Journalist and documentarian Matt Tyrnauer (Valentino: The Last Emperor) has turned his attention to legendary writer and urban activist Jane Jacobs and the David-and-Goliath battle she fought over urban planning in New York over 50 years ago.
In 1960 Jane Jacobs’s book The Death and Life of Great American Cities sent shockwaves through the architecture and planning worlds, with its exploration of the consequences of modern planners’ and architects’ reconfiguration of cities. Released on the centenary of her birth, Citizen Jane focuses on Jacobs’ most dramatic battle in the 1960s: when she went up against ruthless NYC ‘master builder’ Robert Moses to preserve the historic neighbourhoods of Greenwich Village, Soho, and Little Italy against Moses’ plans to divide (and destroy) them with expressways.
Exciting and inspirational, Citizen Jane delivers a timely and much-needed lesson in how the power of the people can win out against the self-serving plans of the elite.