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Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs Quotes

Journalist

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Famous Jane Jacobs Quotes

“There are dangers in sentimentalizing nature. Most sentimental ideas imply, at bottom, a deep if unacknowledged disrespect. It is no accident that we Americans, probably the world's champion sentimentalizers about nature, are at one and the same time probably the world's most voracious and disrespectful destroyers of wild and rural countryside.”

IfsWorldIdeasNatureDangerBottomAccidentsChampionSentimentalDisrespectCountrysideSentimentalityDestroyersDisrespectful
Book:The Death and Life of Great American Cities
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“Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.... for really new ideas of any kind--no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be--there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.”

NeedsKindIdeasSometimesMatterUseMightGrowsBusinessCitiesEconomySuccessfulImpossibleStreetsBuildingProveErrorsTrialsConstructionNew IdeasProfitableVigorousExperimentationOverheadOld IdeasOld Buildings
Author:Jane Jacobs
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“The notion - and I tell you this one even worries me that it extends into New Urbanism - the notion of the shopping center [as] a valid kind of downtown. That's taken over. It's very hard for architects of this generation even to think in terms of a downtown or a center that is owned by all different people, with different ideas.”

PeopleThinkingKindIdeasDifferentHardTermWorryTakenGenerationsNotionOver ItShoppingArchitectDifferent PeoplesThis GenerationDowntownDifferent IdeasShopping Centers
Author:Jane Jacobs
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“Modernism really started with people getting infatuated with the idea of "it's the twentieth century, is this suitable for the twentieth century." This happened before the First World War and it wasn't just the soldiers. You can see it happening if you read the Bloomsbury biographies. It was a reaction to a great extent against Victorianism. There was so much that was repressive and stuffy. Victorian buildings were associated with it, and they were regarded as very ugly. Even when they weren't ugly, people made them ugly. They were painted hideously.”

PeopleIfsWorldFirstsMadeIdeasWarHappenedCenturyBuildingHappeningsSoldierUglyReactionsWar Of The WorldsBiographies20th CenturyModernismSuitableVictorianFirst World WarInfatuatedUgly People
Author:Jane Jacobs
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