Jane Jacobs

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Jane Jacobs (4 mai 1916 à Scranton, Pennsylvanie - 25 avril 2006 à Toronto) était une auteur, une activiste et une philosophe de l'architecture et de l'urbanisme. Ses théories ont sensiblement modifié l'urbanisme nord-américain.

Elle est née aux États-Unis et demeurait à Toronto, Ontario.

Jane Jacobs a passé son existence à étudier l'urbanisme. Ses études sont basées sur l'observation : elle commença par observer les villes, reporter ce qu'elle observe, puis créa des théories pour décrire ses observations. Elle a changé le cours de l'urbanisme dans de nombreuses villes nord-américaines, y compris Toronto.

En 1944, elle épouse Robert Hyde Jacobs, dont elle a eu deux fils, James Kedzie (né en 1948) et Edward Decker (né en 1950) et une fille, Mary. Durant la guerre du Viêt Nam, elle quitte les États-Unis avec ses fils afin de leur éviter le service militaire et trouve refuge au Canada.

En 1980, elle offre une perspective "urbanistique" sur l'indépendance du Québec dans son livre The Question of Separatism: Quebec and the Struggle over Sovereignty.

[modifier] Extraits de son œuvre

... The other threat to the security of our tradition, I believe, lies at home. It is the current fear of radical ideas and of people who propound them. I do not agree with the extremists of either the left or the right, but I think they should be allowed to speak and to publish, both because they themselves have, and ought to have, rights, and once their rights are gone, the rights of the rest of us are hardly safe...
(source : Ideas that Matter: The Worlds of Jane Jacobs, p. 170, The Ginger Press, édité par Max Allen)
... To say that underdeveloped countries must be financed from abroad is equivalent to saying that they are to be “developed” as inert colonial dependencies, not self-generating economies. If economic development is actually occurring within an aided country or region, outside help is only briefly necessary at most. [...] The relevant assistance that a highly developed and prospering country can extend to an underdeveloped country is to buy from it. (source : The Economy of Cities, p. 219)
... In human history, most people in most places most of the time have existed miserably in stagnant economies. Developing economies have been the exceptions, and their histories, as developed economies, have been brief. Now here, now there, a group of cities grows vigorously [...] and then lapses into stagnation for the benefit of people who have already become powerful. (source : The Economy of Cities, p. 250)
... Marx thought that the principal conflict to be found in economic life [...] was the deep disparity of interests between owners and employees, but this is a secondary kind of conflict. [...] The primary economic conflict, I think, is between people whose interests are with already well-established economic activities, and those whose interests are with the emergence of new economic activities. [...] The only possible way to keep open the economic opportunities for new activities is for a “third force” to protect their weak and still incipient interests. Only governments can play this economic role. And sometimes, for pitifully brief intervals, they do. (source : The Economy of Cities, p. 248-249)

[modifier] Bibliographie

  • 1961 : Death and Life of Great American Cities
  • 1969 : The Economy of Cities
  • 1980 : The Question of Separatism: Quebec and the Struggle over Sovereignty
  • 1984 : Cities and the Wealth of Nations
  • 1992 : Systems of Survival, Vintage Press, 236 pages
  • 2005 : Retour à l'âge des ténèbres, Montréal, Boréal

[modifier] Liens externes