In her 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, community activist Jane Jacobs described the elements that made cities vibrant and safe. She predicted how segregating work, home and play would destroy the fabric of communities. She also described how mixed use neighborhoods (shops and homes, rich and poor, arts and entrepreneurs) created the best quality of life.

In this year’s Fall Forum: Making Kent More Sustainable, Just, and Successful , Jennifer Mapes, Assistant Professor
Geography Department, Kent State University, will share her admiration for Jacobs, and look at how we can use her ideas to think about Kent today.

• Jacobs was particularly concerned about the increasing dominance of the automobile and loss of sense of community in neighborhoods.
• She stressed the importance of walkability and community driven planning cities designed by people and for people.
• This approach has slowly made its way into the mainstream and into Kent’s urban fabric there’s much to celebrate about the evolution of Kent’s downtown and neighborhoods, but much more work to do.

So how can the city, and we, as residents, learn from Jacobs as well as the successes and failures of cities in the past 100 years and move forward to a more sustainable, just, and successful community?

We hope you will join us to find out.

Tuesday, October 29, 2019 7pm
Kent Free Library
312 West Main Street
Kent, OH 44240