It is a timely tale of what can happen when engaged citizens fight the power for the sake of a better world. Arguably, no one did more to shape our understanding of the modern American city than Jane Jacobs, the visionary activist and writer who fought to preserve urban communities in the face of destructive development projects.

"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 Jacobs: 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...

"Jane Jacobs is universally recognized as one of the key figures in American urbanism, and The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which she wrote between 1958 and 1961, is considered one of the most important books on cities. Becoming Jane Jacobs is an intellectual biography focusing on Jacobs's early life and writing career leading up to her great book, and it offers a new foundation for understanding not only Death and Life but her subsequent...

A survey of Jacobs's career in forty short pieces that have never been collected in a single volume: essays, articles, speeches, interviews, and lectures, covering her work in urban and economic planning as well as globalization, feminism, and universal health care.

"Chronicles the life of a noted activist who wrote seven groundbreaking books, including her most famous, The Death and Life of Great American Cities; saved neighborhoods; stopped expressways; was arrested twice; and engaged at home and on the streets in thousands of debates -- all of which she won,"--NoveList.