Book review: becoming Jane Jacobs by Peter L. Laurence

With the publication of The Death and Life of Great American Cities in 1961 and her famous battle against New York City city planner, Robert Moses, Jane Jacobs established herself as one of the key figures of US urbanism. While accounts of Jacobs’s life tend to depict her as a housewife who spontaneously became an activist, Becoming Jane Jacobs seeks to explore her early life and intellectual development. Peter L. Laurence shows how Jacobs’s influential approach was shaped by her experiences as a writer and critic within an intellectual community of architects and urbanists. While Jacobs remains a somewhat enigmatic figure, Jenny McArthur applauds Laurence’s lucid, fascinating narrative that will be of value to anyone interested in cities, urban politics and planning.