Jane Jacobs 101

We will meet at the southwest corner of Dalhousie & George Sts in the ByWard Market. 

From there, we will walk generally west through the Market to Major's Hill Park, turning south along Mackenzie Ave to the Senate of Canada Building, formerly the Government Conference Centre (and originally, Ottawa's central railway station)..

Note that the planned route includes the York Steps (the stairs connecting Sussex St and Mackenzie Ave.). If these will be challenging for anyone, we can take an alternative route to avoid them.

Here are some links to comments and discussion about Jane Jacobs' book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and her broader ideas about urban planning and how cities grow and change:

• Jane's Ideas remain relevant today: https://streets.mn/2024/08/14/the-death-and-life-of-great-american-cities/
• Project for public spaces: https://www.pps.org/article/jjacobs-2
• Nathaniel Rich: Parallels between failing cities and failing democracy: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/11/the-prophecies-of-jane-jacobs/501104/
• Designers and Books blog: https://www.designersandbooks.com/blog/book-of-the-week-jane-jacobs-death-and-life-great-american-cities
• A number of comments from The American Conservative: Randall O'Toole, Lewis McCreary, James Howard Kunstler and more: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/janejacobs/
• Lev Bratishenko: Why our cities need less Jane Jacobs: https://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2016/10/jane-jacobss-tunnel-vision/
• John Lorinc: Toronto Life Screws Jane Jacobs? https://spacing.ca/toronto/2011/08/15/toronto-life-screws-jane-jacobs/

Some other placemakers: https://www.pps.org/category/placemaking-heroes

Matt Bufton is the Executive Director of the Institute for Liberal Studies, a non-partisan educational not-for-profit based in Ottawa. Matt became interested in Jane Jacobs through conversations with his wife Janet, as well as with economist Sandy Ikeda and geographer Pierre Desrochers.