Editing Jane Jacobs (section)

=== Rockefeller Foundation and ''Death and Life of Great American Cities'' ===
After reading her Harvard speech, [[William H. Whyte]] invited Jacobs to write an article for ''[[Fortune (magazine)|Fortune]]'' magazine. The resulting piece, "Downtown Is for People", appeared in a 1958 issue of ''Fortune'', and marked her first public criticism of [[Robert Moses]].{{sfn|Flint|2009|pp=26–27}} Her criticism of the [[Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts|Lincoln Center]] was not popular with supporters of urban renewal at ''Architectural Forum'' and ''Fortune''.{{sfn|Flint|2009|pp=27–28}} [[C.&nbsp;D. Jackson]], the publisher of ''Fortune'', was outraged and over the telephone, demanded of Whyte: "Who is this crazy dame?"{{sfn|Alexiou|2006|p=62}}{{sfn|Flint|2009|p=28}}
[[File:DeathAndLife.JPG|thumb|Cover of ''The Death and Life of Great American Cities'']]
The ''Fortune'' article brought Jacobs to the attention of Chadbourne Gilpatric, then associate director of the Humanities Division at the [[Rockefeller Foundation]].<ref name="academia.edu" /> The foundation had moved aggressively into urban topics, with a recent award to the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] for studies of urban aesthetics that would culminate in the publication of [[Kevin A. Lynch]]'s ''Image of the City''.<ref name="academia.edu" /> In May 1958, Gilpatric invited Jacobs to begin serving as a reviewer for grant proposals.<ref name="academia.edu" /> Later that year, the [[Rockefeller Foundation]] awarded a grant to Jacobs to produce a critical study of city planning and urban life in the US. (From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, the foundation's Humanities Division sponsored an "Urban Design Studies" research program, of which Jacobs was the best known grantee.)<ref name="academia.edu" /> Gilpatric encouraged Jacobs to "explor[e] the field of [[urban design]] to look for ideas and actions which may improve thinking on how the design of cities might better serve urban life, including cultural and humane value."<ref name="academia.edu" /> Affiliating with [[The New School]] (then called The New School for Social Research), she spent three years conducting research and writing drafts. In 1961, Random House published the result: ''[[The Death and Life of Great American Cities]]''.

''The Death and Life of Great American Cities'' remains one of the most influential books in the history of American city planning.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Gratz|first1=Roberta Brandes|title=The Genius of Jane Jacobs|journal=The Nation|date=4 July 1026|volume=303|issue=1|pages=16–17|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/the-genius-of-jane-jacobs-who-changed-the-way-we-think-about-cities/|access-date=27 June 2016}}</ref> She coined the terms "mixed primary uses", and "eyes on the street", which were adopted professionally in urban design, sociology, and many other fields.{{sfn|Alexiou|2006|p=76}} Jacobs painted a devastating picture of the profession of city planning, labeling it a [[pseudoscience]]. This angered the male-dominated urban planning profession. Jacobs was criticized with [[ad hominem]] attacks, being called a "militant dame" and a "housewife": an amateur who had no right to interfere with an established discipline.{{sfn|Alexiou|2006|pp=83–90}} One planner dismissed Jacobs's book as "bitter coffee-house rambling".  Robert Moses, sent a copy, called it "intemperate and also libelous&nbsp;... Sell this junk to someone else."<ref>{{cite web|title=The Woman Who Saved Our Cities|url= https://www.theattic.space/home-page-blogs/2019/12/6/the-woman-who-saved-our-cities |website=The Attic|date= 6 December 2019 |access-date=7 January 2020}}</ref>
Later, her book was criticized from the left for leaving out race and openly endorsing [[gentrification]], which Jacobs referred to as "unslumming".{{sfn|Alexiou|2006|pp=135–136}}

In 1962, she resigned her position at ''Architectural Forum'' to become a full-time author and concentrate on raising her children.{{sfn|Alexiou|2006|p=119}} In other political activities she became an [[Opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War|opponent of the Vietnam War]], [[National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam|marched on the Pentagon]] in October 1967,{{sfn|Alexiou|2006|p=149}} and criticized the construction of the [[World Trade Center (1973–2001)|World Trade Center]] as a disaster for Manhattan's waterfront.{{sfn|Alexiou|2006|p=78}}