Educational Media Reviews Online

This film is driven forward only by one’s interest in Jane Jacobs, an author with 60 year’s writing experience. Jane Jacobs has written a host of works on urban development over her career. There are a few clever witticisms, such as the observation that people use their porches more often, due to the invention of plastic preformed chairs. Few are willing to steal something so inexpensive. People, therefore, leave their plastic chairs on their porches which encourages their use. The film is not a documentary at all, but more of a loose autobiography with a narrated annotated bibliography of Jacobs’s works. Viewers should be prepared for a film which centers on Jacobs and not the issues which she has exhaustively examined over the years. There is no substantive treatment of any particular topic in this film other than the writings and thoughts of Jane Jacobs.