Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs died on April 25th in Toronto. The New York Times published a nice obituary, City Journal paid tribute, and there's a lot of information about her writings on Wikipedia. My favorite work is her book, Systems of Survival. It's not as well known as her new urbanism, perhaps. Yet it provided real insight--the clash between "trader" (business) syndromes and "guardian" (government) syndromes. We need both sectors, each provides a "system of survival," but there is a problem when the signals get crossed. It provided a really provocative hypothesis that went beyond traditional left-right politics. You can buy it at Amazon.com. Jane Jacobs' life and work showed that one person can indeed make a difference.