Voting Station

Jane Jacobs

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Advocate

The Resume

    (May 4, 1916-April 25, 2006)
    Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania
    Birth name was Jane Butzner
    Associate editor of 'Architecture Forum' (1952-62)
    Led grass-roots opposition to the Lower Manhattan Expressway (LoMEX) and the Spadina Expressway in Toronto
    Wrote 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities' (1961)
    Argued that large 'urban renewal' projects did not reflect the needs of city residents

Why she might be annoying:

    Opponents seized on her lack of academic credentials to dismiss her criticisms.
    She was arrested for allegedly inciting a riot at a public hearing on LoMEX (April 10, 1968), during which a crowd mobbed the stage. (The charges were eventually reduced to disorderly conduct.)
    She moved to Canada over her opposition to the Vietnam War and gave up her US citizenship.
    Her advocacy of preserving older buildings eventually led to gentrification with neighborhood residents being displaced by yuppies.

Why she might not be annoying:

    When asked to fill out a questionnaire about her political beliefs while working at the State Department, she wrote, 'The other threat to the security of our tradition, I believe, lies at home. It is the current fear of radical ideas and of people who propound them. I do not agree with the extremists of either the left or the right, but I think they should be allowed to speak and to publish, both because they themselves have, and ought to have, rights, and once their rights are gone, the rights of the rest of us are hardly safe.'
    She enlisted such prominent figures as Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Mead, and Lewis Mumford to oppose LoMEX.
    She kept Robert Moses from wiping out SoHo and significant chunks of Little Italy and Chinatown.
    She liked to ask if urban renewal projects were intended to benefit people or cars.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying