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Becoming Jane Jacobs
Winner of the 2016 Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award The result of years of groundbreaking research, Becoming Jane Jacobs is the first intellectual biography to focus on Jacobs's early life and writing career leading up to her great book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Through an analysis of Jacobs's life and work, including many of her previously unknown writings and other original discoveries, Becoming Jane Jacobs offers a new foundation for understanding not only Death and Life, but her subsequent books on cities, economies, and civilizations.
Jane Jacobs is universally recognized as one of the most important figures in American urbanism, and The Death and Life of Great American Cities one of the most important books on cities. However, because of her David-versus-Goliath battles with "Power Broker" Robert Moses and the urban-renewal establishment, Jacobs has received more attention for being an activist than a thinker, despite having written a list of influential books on cities, economies, and other subjects. Her intellectual skills have often been reduced to unusually keen powers of observation and common sense.
With Becoming Jane Jacobs , Dr. Peter L. Laurence shows that what is missing from the stereotypes and myths is a critical examination of how Jacobs arrived at her ideas about city life. The book shows that although Jacobs had only a high school diploma, she pursued a writing career that prepared her to become a nationally recognized architectural critic just as postwar urban renewal policies came into effect. After starting her writing career in the 1930s, and developing it as a writer and propagandist for the US government in the 1940s, Jacobs was immersed in an elite community of architects, city planners, and academics as an editor of the Time Inc. magazine Architectural Forum . The 1950s, a critical decade for US cities, was the time when Americans were deciding between living in new suburbs or rebuilding and modernizing old cities. Laurence reveals that when faced with this choice, Jacobs not only sided with urban renewal, but idealized the field of city planning-- before soon coming to see the problems with outdated and anti-urban concepts and methods for improving cities. Laurence traces the evolution of Jacobs's thinking--through her visits and studies of redevelopment in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Washington DC, Fort Worth, and East Harlem, among other places, and close interactions with notables including editor Douglas Haskell, shopping mall designer Victor Gruen, housing advocate Catherine Bauer, architect Louis Kahn, Philadelphia city planner Edmund Bacon, urban historian Lewis Mumford, urban theorist Kevin Lynch, and collaborators at the British magazine The Architectural Review. Challenging the stereotyped limits of Jacobs's geography and outsider status, Laurence shows that Jacobs contributed significantly to architectural criticism and urban design, participated in important academic conferences, and became known as an expert writer on cities even before she started writing Death and Life .
The product of many years of groundbreaking research, Becoming Jane Jacobs shows that The Death and Life of Great American Cities could only have been written by Jane Jacobs. Through analysis of many of previously unknown writings, identified and discussed here for the first time--including Jacobs's government employment records, FBI files, work memoranda, and correspondence with notable acquaintances and confidants--and through an understanding of her ideas in their historical context, Laurence asserts that Death and Life was not the spontaneous epiphany of an amateur activist but the product of a professional writer and experienced architectural critic with deep knowledge about the renewal and dynamics of American cities. But at the same time, by showing how Jacobs's ideas evolved, Laurence suggests ways that we can become more like Jacobs ourselves, and continue to develop our understanding of better cities.
Jane Jacobs is universally recognized as one of the most important figures in American urbanism, and The Death and Life of Great American Cities one of the most important books on cities. However, because of her David-versus-Goliath battles with "Power Broker" Robert Moses and the urban-renewal establishment, Jacobs has received more attention for being an activist than a thinker, despite having written a list of influential books on cities, economies, and other subjects. Her intellectual skills have often been reduced to unusually keen powers of observation and common sense.
With Becoming Jane Jacobs , Dr. Peter L. Laurence shows that what is missing from the stereotypes and myths is a critical examination of how Jacobs arrived at her ideas about city life. The book shows that although Jacobs had only a high school diploma, she pursued a writing career that prepared her to become a nationally recognized architectural critic just as postwar urban renewal policies came into effect. After starting her writing career in the 1930s, and developing it as a writer and propagandist for the US government in the 1940s, Jacobs was immersed in an elite community of architects, city planners, and academics as an editor of the Time Inc. magazine Architectural Forum . The 1950s, a critical decade for US cities, was the time when Americans were deciding between living in new suburbs or rebuilding and modernizing old cities. Laurence reveals that when faced with this choice, Jacobs not only sided with urban renewal, but idealized the field of city planning-- before soon coming to see the problems with outdated and anti-urban concepts and methods for improving cities. Laurence traces the evolution of Jacobs's thinking--through her visits and studies of redevelopment in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Washington DC, Fort Worth, and East Harlem, among other places, and close interactions with notables including editor Douglas Haskell, shopping mall designer Victor Gruen, housing advocate Catherine Bauer, architect Louis Kahn, Philadelphia city planner Edmund Bacon, urban historian Lewis Mumford, urban theorist Kevin Lynch, and collaborators at the British magazine The Architectural Review. Challenging the stereotyped limits of Jacobs's geography and outsider status, Laurence shows that Jacobs contributed significantly to architectural criticism and urban design, participated in important academic conferences, and became known as an expert writer on cities even before she started writing Death and Life .
The product of many years of groundbreaking research, Becoming Jane Jacobs shows that The Death and Life of Great American Cities could only have been written by Jane Jacobs. Through analysis of many of previously unknown writings, identified and discussed here for the first time--including Jacobs's government employment records, FBI files, work memoranda, and correspondence with notable acquaintances and confidants--and through an understanding of her ideas in their historical context, Laurence asserts that Death and Life was not the spontaneous epiphany of an amateur activist but the product of a professional writer and experienced architectural critic with deep knowledge about the renewal and dynamics of American cities. But at the same time, by showing how Jacobs's ideas evolved, Laurence suggests ways that we can become more like Jacobs ourselves, and continue to develop our understanding of better cities.
