Honor Jane Jacobs' Legacy in Your Town with this Activity

We, at Strong Townsm are big fans of Jane Jacobs. Here's a chance to help honor the late, great urbanist: From May 6-8, cities around the world will host "Jane's Walks" to explore their communities and get to know their neighbors. You can learn more about the grassroots Jane's Walk organization on their website.

Here is some info that the event organizers recently shared with us, including how you can get involved:

Jane's Walk is a grassroots movement of independently organized festivals, happening in nearly 190 cities worldwide at last count. 

We're looking for is people to take on the role of City Organizer (CO) in cities like the ones Strong Towns supports. The CO's job isn't huge in a city with a small festival (though it can grow, if there's interest and organizational capacity). Walk Leaders organize their own walks; the CO is  the main contact person for the festival, and the one who sets up the City Page on our website. Here's an overview of the CO's role, and of what a Walk Leader does.

Our ideal City Organizer is someone working with an organization that has a mission that resonates with Jane Jacobs' ideas about how cities work. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement: Jane's Walks have proven to be a useful and valuable tool for outreach and citizen engagement. For example, in Akron, OH, we got in touch with Phyllis Jividen, who works with the Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study (AMATS). Phyllis and AMATS recognized Jane's Walks as a good way of getting Akron's citizens to experience and learn about initiatives like the city's new Towpath Trail (a downtown walking and biking path). That was a couple of years ago; Phyllis rapidly became one of our most enthusiastic COs, and Akron had 15 Jane's Walks for its 2015 festival!

The Knight Foundation has generously supported our activities in the U.S., so we're particularly (though not exclusively!) interested in getting festivals set up in Knight resident and non-resident cities. 

We encourage Strong Towns members to sign up to host a walk in their cities. Please let us know if you're planning to do so because we'd love to share your story on our website later this year.

(Top image from Wikimedia)