Obama well-acquainted with the work of Jane Jacobs

Death and Life of Cities

Steve Hawley, Jan 07, 09.

Jane Jacobs is a hero to city planners, and the blog Beyond DC reports that President-elect Barack Obama is well-acquainted with her work. Beyond DC calls her most famous book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, “the Bible of urbanism. It is the most articulate case for what makes good cities good and bad cities bad that has ever been written in the English language.”

Below is a video clip of Obama speaking in Toledo, OH, on August 31, 2008. Keith Wilkowski, who several months later declared his 2009 candidacy for mayor of Toledo, handed Obama a book, saying, “I’m holding the most important book ever written about rebuilding cities.” Obama immediately responded, “Is it Jane Jacobs?” He then discussed his ideas for urban revitalization, as well as the often troubled relationship between suburbs and cities.

In the clip, Obama says, “All the research is showing that if you want a thriving suburban area, then you’d better have a thriving city. If you want a state as a whole to do well, then the metropolitan areas in those states have to do well. There’s no separation; it’s all linked together.” He also notes, “One of the reasons that Illinois, for example, my home state, has done pretty well compared to some of the other Midwestern states is that Chicago rebuilt itself.” He concludes his remarks by saying that revitalizing this country’s urban cores, including investing in infrastructure, universities, and safety improvements, “will be part of our master plan to rebuild the economy of America.”