I guess everybody has their own version of Jane Jacobs…

I just read this quote from Jane yesterday:

As a general rule, I think 100 dwellings per acre will be found to be too low

from this article I found when searching on something like “Jane Jacobs and density”: Jane Jacobs-style Density: It may not be what you think

Then, today, on my neighborhood’s yahoo group, I see a nice invitation to a screening about Jacobs from, of all people, one of the board members of Preservation Austin:

Hi friends and neighbors:

We’re just two weeks away from Citizen Jane, Battle for the City, presented with the Paramount Theatre and sponsored by AIA Austin! This 2016 documentary tells how preservation and planning icon Jane Jacobs fought to save Manhattan from urban renewal in the mid-20th century. Her human-scaled approach to cities transformed the way we view urban communities and neighborhoods, with major implications for challenges we face in Austin today. We’ll discuss all of this with our expert panel following the film, including Kim McKnight, Environmental Conservation Program Manager for the Austin Parks and Recreation Department; Catherine Sak, Executive Director of Texas Downtown Association; and Bob Paterson, Associate Dean for Research and Operations (Interim) at the The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture.

VIP tickets include a pre-show meet and greet with panelists, along with hors d’oeuvres and beverages. Regular tickets are just $20! AIA Continuing Education Credits: 1LU.

Get your tickets here: https://tickets. austintheatre.org/single/ eventDetail.aspx?p=3325

Details
The Paramount Theatre and Preservation Austin present a screening of the award-winning documentary Citizen Jane: Battle for the City followed by a panel discussion featuring experts from the fields of historic preservation, urban design, and architecture. Some say that Jane Jacobs, subject of the documentary, single-handedly saved the soul of New York City in the 1960s. Join us to find out how! (AIA Continuing Education Credits: 1LU)

About the film:
“In 1960 Jane Jacobs’s book The Death and Life of Great American Cities sent shockwaves through the architecture and planning worlds, with its exploration of the consequences of modern planners’ and architects’ reconfiguration of cities. Jacobs was also an activist, who was involved in many fights in mid-century New York, to stop “master builder” Robert Moses from running roughshod over the city. This film retraces the battles for the city as personified by Jacobs and Moses, as urbanization moves to the very front of the global agenda. Many of the clues for formulating solutions to the dizzying array of urban issues can be found in Jacobs’s prescient text, and a close second look at her thinking and writing about cities is very much in order. This film sets out to examine the city of today through the lens of one of its greatest champions.” -Altimeter Films

Hope you can make it! Thanks!
Ann
Member, Board of Directors
Preservation Austin

Go see the film! It might be neat!

But also! A thought experiment: Do you think Ann, or any other board member of Preservation Austin, is picturing 100 dwelling units per acre when they throw around terms like “human-scaled”? Or do either one of the pictures in the article I linked at the top look anything like the Hyde Park you think Preservation Austin prefers?