Jane Jacobs

You want to know why there's not a freeway like the Cross-Bronx Expressway running through the middle of Greenwich Village, as Robert Moses wanted? Jane Jacobs. She died today.

Jane Jacobs, an author and community activist of singular influence whose classic "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" transformed ideas about urban planning, died Tuesday, her publisher said. Jacobs, a longtime resident of Toronto, was 89.

If you've never read The Death and Life of Great American Cities, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy, whatever you do for a living. It will forever change how you see cities, the built environment, and the human experience of diverse geographies more generally.