NEW YORK – Jane Jacobs, an author and community activist of singular influence whose classic “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” transformed ideas about urban planning, died Tuesday, her publisher said. Jacobs, a longtime resident of Toronto, was 89.
Jacobs died in her sleep Tuesday morning at a Toronto hospital, which she entered a few days ago, according to Random House publicist Sally Marvin. Jacobs’ son, James, was with her at the time. The author, who would have turned 90 on May 4, had been in poor health.
A native of Scranton, Pa., Jacobs lived for many years in New York before moving to Toronto in the late 1960s. She and her husband, architect Robert Jacobs Jr., were unhappy that their taxes supported the Vietnam War and turned to Canada as their permanent home. Robert Jacobs died in 1996.
Jacobs, who based her findings on deep, eclectic reading and firsthand observation, challenged assumptions she believed damaged modern cities – that neighborhoods should be isolated from each other, that an empty street was safer than a crowded one, that the car represented progress over the pedestrian.
Her priorities were for integrated, manageable communities, for diversity of people, transportation, architecture and commerce.
“She inspired a kind of quiet revolution,” her longtime editor, Jason Epstein, said Tuesday. “Every time you see people rise up and oppose a developer, you think of Jane Jacobs.”
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