Jane Jacobs: Champion of Cities, Champion of People

by Rebecca Pitts

The first biography of Jane Jacobs for young people, the visionary activist, urbanist, and thinker who transformed the way we inhabit and develop our cities.

Jane Jacobs was born more than a hundred years ago, yet the ideas she popularized—about cities, about people, about making a better world—remain hugely relevant today. Now, in Jane Champion of Cities, Champion of People, we have the first biography for young people of the visionary activist, urbanist, and thinker.

Debut author Rebecca Pitts draws on archives and Jacobs’s own writings to paint a vivid picture of a headstrong and principled young girl who grew into one of the most important advocates of her time, and whose impact on the city of New York in particular can still be seen today. Jacobs went against the conventional wisdom of the time that said cities should be designed by so-called experts, “cleaned up,” and separated by use, arguing that such pie-in-the-sky visions paid very little attention to the wants and needs of people who actually live in cities. Jane instead championed diversity, community, “the life of the street,” and the power of grassroots movements to make cities better and more equitable for all. She never backed down, even when it meant going up against the most powerful man in New York, Robert Moses.

Here is a story of standing up for what you know is right, with real-world takeaways for young activists. Jane Champion of Cities, Champion of People emphasizes how today’s teens can take inspiration from Jane’s own activism “playbook,” promoting change by focusing on local issues and community organizing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, History, Urban Planning, Memoir

252 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 31, 2023

About the author

Rebecca Pitts writes for and makes things with young people. She is a freelance writer (published in the New York Times for Kids, Teen Vogue, Highlights Magazine, and elsewhere) and author of the YA book JANE JACOBS: CHAMPION OF CITIES, CHAMPION OF PEOPLE (forthcoming by Seven Stories Press, Sept, 2023.) She runs workshops in the Lower Hudson Valley Rivertowns for young writers and artists, guiding children in visual storytelling in comics, zines, and newspaper-making.

A former archivist, Rebecca’s happy place is in the stacks, poring over records and correspondence. She believes that all children deserve access to true, full accounts of history. She is interested in crafting various genres of children’s books (including picture books and graphic novels) and is currently working on a picture book about a pioneer of journalism who set ground-breaking standards for ethics in reporting.

Reviews

[Rosana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jane Jacobs: Champion of Cities, Champion of People is an engaging, amazing, clear-eyed look at Jane Jacobs. Rebecca Pitts does a stunning job of interweaving Jane's story with lessons on community organizing, plus a candid analysis of the racism that runs through the core of a long history of housing injustice in the United States.

This is a Jane Jacobs for a 21st century reader. Jane may have been a woman of the 20th century, a fighter against urban renewal and the towering influence of Robert Moses, yet Pitts brings to the present the key to Jane's victories -- they weren't her victories, but the victories of the communities that fought. Communities of regular folks defending where they lived, through many methods of direct action. We can learn from Jane and all she did, and at the same time, we can also learn from how she could have pushed further, could have called out the racism present in urban renewal.

Pitts' shares the story of Jane Jacobs in a conversational and an almost conspiratorial voice, like a friend sharing a compelling tale and the sort-of-secret knowledge of how to make "good trouble, necessary trouble," as the late Representative John Lewis put it. This book is many things in one: a primer of how to organize your community to make change, an in-depth look at an extra-ordinary woman, an examination of the forces we are all up against in our social justice battles, a portrait of a writer and how her books came to be written, and it is all very much about the life and times of Jane Jacobs. Jane was not a perfect woman, but she was a powerhouse. All these layers of her come together in this tapestry that Pitts has woven.

Although geared toward young people, I thoroughly enjoyed this book as an adult. I was so drawn in to the story and learning more about not only Jane Jacobs, but how she came together with her community to fight housing injustice. I want to share this with not only all the young people in my life, but with fellow community members and social justice activists.

This is a phenomenal book and I highly recommend it.

[Marjorie Ingall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jacobs had a great sense of humor, so it's a bit of a bummer that the book doesn't. The writing is ... workmanlike. ("Jane enjoyed the independence of mobility she experienced in her childhood." "Let’s pause here for a moment and introduce the word 'gentrification.'”) The attempts to make it young-reader-friendly are kinda Steve Buscemi "How do you do, fellow kids?" (plenty of interjections like "get this!" and "I know, right?"), which, cringe. But it's a great overview of and introduction to Jacobs's life and work, and it's good at deploying quotes from Jacobs's own vivid, lively writing. It also notes where she had — get this! — blind spots (I know, right?), particularly around race. Definitely recommended for school libraries and curricula.

[Boszka · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book written with young readers in mind. This is reflected in the tone of the narration and the level of details.
I enjoyed this book because Jane Jacobs' life is a really inspiring story, and this biography was a useful and easy to read introduction to her writing and activism.
The cover art is absolutely gorgeous. (I bought a different edition with a - to my mind - even nicer looking cover than the one here.)
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in women's stories, urbanism and architecture, and community organizing.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jane Jacobs is an interesting biography with a leftist view of city planning in 20th century New York City.