ABSTRACT
As one of the key urban thinkers of the 20th century, Jane Jacobs has had a major impact on the theory and practice of community design, especially in North America. This chapter considers some of the ways that Jacobs has influenced new urbanism—a community design approach that advocates dense, walkable, mixed, and attractive urban settings. Although New Urbanism as an organized movement would only arise later, a number of activists and thinkers soon began to criticize the modernist planning techniques being put into practice. With its critique of modernist planning, new urbanism reiterates many of Jacobs's principles of good community design, including the importance of diversity, mix, compactness, visibility, and connectedness. The chapter considers how the theories and practices of new urbanism do and do not reveal lingering influences of Jane Jacobs's ideas about physical planning.
