How Do You Celebrate "Jane's Walk" In a Time of Social Distancing?
Here at Strong Towns, we look to Jane Jacobs as one of our guiding lights. Back in 2016, Strong Towns founder and president Chuck Marohn described the great urbanist as an “intellectual radical, someone akin to Charles Darwin or even a Leonardo da Vinci, a person who was far more worried about the thought process used to approach complex problems than any specific outcome.”
I found in her writing a true scientific mind, always observing, testing and learning from the world around her. The slogans subsequently adopted by the planning profession on mixed use, density and walkability are mere byproducts of this radical core, an oversimplification, if you will.
Far too often, when an urban planner hears Jacobs' beautifully describe the sidewalk ballet, they find the operative word to be "sidewalk" when, in fact, it is the evocation of a ballet that should be our inspiration. Jane Jacobs repeatedly challenges us to embrace the complex -- the ballet -- and not just that which is simple and easy to code.
“Nobody but charlatans can be prophets and everybody can be as aware as possible of what is actually happening. ”
One of the best ways we know to learn more about Jane Jacobs, and to learn to be more “aware” of their places, is by participating in Jane’s Walk. Jane’s Walk is an annual festival of free, community-led walking conversations inspired by Jacobs. They take place the first weekend of May, and you can find them in hundreds of cities around the world. “Walks encourage people to share stories about their neighbourhoods, discover unseen aspects of their communities, and use walking as a way to connect with their neighbours,” say the festival organizers.
But how can folks participate in Jane’s Walk during a time of quarantine and social distancing? Some are cancelling or postponing their events. Others are getting creative, “taking the essence of Jane’s Walk and finding ways for that essence to live through channels that maintain physical distance!”
We heard, for example, from the team organizing the Jane’s Walk Festival in Jacobs’s beloved city of Toronto. “This year, we are getting creative and hosting online activities to get people talking about and participating in community engagement during this trying time,” they told us. They’re encouraging and promoting reimagined walks: 3D walks, self-guided walks, and walks streamed through Zoom. They have great at-home activities for kids and adults (we can’t stop thinking about the cutout of Jane Jacobs’s iconic glasses), as well as keynotes (Jan Gehl and others) and panel discussions. (You can connect with Jane’s Walk Festival Toronto on Facebook and Twitter.)
This isn’t the way any of us thought we’d be celebrating Jane’s Walk this year. But we encourage you to see if there are “reimagined” Jane’s Walk activities near you. Regardless, we hope you find the opportunity to (safely) connect with your neighborhood this weekend.
More Strong Towns Content on Jane Jacobs and Jane’s Walk
What Can a Walk Teach Us About Jane Jacobs (Strong Towns Podcast) — An interview with Denise Pinto, then-executive director of Jane’s Walk
“Seeing Your Community With New Eyes through a ‘Walking Audit,’” by Daniel Herriges