From “Citizen Jane” to an Institutional History of Power and Social Change: Problematizing Urban Planning’s Jane Jacobs Historiography

Conventional wisdom frames scholar and activist Jane Jacobs as a skeptical housewife, heterodox/dissident critic, or common-sense neighborhood resident. Yet a comprehensive archival review of Jacobs’ professional engagement with philanthropy and urban-development organizations reveals instead an activist scholar-leader in a larger, well-funded movement that must be understood in its time and place. Institutional partnerships shaped and informed Jacobs’ most noted projects, and her counsel, in turn, shaped urban-development grantmaking. An historical assessment of Jacobs’ ideas, and of social change more broadly, should examine not just individuals, but also supporters, organizations, and paradigms.