What is a Jane's Walk -

Jane’s Walk is an annual festival of free, community-led walking conversations inspired by Jane Jacobs.

Every first weekend of May, Jane’s Walk festivals take place in hundreds of cities around the world. These festivals encourage people to share stories about their neighbourhoods, discover unseen aspects of their communities, and connect with their neighbours through walking.

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Who is Jane - 

Jane Isabel Jacobs (née Butzner; May 4, 1916 – April 25, 2006) was an influential American-Canadian journalist, author, urban theorist, and activist whose work reshaped the fields of urban studies, sociology, and economics. Her groundbreaking 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, challenged the prevailing ideas of "urban renewal" and "slum clearance," arguing that such top-down approaches often ignored the real needs of the communities they aimed to transform.

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Jacobs became a powerful grassroots organizer, fighting to preserve vibrant neighborhoods from sweeping redevelopment projects—especially those spearheaded by urban planner Robert Moses. She played a pivotal role in halting the proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway, which would have cut through parts of Greenwich Village, SoHo, Little Italy, and Chinatown. Her activism reached a peak in 1968 when she was arrested for inciting a crowd during a public hearing on the expressway.

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Later that same year, Jacobs relocated to Toronto, where she continued her advocacy, helping to rally opposition against the Spadina Expressway and a broader network of expressways that threatened the city's urban fabric.

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Despite being dismissed early in her career—often labeled a mere "housewife" due to her lack of formal training in urban planning and her absence of a college degree—Jacobs' insights gradually earned the respect of leading thinkers. Notable figures such as Richard Florida and Nobel laureate Robert Lucas would later recognize the depth and impact of her ideas.