JANE JACOBS 100: CONFERENCE ON HER LEGACY & RELEVANCE IN THE 21st CENTURY

The JaneJacobs100 Comitee states:

 

In May 2016, we wish to celebrate the 100th birthday of one of the most important urban thinkers of our time, someone who has influenced generations of designers and planners and others concerned with the built environment: the great Jane Jacobs.

Jacobs’ theories and ideas are central to many different academic fields: urban design, planning, architecture, sociology, human geography, environmental psychology, economic geography and many more. 

 

Her writings have been influential for more than five decades. This alone tells us of her importance for urban studies and for understanding the complex relationship between urban space and society. In the 21st Century, Jacobs has been criticized and some of her ideas have been reviewed. However, she remains one of the most important urban thinkers today.

The chair of Spatial Planning and Strategy of the Delft University of Technology, together with the OTB Research Institute for the Built Environment and the Rotterdam Erasmus University College are organising a two-day conference on Jane Jacob’s legacy at TU Delft on 24-25 May 2016.

 

The conference aims to discuss Jacobs’ legacy and to take her ideas forward in the context of contemporary urbanization trends. The intensity and scale of current urbanization is unprecedented and new challenges have emerged since Jacobs published her texts. How are the ideas of Jane Jacobs still relevant to understand the interplay between urban space and society? Or do we need new theories? To what extent have Jacobs’ ideas inspired today’s urban leaders and thinkers? How are they tackling urban issues such as growing inequality, spatial fragmentation, street life, safety in the public space and environmental decline?

These ideas will be addressed, after an open call for papers, under the following subjects: