Needed: The perfect quote from Jane Jacobs

October 11, 2015 11:44 AM

I'm officiating my first wedding next week (Exciting! Scary!) and working on final details. I really would like to include a quote from Jane Jacobs, the couple's hero. “Neighborhood is a word that has come to sound like a Valentine. As a sentimental concept, ‘neighborhood’ is harmful to city planning. Sentimentality plays with sweet intentions in place of good sense.” is what I'm currently playing with, but it's not quite hitting the spot in a way I'd like without over-explaining it. Urban planning and sociology nerds: can you suggest any and all Jane Jacobs quotes that in some way connect with love, community, and growth? I welcome truly any thoughts you have, and feel free to share a bit about how you might use it. THANK YOU!
posted by jenbo1 to Travel & Transportation (3 answers total)

Best answer: Here are a few that might be useful:

A sense of place is built up, in the end, from many little things too, some so small people take them for granted, and yet the lack of them takes the flavor out of the city.

You could use this in a bit about how it's important to notice and appreciate the little things in a relationship and in a partner rather than taking them for granted.

Cities are an immense laboratory of trial and error, failure and success, in city building and city design.

You could use this as a way to talk about how marriages are like this, as well -- that they won't always be perfect, but that they are worth working on, and can always be improved.

This is what a city is, bits and pieces that supplement each other and support each other.

This one might well be the most appropriate, since that's as useful a definition of marriage as any other.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:22 PM on October 11, 2015 [9 favorites]

My favorite is the "old ideas can survive in new buildings, but new ideas need old buildings" thing. Sorry, my copy of DALOGAC (which we definitely didn't call it that back in Allan Powell's City Politics class) is in a box at the back of a closet. It doesn't quite match what you're looking for, but is in the neighborhood.
posted by morspin at 10:45 PM on October 11, 2015

Here's one where she is talking about 'the ballet of a good city sidewalk' which works as a nice metaphor as well.

"...an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole."

Entire quote about 1/4th the way down on this page.
posted by tillwehavefaces at 9:53 AM on October 12, 2015