WestEnder
April 21, 2010
In her 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, urban-planning theorist and activist Jane Jacobs described what she called “the sidewalk ballet,” a term for the rich pedestrian life she felt was crucial to a city’s vibrancy. “Individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole,” she wrote. “The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any one place is always replete with new improvisations.”
The American-born Jacobs, who relocated to Toronto in 1968, passed away at age 89 in 2006, but her influence on subsequent generations of people who work in fields associated with urban and community planning is widespread. In 2007, a legacy project honouring Jacobs’s life, called Jane’s Walk, was launched in Toronto and New York City. Described by its organizers as “a series of free neighbourhood walking tours that helps put people in touch with their environment and with each other,” Vancouver played host to its first Jane’s Walk in 2008, and the event has grown to include dozens of cities in the U.S. and Canada. More than 700 people participated in the second Vancouver edition of the event last year, and Think City, a local civic-issues group, hopes for an even stronger turnout when it hosts the city’s third Jane’s Walk, which take place at various locations on May 1 and 2.
“Jane’s Walk has really provided a vehicle for people to come out of their houses and talk to their neighbours and talk to the other people in their community,” says Jane’s Walk Vancouver chair Kim Fleming. “People want to have a reason to get out and walk around and to know the city.”
Think City’s wide-ranging roster of Jane’s Walk hosts each pick their own route and the theme of their walk, which covers topics including local history, public art, housing, and urban growth. While Think City has played a part in recruiting some of the walk hosts, others have volunteered. For the first time this year, walks will also be hosted in Surrey and on the UBC campus, as well as in the form of bike rides.
“Livability and sustainability are really at the heart of Jane’s Walk and Jane Jacobs’s work,” says Think City board member Kera McArthur. “Livable communities are walkable communities. We really want to promote that idea, that walking and sustainable transportation are absolutely inseparable from creating a livable, green city.”
Last year’s Burrard Bridge bike-lane trial helped catalyze interest in pedestrian-advocacy issues, says McArthur. “We’ve also noticed that with an aging population, there are more issues and concerns around pedestrians and walking. As we move towards a livable, sustainable city, people want to get out and walk and be part of their communities, and we’re seeing that emphasis.”
For more information on this year's Jane's Walk, visit JanesWalk.net and ThinkCity.ca.
PHOTO: Jane's Walk organizers in Gastown. By Doug Shanks.
