Exhibition Overview

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Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York highlights the legacy and relevance of activist and author Jane Jacobs and the urban design principles presented in her classic text, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. This book had an immediate impact on how cities are designed and used. Though raised in a small town and lacking the credentials of a trained planner, Jacobs quickly became one of the century’s most influential writers on urban planning.


Photo by Giles Ashford

She wrote the Death and Life of Great American Cities with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, in which she described the “ballet of the sidewalks, an unrehearsed choreography of urban dwellers going about their business that, in her view, created the vitality of city life.” This exhibit portrays the context in which Jacobs wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities, while also illustrating the role of Jane Jacobs’s ideas in today’s New York.

“The project presents the principles and activism of Jane Jacobs and challenges New York City residents to study the use of their city, its streets and the built environment,” said Judith Rodin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation. “The project inspires citizens to support and fight for the health of their own neighborhoods, and it encourages city officials, developers, planners and architects to embrace and implement Jane Jacobs’ teachings.”


Photo by UPROSE

“Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York highlights an approach to urban theory and planning that remains powerfully relevant in a city that is experiencing an unprecedented influx of wealth and development,” said Kent Barwick, president of the Municipal Art Society. “We hope that this effort informs the development process and energizes a new breed of activist.”

This interactive exhibit explores contemporary New York through Jacobs’ groundbreaking views on the elements of a healthy city, the value of small blocks, the importance of civic activism and the benefits of a diverse and dynamic neighborhood. It also encourages citizen involvement by helping visitors to engage in community-building efforts in their own neighborhoods.

Photo of Save Penn Station 1963 protest
Walter Daran, Save Penn Station, 1963.
Courtesy of Hulton Archives/Getty Images

The late 1950s and 1960s were an era of tremendous flux, as plans for urban renewal sought to adapt a city of tenements and skyscrapers to accommodate automobiles and suburban growth. Jacobs’s observations -- and her willingness to act on them – remain critical to New York today, as the city is being reshaped by a private development boom. The city is once again rapidly transforming, as condominiums replace disused factories, industrial riverfronts are reclaimed as increasingly private amenities, and locally owned storefronts give way to national chains. With the recent announcement of PlaNYC 2030, the city has begun to advocate plans that will shape the next quarter century of development in New York, with goals that include creating affordable housing, preparing for one million additional citizens, and improving the environment.

The City is You

Jane Jacobs believed in big cities like New York; she believed in their ability to be the engines of creativity, economic diversity, and social transformation. She believed in big cities even at a time when others were saying that big cities were ungovernable. She believed in the power of neighborhoods and the power of neighbors to build them, and in the strength of and permanence of communities that are diverse, mixed, and well-maintained by the people who live in them.

Jane Jacobs's Principles


Photo by Giles Ashford

Jacobs observed four key qualities of healthy, vibrant cities: mixed uses, frequent streets, varied buildings, and concentration. For a street to thrive, Jacobs argued, there must be a mix of uses. “Intricate minglings of different uses in cities are not a form of chaos,” she wrote. read more...

Jane Jacobs's Battles - And Yours

Jane Jacobs’s activism took many forms — including reacting to other’s proposals, proactive planning, and coalition building. In 1958, she learned of plans to expand the roadway that bisected Washington Square Park. Certain that this would destroy the park’s character, she joined with other residents to make the radical proposal to discontinue all traffic through the park. And in 1961, just as Jacobs’s ideas were being disseminated in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, her own street was targeted for urban renewal. read more...