Planning Theories Are Meaningless Without Citizen Involvement

"For the past three years, we have been in the position of having numerous imaginary conversations with Jane Jacobs, our virtual mentor, as we researched, wrote, and produced an upcoming PBS film documentary series, "Edens Lost & Found," on the renewal of four American cities. This is an especially significant time to revisit Jacobs's ideas. Currently 80 percent of the US population lives in urban centers built with little understanding of their natural environment and insufficient consideration of the need for open space, public parks, clean air, and clean water.

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From time to time, as we were tempted to fall head over heels in love with arcane urban theories, we could almost hear Jacobs clucking at us from deep inside: Heavy-sounding theories are fine, but they are meaningless unless citizen activists come together to help create thriving neighborhoods. Thus, we pointed our lenses at ordinary people such as Darrell Clarke, who has worked for 17 years to bring about the first east-west light rail line to cross Los Angeles in 50 years; and Michael Howard, who turned a badly contaminated, six-acre brown field into a children's nature preserve - Eden Place - with the help of impassioned volunteers from his low-income Chicago community, Fuller Park."