A Personal Reflection On Jane Jacobs

Since her death in late April, Jane Jacobs' legacy has been examined in hundreds of newspapers, magazines and blogs around the world. Maisonneuve columnist Christopher DeWolf recalls how Jacobs' innovative, amateur approach to observing cities nurtured his own budding interest in urban life. "[She] confirmed what I had already begun to suspect about cities, about the way they worked, looked and felt, about their cultures and economies," writes DeWolf. "Looking around the Calgary of my youth, I saw how suburban planning had deprived the city of a public sphere. When I moved to Montreal, I was ecstatic to find exactly the opposite: a city whose human spirit was alive and visible in its streets, businesses and buildings. The seed of my interest in cities was planted a long time ago; Death and Life made it grow into something robust."