*Celebrating Spatial Planning at TU Delft: 2008-2019. Edited by Stead, Bracken, Rooij & Rocco
This is a summary of the achievements of the session Spatial Planning & Strategy of the Department of Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft, led by Professor Vincent Nadin between 2008 and 2019.
This is a summary of the achievements of the session Spatial Planning & Strategy of the Department of Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft, led by Professor Vincent Nadin between 2008 and 2019.
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92 <strong>Sp<strong>at</strong>ial</strong> <strong>Planning</strong> & Str<strong>at</strong>egy<br />
Jane Jacobs 100<br />
Her legacy and relevance in the<br />
21st Century<br />
ROBERTO ROCCO<br />
In May 2016, <strong>TU</strong> <strong>Delft</strong> in partnership<br />
with Erasmus University<br />
promoted the Conference<br />
“Jane Jacobs 100: A celebr<strong>at</strong>ion<br />
of the life and legacy of Jane<br />
Jacobs and a look forward”. We<br />
wished to celebr<strong>at</strong>e the 100th<br />
birthday of one of the most important<br />
urban thinkers of our<br />
time, someone who has influenced<br />
gener<strong>at</strong>ions of designers,<br />
planners, and others concerned<br />
with the built environment: the<br />
gre<strong>at</strong> Jane Jacobs.<br />
Jacobs’ theories and ideas<br />
are central to many different<br />
academic fields: urban design,<br />
planning, architecture, sociology,<br />
human geography, environmental<br />
psychology, economic<br />
geography, and many more. Her<br />
writings have been influential<br />
for more than five decades.<br />
This alone tells us of her importance<br />
for urban studies, and<br />
for understanding the complex<br />
rel<strong>at</strong>ionship between urban<br />
space and society. In the 21st<br />
century, Jacobs has been criticised<br />
and some of her ideas<br />
have been reviewed. However,<br />
she remains one of the most<br />
influential urban thinkers today.<br />
The Conference aimed to discuss<br />
Jacobs’ legacy and to take<br />
her ideas forward in the context<br />
of contemporary urbanis<strong>at</strong>ion<br />
trends. The intensity and<br />
scale of current urbanis<strong>at</strong>ion is<br />
unprecedented. New challenges<br />
have emerged since Jacobs<br />
published her texts. How are<br />
the ideas of Jane Jacobs still<br />
relevant to understand the<br />
interplay between urban space<br />
and society? Or do we need<br />
new theories? To wh<strong>at</strong> extent<br />
have Jacobs’ ideas inspired today’s<br />
urban leaders and thinkers?<br />
How are they addressing<br />
urban issues such as growing<br />
inequality, sp<strong>at</strong>ial fragment<strong>at</strong>ion,<br />
street life, safety in the<br />
public space, and environmental<br />
decline?<br />
We discussed Jacobs’ ideas<br />
critically and took stock of how<br />
those ideas have been used,<br />
misused, and hopefully upd<strong>at</strong>ed.<br />
We invited abstract submissions<br />
for six different tracks,<br />
tackling essential aspects of<br />
Jacobs’ ideas:<br />
Track 1: Jane Jacobs, ethics, and<br />
the just city<br />
Track 2: Jane Jacobs and street<br />
spaces – Streets as public<br />
places<br />
Track 3: Jane Jacobs and the<br />
dynamics of neighbourhoods<br />
Track 4: Jane Jacobs and the<br />
reshaping old urban fabrics in<br />
Chinese cities<br />
Track 5: Jane Jacobs and organised<br />
complexity<br />
Track 6: Jane Jacobs and safety<br />
in public space<br />
To know more, please visit<br />
https://janejacobs100.co<br />
To download the public<strong>at</strong>ion<br />
please visit https://<br />
books.bk.tudelft.nl/index.<br />
php/press/c<strong>at</strong>alog/book/<br />
isbn.9789461869005<br />
Fig. 56: Jane Jacobs, chairman of the<br />
“Committee to save the West Village”,<br />
holds up documentary evidence <strong>at</strong> a press<br />
conference <strong>at</strong> the Lions Head Restaurant <strong>at</strong><br />
Hudson and Charles Streets (1961). Source:<br />
New York World-Telegram and the Sun<br />
Newspaper Photograph Collection, Library<br />
of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-<br />
USZ-62-137838. Public domain.
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