Biography

Jane Jacobs was born on May 4, 1916 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA. She was married to Robert Hyde Jacobs Jr.. She died on April 25, 2006 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

While working full-time, she attended Columbia University's School of General Studies and took courses in geology, zoology, law, political science and economics.

In 1952, she got a job as an editor at Architectural Forum, where she stayed 10 years. She became interested in urban renewal projects and their effects on the people who lived there.

She is best known for her book "Death and Life of Great American Cities," written in 1961. In it she proposed radically new principles for urban planning and renewal that were in direct opposition to the mainstream ideas of the time.

In 1934, she moved to New York and worked as a secretary for five years. She began writing articles right away, first for a metals trade paper. She sold articles to Vogue magazine about different parts of the city, like the fur district, earning $40 for each, when she was making $12 a week as a secretary.

Her father was a family physician and her mother was a schoolteacher. Jane did not want to go to college, and took an unpaid position as assistant to the women's editor at The Scranton Tribune.