Citizen Jane: Battle for the City

Torontonians have a long association with Jane Jacobs, from her leadership in stopping the Spadina expressway project in the early '70's and subsequent work in support of a "livable" city to the walks which were set up in her name following her death.

"Citizen Jane", however, focuses on the time when the "light bulb" went off for her and set her career in motion, transforming her from a journalist working on stories about architecture to a very active participant in the debate on what makes an effective urban environment.

During the 50's and 60's, the US went through a period of embracing modernist principles of architecture and urban planning, expressed theoretically by Le Corbusier in Europe and Robert Moses in practice.

Moses was a planning czar in New York City at the time and he was an active proponent of urban renewal, mostly expressed by the replacement of so-called slum neighbourhoods with banks of bland, widely spaced high rise projects. He rarely faced any effective opposition to his plans, at least until Jacobs started to organize following a proposal to drive 5th Avenue directly through Washington Square Park. That was the beginning of a highly adversarial relationship between the two, which also led to the publication of her "Death and Life of American Cities".

The film uses a mix of archival footage, speeches and Jacobs' writing to show the polarization of the two views and proponents. Given the debates that have hit Toronto City Council in the past few years (eg the Gardiner East discussion), it's a debate that continues to this day.