Jane Jacobs is known for her vision of vibrant, liveable cities. But as Alex posts at Civic Minded, her prescription for a viable city is also the recipe for a thriving online community. And Alex has a terrific suggestion for one way to remember her:
These still-early days of online community-building amount to explorations of the potential that Jacobs identified: the potential for supporting real human relationships with virtual ecosystems. And in a wonderful tribute to Jacobs’ continued influence, many of these experiments feed back into twenty-first century cities by providing new tools for supporting urban sustainability. I’ve bookmarked a few of my favorite examples on del.icio.us with the tag JaneJacobsArchive; I hope others will contribute their own examples of how the Internet can support the kinds of cities that Jacobs so eloquently advocated.
Jacobs’ death is a loss for everyone who cares about quality of place. She will be missed.
