CANADIAN URBANISM AND JANE JACOBS AMRITA DANIERE* University of Toronto The following two articles were presented at an academic seminar that was part of a larger conference held in Toronto to honor and debate the ideas of Jane Jacobs in the fall of 1997. The conference was called “Ideas That Matter” and the University of Toronto sponsored an academic discussion centering on the urban economic, political and design aspects of Jacobs’ work. Participants in both the seminar and the larger conference were exposed to a variety of im- portant insights with which Canadian urbanists have been familiar for a number of years. In particular, urban thinkers in Canada have come to appreciate Jacobs’ ideas about how cities function, both in the past and in the present, and how cities can become better places to both live and work. She has argued, for example, that one of the most exciting and inspiring qual- ities of cities is that “they outlast everything except the carbon that inhabits them-and that facilitating their continued evolution socially, economically and politically is a perpetual task, inherently both necessary and creative” (Jacobs & Rowe, 2000, p. 2). Canadian planners and urbanists have adopted and implemented this insight across a wide variety of Canadian cities. While there have been many disagreements about how to facilitate the creativity and growth of cities in Canada, between and among planners, economists, ge- ographers, business people and politicians, it is apparent that urban dwellers in Canada share Jacobs’ vision of cities as centers of human life and interaction. Jacobs (1961) is most famous for the ideas that she brought to the fore in her most popular work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, where she wove together people, their activities, and their places into a dynamic fabric that translated into a form of ecological order. Her lucid presentation of stan- dard human ecology remains very helpful to anyone interested in thinking about and working with the urban environment. Her dissection of the intricate relationships among pedestrians, local businesses, sidewalks, parks and other parts of a typical urban streetscape gave nonpro- fessionals a lucid and unforgettable description of the microeconomics of the city street. At the same time, for planners and urbanists, it articulated just what it was about cities that was so exciting and worth preserving and enhancing. In Canada, and in Toronto in particular, Jacobs’ ideas have been adopted by many of the same people, such as planners and big government, whom she chastens in her books. Canada *Direct correspondence to: Amrita Daniere, Department of Geography, University of Toronto, St. George Campus, Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St. George Street, 5 th floor, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G3, Canada. E-mail: amrita.daniere@ utoronto.ca JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Volume 22, Number 4, pages 459–461. Copyright © 2000 Urban Affairs Association All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 0735-2166.