Jane Jacobs was an American-Canadian journalist whose theories on urban studies and activism helped shape the New York we know today. Born in Pennsylvania in 1916, Jacobs moved to New York in the 1930s and fell in love with Greenwich Village. When Robert Moses tried to build his Lower Manhattan Expressway through the Village and Soho in the 1960s, Jacobs was one of the most vocal opponents, organizing grassroots efforts to oppose the eventually dismantled project. Jacobs passed away in 2006, but her legacy through both her written works, such as “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” and her ideas continue to shape urban planning.
