Ideas that matter

A moment to remember Jane Jacobs.

Very sloppy journalists called her an "urban planner", which, given her frequent run-ins with that dismal science, was an insult really. Slightly less sloppy ones called her an "urban thinker".

In reality, Jane Jacobs' thoughts, on a wide variety of economic and social phenomena, were really little more than common sense. What set here apart was her ability to lay bare the obvious, to systematically dismantle fetishes, to dissect facts and structures and put them back together in ways that made their deep structure obvious, and above all, to observe, and to write in ways that gave her readers those same "a-ha!" moments that she had experienced in her observation.

Jane Jacobs was one of those few idea-people, whose ideas matter a lot to me, who I have ever actually met. Hoping against hope that she might have had another book in her fingers, I knew they would never make it out of her fertile and energetic mind.

In the front matter to The Death and Life of Great American Cities, she wrote:

Illustrations

The scenes that illustrate this book are all around us. For illustrations, please look closely at real cities. While you are looking, you might as well listen, linger and think about what you see.

That was her technique, but it was also her command. We could all do well to look, listen, linger, and think about the things that are important to us, difficult to understand, easy to demonize, and easier to destroy.

And her books should be on the shelves at the Department of Business.