Today’s journey in book-writing: when did Jane Jacobs have her breakout moment?
There wasn’t really one moment — but one of the significant turning points in her trajectory was this article she was asked to write in 1958 for Fortune Magazine. A much-talked about speech at Harvard University led to an editor at Fortune taking notice of this “unknown” voice in the insular world of city planning and urbanist thinking.
“Downtown has had the capability of providing something for everybody only because it has been created by everybody,” she wrote in Fortune. “What a wonderful challenge there is! Rarely before has the citizen had such a chance to reshape the city, and to make it the kid of city that he likes and that other will too. … Designing a dream city is easy; rebuilding a living one takes imagination.”
Source: Downtown Is for People, Jane Jacobs, Fortune, April 1958 (Available in Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs, Edited by Samuel Zipp and Nathan Storring)
