation. There is ABSOLUTELY no dispute she was Jewish.
I can tell you one thing. Mrs. Jacobs would be exasperated by this discussion. She is, she told me often, defined by her work and not her person. So out with the labels! A bit of respect for this wonderful person and her wishes. ericbritton 07:30, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
As it reads now, identifying her as a Protestant and as a 'minority' in a majority-Catholic town is a bit of a throwaway line, as there's no context for why it's important. (Had she been, say, a religious organizer, it might be relevant.) A discussion of her religious background might be relevant in a full biography. But is her religion relevant at all for the limited purposes of a Wikipedia entry? MariaMitchell ( talk) 18:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Given conflicting sources, either mention the conflicts in sources or mention nothing. Carol Moore 14:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC) Carolmooredc {talk}
Added link to freelance writer Greenopedia ( talk) 19:26, 29 January 2010 (UTC)greenopedia 1/29/10
The article reads "She became a Canadian citizen in 1974, and she later told writer James Howard Kunstler that dual citizenship was not possible at the time, implying that her US citizenship was lost."
But this is clearly untrue! Any American who immigrated to Canada in the 1960s or 1970s would know that this is absolute nonsense.
Why would she say something like that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mardiste ( talk • contribs) 00:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
This section misrepresents the ideas of Jacobs and it misrepresents the ideas of Childe, Maisels, and others. The simple fact is that Jacobs was very wrong in suggesting that cities preceded agriculture. There is voluminous, clear archaeological evidence from several areas of the world that support my claim (this is my professional specialty). I would re-edit the entry to correct the errors, but when I made this very change in the entry under "cities" some Jacobs fanatics quickly erased my edits and restored the erroneous information (claiming that Jacobs's ideas are not in error). This kind of things give a bad name to Wikipedia. Michael E. Smith ( talk) 22:14, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
This paragraph was attached to the summary of The Economy of Cities:
I moved it into the Criticism section, as it's not part of the actual book and doesn't belong in a book summary.
However, it smells like original research to me. Should it be removed entirely?
Lpetrazickis ( talk) 15:47, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
It should go. It's original research, and addresses one point in one of her books. I doubt that there is any generally recognized school of opposition to Jacobs' ideas outside the government/developer camp. BruceSwanson ( talk) 19:24, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
References
[Moved from my talk page]: Hi Carol. Jane Jacobs is described as "proto-radical middle" on page 30 of Mark Satin's book Radical Middle (Westview Press and Basic Books, 2004). As you well know, she is a hero to many of those whose radicalism is grounded in careful research, creative thinking, and hands-on activism. How I wish all radical centrists were like that! But some of us are, and we loved her. - Babel41 ( talk) 07:04, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
I just did some extensive editing of this section.
1. I reinserted the para. (with some tweaks) about Toronto planners faulting her (and Bill Davis, for that matter) for blocking expressway development. Yes, the para. needs a citation (need duly noted), but I have heard several planners say that (yes, I know about WP:NOR), so let's look for the citation rather than delete.
2. I toned down the next para which started off blaming Jacobs for Toronto's businesses' move to the suburbs. I had several reasons.
3. I also toned down a bit the over-assertions about how her policies always lead to yuppie-dom. I'm in my 60s myself, as are my neighbours in downtown Toronto.
As Jane would never say, YMMV. Bellagio99 13:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Jbacu1985 00:05, 16 October 2007 (UTC) Suburbanization is a widespread phenomenon in North American cities since the end of WWII - but there is plenty of evidence that Toronto (as a overall urban agglomeration) is one of the most suburban. Toronto has the highest proportion In Canada of office space outside the business center/downtown (Colliers publishes the square footage of various classes of commercial space in the different cities in N.A. and globally. )
If you look at Statistics Canada on types of commute, Toronto has by far the fastest rate of job movement to the suburbs - as measured by where people travel to/from work. From 1981 to 2001 the proportion of commutes in the city core dropped in Toronto in absolute numbers - and by far the most in terms of percentages of Canadian cities. Toronto's percentage fell from 63% in 1981 to 42.2% in 2001. [3]
It's thus hard to find evidence in contributing to the stopping of the Spadina Expressway, that Jacobs helped stave of suburbanization. Montreal's parallel project - the Decarie Expressway - was completed. Montreal does have suburbs - but not to the extent of Toronto's. While impossible to prove, the evidence suggests that Toronto's suburbanization sped up following the demise of the municipal expressways.
