Jane Jacobs: Champion of Cities, Champion of People
I'm thrilled to announce that Seven Stories Press has acquired my forthcoming Young Adult biography on the life of Jane Jacobs, the visionary urbanist, thinker, and activist who believed that “ordinary” citizens are the best-equipped to envision for and reclaim their communities from the plans of a few powerful men at the top. Jane spent decades fighting Robert Moses, urban renewal, “slum” clearance, and the construction of highways through the heart of her beloved city of New York. But her greatest act of civil disobedience was a shock to even her closest friends — and had nothing to do with cities at all.
Jane's story will join the Young People's Series published by Seven Stories Press for their Triangle Square Books for Young Readers imprint, with distribution by Penguin Random House.
My amazing agent Bibi Lewis brokered the deal with unwavering enthusiasm and bookish brilliance. (Our year and a half journey together from signing to book deal has been an eye-opener into the world of publishing and another story for another day, but suffice it to say that Bibi is the real deal.)
It is an honor to bring Jane's story to young people: our future leaders, city planners, and climate activists. I cannot wait to get to work!
A bit more about Jane Jacobs and this book…
Jane Jacobs was a writer, thinker, urbanist, and organizer who believed in the value and power of cities, and more importantly, about the people who live in them. She devoted her life and work to fighting urban expressway projects, exclusionary and segregated housing developments, and the displacement of thousands of families from their homes and communities. In the 60’s, she organized alongside neighbors against power-hungry developers, including the infamous Robert Moses. These were ongoing battles that waged on for years while Jane penned her greatest work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, later described as “the bible of city planning.” Through decades of professional on-the-job experience as a writer in the architecture field, a natural ease with improvisation, and an intuitive, curious spirit, Jane developed an activist’s playbook for taking on local government. But then life happened — and for Jane, everything changed. What would be the thing to push Jane to her limit? Where would she draw the line? What authoritarian power would prove to be too much — even for Jane?
This biography will bring Jane's legacy to the 21st century by introducing young people to the leading urbanists and placemakers who are actively working today toward housing affordability, car-free and car-lite transportation and mobility, climate justice and equity in public space.
I’m honored to share Jane’s story with young readers — our future leaders — who soon be responsible for reshaping the way we live in and develop our places for the long-term in the face of our global climate crisis.
Some notes + quotes about Jane
Are you a teacher, educator, librarian, parent, inspirational auntie or uncle, or champion of young people? Are you an urbanist, planner or placemaker?
Please join me on this journey of biography-crafting, book-writing, and sleuthing in the archives! If you haven't already, add your email below for news and updates, calls for experts and sources, and lots of behind-the-scenes updates. (Or, feel free to direct message me here.) And thank you so much for your support as I embark on my first book-length writing project!
