Jane and Bob Jacobs and their son Jim undertake a renovation of their home at 555 Hudson Street in Greenwich Village, ca 1950. (Random House)

CityLab: Reading Jane Jacobs Anew

Jane Jacobs’s work is cousin to the radical visions of the 1960s, but she was ultimately working to reinvent, not simply destroy conventional wisdom. This article is an adapted version of the introduction to Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs. Read more on CityLab

People shop and hang out at a night market in central Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2014. (Dibrova/Shutterstock)

Citiscope: Placemaking and the promise of the New Urban Agenda

The priority given to place and public space in the New Urban Agenda, an international agreement on cities that will be finalized at the Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador this week, marks an important shift for the global development community. But this document is still playing catch-up to how communities and placemakers are mobilizing on this issue.