JANE'S WALK

Jane Jacobs was an urban visionary. She was the author of 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities'. Jane's Walk began in 2007 to celebrate Jane Jacobs and her work. Hundreds of cities in Canada and around the world now conduct Jane's Walks to promote livable cities and neighborhoods - mainly on May 1st and 2nd to coincide with her birthdate. Perhaps in the future Stratford will join this growing list of communities involved with 'Jane's Walk'. Stratford has been able to hold on to many of the characteristics of an intact healthy urban environment but is in danger of increasing sprawl. Here is the link to the Jane's Walk website: http://janeswalk.net

Legendary urban thinker, writer and activist Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) was an urbanist and activist whose writings championed a fresh, community-based approach to city building. She had no formal training as a planner, and yet her 1961 treatise, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, introduced ground-breaking ideas about how cities function, evolve and fail that now seem like common sense to generations of architects, planners, politicians and activists.
A firm believer in the importance of local residents having input on how their neighbourhoods develop, Jacobs encouraged people to familiarize themselves with the places where they live, work and play with words like these:
“No one can find what will work for our cities by looking at … suburban garden cities, manipulating scale models, or inventing dream cities. You’ve got to get out and walk.” _-Downtown is for People, 1957.
Jacobs’ wrote incisively and beautifully on the importance of dense and vibrant city-scapes, famously uncovering the ‘sidewalk ballet’, that intricate dance between neighbours and passers-by that make a street enjoyable and friendly.