Urban Visionary Jane Jacobs Dies

Jane Jacobs, author of the groundbreaking book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, died yesterday at the age of 89. NPR's All Things Considered had a wonderful little piece on Jacobs' fight with Robert Moses regarding the decimation of NYC by interstates. It also praises Jacobs as an astute observer of human urban behavior rather than an idealistic theorist prescribing how people "ought" to inhabit space. Worth a listen.

Thomas Sugrue Lecture: May 1

Thomas Sugrue, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the The Origins of the Urban Crisis (selected by Princeton University Press as one of the 100 most important books in the last century), will be at Calvin on Monday, May 1 to present the Bouma lecture:

"Jim Crow's Last Stand: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Suburban North"

Drawing from his forthcoming book, Professor Sugrue will discuss the largely unknown Northern battlegrounds where grassroots activists fought to end discrimination and segregation: the rapidly expanding postwar suburbs. While the conventional narratives of civil rights in America have focused on the heroic battles of the South, “Jim Crow’s Last Stand” turns our focus North to recount the victories and defeats of those who fought to open suburbia to people of all races.

When: Monday, May 1, 3:30pm
Where: Gezon Auditorium, Calvin College