The Ecological Landscapes of Jane Jacobs and Rachel Carson

Abstract

Within field of urban studies, perhaps no book has garnered more attention than Jane Jacobs's 1961 classic, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Both vilified and praised, Death and Life effectively changed how people understood cities. Noted urban historian Kenneth Jackson claimed that Jacobs was the single most important author on cities in twentieth century.1 Urbanist Marshall Berman argues that Jacobs' work has often been appreciated for its role in changing whole orientation of city and community planning.2 From an environmental stud ies perspective, Rachel Carson's landmark 1962 book, Silent Spring, drew on new science of ecology to document hazards of chemical pesticides, transforming how human societies understood physical environment. Pub lished only fourteen months after Death and Life, Carson's book engendered a fundamental shift in environmental politics. As historian Ted Steinberg has argued, Carson helped transform ecology into rallying cry of envi ronmental movement.3