376 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 5, 2021
I came upon this book looking for biography books about women in architecture. As someone who had never heard of her or "The Death and Life of Great American Cities", I still found the book great. The book concentrates on the professional background of Jacobs and, I believe, one of the reasons of it being written, was to answer those who believed she was not qualified to criticize the architects and planners.
April 6, 2020
Some books seem to require qualification. This is one of them. Should you read this book? That depends on how interested you are in one or more of the following topics: 1) The intellectual biography of Jane Jacobs and the origin story of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 2) the American (mostly New York) intellectual circles of the middle of the 20th century that shaped debates about urban renewal and modern architecture for decades to come, or 3) the social scientific debate about top-down versus bottom-up city planning. If the answer is "yes" to at least one of the topics then this book is worth a look. If you are interested in two or more of the topics, there is no excuse not to devour this book. It contains lot to chew on.
This is a very detail oriented book. It focuses on narrating the detailed comings and goings of a whole host of people and events around Jane Jacobs. That said, it thankfully abstains from irrelevant gossip. Everything somehow relates to the central themes of urban design and J.J.'s intellectual development. It does enter into the broad themes of democracy vs. technocracy, liberty vs. authoritarianism, centralization vs. decentralization, and urbanization vs. suburbanization - but these are mostly dealt with as they arise in the writings of J.J. and her circle of friends.
Since the book is presented as an intellectual biography everything hinges on how well the narrative holds together. And I am pleased to report that it does. Although not exactly written like a page turner, the book's prose is clear and the author has accumulated an impressive amount of documents, quotations, and facts to support his narrative. However, I have to admit that I was occasionally overwhelmed by the sheer number of familiar and unfamiliar names of people, places, and jargon that keep popping up. It is occasionally hard to keep track of who is whom unless you are paying close attention. But these kind of careful details make the book an essential resource for detailed scholarship. And they never bog down the narrative beyond necessity for the lay reader.
Ideologically, I was pleased that the book is not trying to advance a particular thesis. Laurence reports on Jacobs's love complexity science and the biological metaphor of city life that nourishes her chosen model for thinking about urban renewal and community vitality. The author discusses the similarities but also dissimilarities to the libertarians and other "anti-planners" who admire her work. And he carefully weaves out the different strands - and occasional tensions - in her attitudes to city life, urbanization, zoning regulations, and government planning. Overall, the book is very thorough - sometimes to a fault - but it delivers on its promise and then some. As cities keep on growing and as more than half of humanity lives in cities, J.J. remains essential.
This is a very detail oriented book. It focuses on narrating the detailed comings and goings of a whole host of people and events around Jane Jacobs. That said, it thankfully abstains from irrelevant gossip. Everything somehow relates to the central themes of urban design and J.J.'s intellectual development. It does enter into the broad themes of democracy vs. technocracy, liberty vs. authoritarianism, centralization vs. decentralization, and urbanization vs. suburbanization - but these are mostly dealt with as they arise in the writings of J.J. and her circle of friends.
Since the book is presented as an intellectual biography everything hinges on how well the narrative holds together. And I am pleased to report that it does. Although not exactly written like a page turner, the book's prose is clear and the author has accumulated an impressive amount of documents, quotations, and facts to support his narrative. However, I have to admit that I was occasionally overwhelmed by the sheer number of familiar and unfamiliar names of people, places, and jargon that keep popping up. It is occasionally hard to keep track of who is whom unless you are paying close attention. But these kind of careful details make the book an essential resource for detailed scholarship. And they never bog down the narrative beyond necessity for the lay reader.
Ideologically, I was pleased that the book is not trying to advance a particular thesis. Laurence reports on Jacobs's love complexity science and the biological metaphor of city life that nourishes her chosen model for thinking about urban renewal and community vitality. The author discusses the similarities but also dissimilarities to the libertarians and other "anti-planners" who admire her work. And he carefully weaves out the different strands - and occasional tensions - in her attitudes to city life, urbanization, zoning regulations, and government planning. Overall, the book is very thorough - sometimes to a fault - but it delivers on its promise and then some. As cities keep on growing and as more than half of humanity lives in cities, J.J. remains essential.
January 2, 2016
*Release date Jan. 29, 2016*
June 20, 2019
Fascinatingly detailed account of the development of Jabobs' ideas. Taught me a lot about architectural theory wars, city design, and just paying attention to reality.
February 26, 2023
Pretty good I guess but writing was kind of boring and bad. Jane saved it ofc and felt like his observations of her made me understand why I’m obsessed with cities - I could relate to that
February 4, 2017
dobré čítanie pre každého, koho zaujíma urbanizmus a architektúra.
July 17, 2016
I have researched Jane Jacobs extensively for a paper on the 1960's conflict with Robert Moses over Lomex. This book had not yet been published. While there is almost nothing about that conflict in this book, I was fascinated to read the early history of the area in NYC that would have been affected and other sections of NYC and other cities that faced urban renewal in the 1940-1970 period. Most of all, it was beneficial to me to learn of how Jane Jacobs "became"--her prior studies in several cities for the Architectural Review and the evolution of her thought from urban renewal to urban revitalization. This book reads easily, and helped complete the Jane Jacobs picture for me.
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July 15, 2016Biog J179L 2016
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews