TCPA Committee member Marianne Richards wrote a review of the documentary film Citizen Jane: Battle for the City for the August 2017 edition of Planning News, the journal of the Planning Institute of Australia.
Jane Jacobs, a journalist, author and activist, is remembered as an advocate for “the intricate qualities of the city”. Arguably, no one did more to shape understanding of the modern American city than Jane Jacobs. She championed a fresh and community-based approach to city building and openly challenged established beliefs within architecture, planning and government circles.
The documentary is a study of how cities are made (and sometimes destroyed) and of urban planning in New York during the 1950s and 1960s. The film deals with a fundamental clash in philosophies about cities – those of Jane Jacobs and of a powerful New York City bureaucrat, Robert Moses.
Read the complete review: Jane Jacobs – What would Jane do?.