The passing last month of Jane Jacobs leaves us bereft of a most extraordinary person, a seer and prophet in the guise of a modest, un-credentialed, plain-spoken family woman. Her contribution to our society has been invaluable, and becomes increasingly important as our focus is returned, by various social, economic, demographic and political trends, to urban living.

I discovered Jacobs late in life. I was working as a landscape architect in a multi-disciplinary team for a strategic plan to revitalize downtown Los Angeles in the mid 1980s, and a colleague, seeing my interest in urban planning, suggested I read The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

When I read it, I could hardly believe it. With a short, simply written, unpresumptuous book that explained the links between the social, physical, psychological and economic realms of urban living, Jacobs changed my life. I finally had the words, the specific details, and the coherent conceptual framework to understand the way to look at cities that I had been sent groping for by my values. For The Death and Life of Great American Cities is not a methodology, not a formulaic "how to" planning guide. It is surely a moral treatise, about the social compact of communities as manifest in the physical fabric of cities. In the light of her writing, cities, so maligned and feared by post-war society, made sense.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities changed many lives, and indeed the life of urban planning itself. There is plenty of "city planning" around that is still just about real estate, that concerns itself with "destinations" and "gateways" and "attractions" and "revitalization" — the urban-renewal mindset that still hates and fears cities and wants to turn them into theme parks, life-style centers, gilded ghettos, commercial meccas and/or land speculation machines. But Jacobs legitimized an alternative set of goals and ways of reaching them. She saw the city as a place where the middle class is created, not a "venue," to which it must be lured. The Death and Life of Great American Cities should be required reading for youth in all American cities — and suburbs.

Jacobs changed my life again in the mid 90's, when I came across her lesser-known 1992 book, Systems of Survival, a scripted conversation among four friends exploring the relationship between the public and private sectors. Their discussion sheds light on our proliferating public-private partnerships, privatization of government functions, private philanthropy for public services, "mitigation packages" for development impacts, etc., all issues long of concern to me as an urban design professional. Most literature on the subject touts the superior fitness of the private sector for carrying out public works, arguing that government is broke and incompetent, that citizens "deserve" to be treated like "customers," and that we'd better adopt business models of government if we're to "succeed." Once again, Jacobs, disinterestedly dissecting the logic of prevailing arguments, finds the kernel of truth. Her characters come to recognize the opposing moral systems of the private and public — the "commercial" and "guardian" — sectors, and think about ways to avoid the corruption of "monstrous hybrids."

I had the good fortune to see Jacobs in action as a panelist at a local forum. She spoke from observation and experience. A survivor of urban renewal, she put her faith in incremental, organic grassroots instincts and action, rather than the grand, sweeping top-down schemes of planners and politicians. Afterward, I asked her thoughts on the growing trend of seeking private financial contributions for public works in return for development and other corporate indulgences. She nodded with familiarity, and said sharply, "It shouldn't be done." "Just checking," I answered.

In 2004, Jacobs published her last book, Dark Age Ahead. In it, she ponders the cultural collapses that decimated past civilizations, and the decay in five essential pillars of cultural continuity that seem to be escaping our proper focus: community and family; higher education; science and science-based technology; accountable and responsive government and taxation; and self-policing by the professions.  Emphasizing that everything is connected, she writes about "interlocking problems," "vicious spirals" and "amalgamated declines." And she warns of the dangers of "efficiency" as a principle of relationships and communication.  Jacobs always intended her work to enlighten and help solve problems, and she has an answer for us. It lies in retaining and nurturing our core cultural values — values she expresses in Abraham Lincoln's words: "that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."

Look around at our country, at our governments' betrayals, at our society's polarization, at our epidemics of drugs and violence, hopelessness and despair; look at our five pillars, and read Dark Age Ahead. It may change your life.

A role model and inspiration for all of us, Jacobs showed how ordinary people — thoughtful, knowledgeable, and courageous individuals — can speak out, be the experts, be the leaders, and accomplish extraordinary things. You — you — can change the world. And you must.

Shirley Kressel

Published in the South End News