The role of provincial tax policy is debatable. Toronto's disadvantage in business property tax rates goes back many years - well before the restructuring of services financing in the 1990's. Toronto has a higher Business Education Tax than competing municipalities because the rate reflects the rate in place before the province introduced equity in education funding. Following the Local Services Relalignment (LSR), municipalities were given the opportunity to have the BET rate reduced in exchange for parallel reductions in the municipal rate. For example. Hamilton saved its ratepayers about $10 million annually by agreeing to the restructuring (this is documented in the Ontario Ministry of Finance website.) Toronto never negotiated such an agreement with the Province.
--How are some of these charges against Jacobs, criticism of Jacobs herself and not at some other larger issue? So she was influental in stopping the Spadina, does that mean she is responsible for the end of highway construction all over North America? I believe she was never outright against suburbs and freeways, she just prefered cities and didnt want suburban-population-serving freeways plowing through the heart of cities at the expense of urban residents. The cost comparision and efficiency of freeways and transit does not belong as a criticism of Jacobs, there is a place elsewhere on wikipedia for that. i really dont see what toronto business opinion, suburban growth and toronto tax rate has to do with jacobs she was not mayor of toronto. there are valid criticisms of jacobs but the ones listed i think are quite weak and have little relevance to jacobs. she could be criticized for not writing more about suburbs in death and life at a time when auto-suburbs were the new thing (although suburbs are not her expertise). she could be criticized for being against large scale urban renewal projects that might be viewed as necessary. she could be criticized for leaving the US and moving to Canada in response to the vietnam war. she could be criticized for being a rebel against power and authority. these to me are valid criticisms of jacobs, the growth rate of the toronto to its suburbs has nothing to do with jacobs. Pdxstreetcar 18:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Jbacu1985 18:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC) Those are excellent questions. It's certainly not fair to assign Jacobs' blame for all of Toronto's crises. However, most Torontonians - whether they are on one side or the other - give Jacobs a good portion of the credit in stopping the Spadina Expressway's construction. Hence when Torontonians experience crippling transportation problems (which is usually) many trace the state of affairs back to Jacobs. I don't think this is exactly fair to Jacobs. We can't blame Jacob's for Toronto's not building the 3rd/4th etc. subway lines that would have provided arterial people-moving capacity in lieu of the Expressway. I'm not sure if Jacobs proposed alternatives to Spadina - or was simply bent on stopping it and letting others figure that out. If the latter is true, I think this is a basis for criticism.
In terms of 'apples and oranges' arguments, these are commonplace place in the discussions of urban planning. Montreal and Toronto are different - but have many similarities that make them a logical pair for comparison purposes.
If anyone is doing research in this general field, be sure to check out Urban Villagers by Herbert J. Gans about Boston's West End. I believe there are a few more books of that "type" (sociological studies of various cities during urban renewal) for other cities. AdderUser ( talk) 08:39, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
How do we add the template on the main page of this article stating that this is today's Google Logo?? Ilikeguys21 ( talk) 13:11, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
I've added citation needed tags to the claim that Jane Jacobs stopped the Lower Manhattan expressway from going through Washington Square park. I've never seen any reference that shows that this was the route of the expressway. The point is not that she didn't stop a large road from being built there (I believe that, although I don't see a citation). The question is whether it was the same as the Lower Manhattan Expressway. After reading the relevant section of Hillary Ballon and Kenneth Jackson's book, Robert Moses and the Modern City, I think it is fairly clear that this road might have been mean to "connect" to the Lower Manhattan Expressway, but was never actually a part of the proposed plan. Nonetheless the "battle for Washington Square park" is an important turning point in city planning... Fixifex ( talk) 15:15, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
It is very plain from photographic documentation that the LOMEX was not to go through Washington Square Park...
. I am looking through The Power Broker to see if we can find a better way to describe the fight against a road through Washington Square Park--
130.132.173.241 (
talk)
02:41, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Shouldn't the subject heading "America" be changed to the magazine's title, "Amerika"?
Also, wouldn't the first sentence of the next section ("Architectural Forum") -- "Jacobs left America in 1952 ..." -- be clearer if it read instead as "Jacobs left the staff of Amerika magazine in 1952 ... "? On first reading, I thought it was describing when she left the U.S. for Canada. If AF was published in NYC at that time, then the second sentence in this section might be improved to read: "She found a well-paying job at Architectural Forum, published in New York City by Henry Luce of Time Inc."
Almadenmike ( talk) 14:15, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
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A documentary film examining Jane Jacobs’ work, legacy and her battles with Robert Moses is currently slated for release in Fall 2016. The film is directed by Matt Tyrnauer, director of Valentino: The Last Emperor, and produced by Robert Hammond, co-creator of The High Line in New York City.
[1] Grahamhigh ( talk) 03:05, 5 May 2016 (UTC)