Jane Jacobs

The Talking Moose used to say (among other things) "I had a dream last night, and you were in it."

Night before last, I had a vivid dream involving a good friend who lives in Toronto. The next morning, which was yesterday, I noticed the obit a well-known Toronto resident, Jane Jacobs. Though she is best known, and rightly, for The Death and Life of Great American Cities, somehow Paul and I came to her first through her Systems of Survival, where she pits the "guardian syndrome" against the "commercial syndrome," warning against the "monstrous hybrid."

UPDATE: An interesting take on Jacobs and her legacy. It's true that not every new urban development is turning out as she would have hoped. Front porches, without more, do not a vibrant, diverse neighborhood make.