Becoming Jane Jacobs

"In this superbly researched and wonderfully original book, Peter L. Laurence for the first time reveals the depth and complexity of Jacobs's self-education. As a writer, activist, and archetypal New Yorker, Jacobs put herself at the center of a debate on modernism that was also a profound struggle over the future of the American city. This book is both a worthy tribute to Jacobs's genius and a brilliant exposition of the broader context of designs and ideas that made her work possible." --Robert Fishman, Taubman College of Architecture and Planning, University of Michigan

"Much has been written about Jane Jacobs over the years--from her audacious challenge to top-down urban planning approaches to her successes as a neighborhood activist in New York and later Toronto--but Peter Laurence is the first to account fully for the originality of her thinking and to provide a complex picture of her intellectual formation against the backdrop of urban America in the post-World War II decades. Deeply researched and richly illuminating, Laurence's book will fundamentally change the way we think about Jacobs today." --Joan Ockman, Columbia University

"Peter Laurence peers behind Jane Jacobs's distinctive glasses to reveal a keen investigator, a synthesizing intellect, a poetic writer, and an unwavering conscience. Becoming Jane Jacobs adds immeasurably to our understanding of her rich, formative years in New York City, leading up to the publication of The Death and Life of Great American Cities." --Robert Wojtowicz, Old Dominion University

"In the last decade, a solid interdisciplinary field of 'Jacobsean' studies has developed, and many books and edited collections have been published, discussing Jacobs's life and work. One superb new addition to these studies is architect and architectural historian Peter L. Laurence's just-published Becoming Jane Jacobs, which provides a careful, eye-opening reconstruction of the events, experiences, and influences in Jacob's personal and professional life that led to her writing Death and Life." --David Seamon, Kansas State University

"Brilliant" --Catherine Corman, The National Book Review

"As Peter Laurence recounts in his masterful new book, Becoming Jane Jacobs, Jacobs was actually among the leading voices on urban America prior to the 1961 publication of her landmark book. Laurence's book is an enormous contribution both to our understanding of Jacobs and more importantly to the 1950's era that shaped both Jacobs' perceptions and the future of urban and suburban America... Laurence has created an almost indispensable companion to The Death and Life of Great American Cities... Becoming Jane Jacobs is ideal for book groups addressing urban themes, and should become a staple of college urban studies classes. If you relish the memories of the excitement you felt upon originally reading Jacobs' master work, Becoming Jane Jacobs will return you to those days." --Randy Shaw, author of The Activist's Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century; Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UWF, and the Struggle for Justice; and The Tenderloin.

"Laurence writes lucidly, and the breadth of research supporting this book is impressive... The book is particularly relevant for urban scholars to ground academic interpretations of Jane Jacobs's writing, but the narrative and depth of this research have produced an equally valuable read for those interested in cities, urban politics and planning." --Jenny McArthur, London School of Economics Review of Books

"A close, vivid study of Jane Jacobs's intellectual development." --Nathaniel Rich, The Atlantic

Becoming Jane Jacobs is "definitely one of the best books of the year. This is the biography of Jacobs I have wanted to read for forty years." --Tyler Cowen, author of The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream and founder of MarginalRevolution.com

"Laurence connects the dots for the reader, showing Jacobs meeting the people, reporting on the developments, and 'rehearsing passages' that will later appear in the volume. If a book can be said to have a biographer, Peter Laurence is the Boswell of The Death and Life of Great American Cities... Jacobs and her ideas were at least as influential in shaping urban America as the most powerful men in wingtips. Becoming Jane Jacobs provides a crucial rebalancing of the public record." --Renee Loth, editor ArchitectureBoston magazine