A City Cannot Be a Work of Art

Jane Jacobs is a legend in the field of urbanism and is famous for challenging and profoundly influencing urban planning and design. What can and should be learned from Jacobs’s contributions to economics and social theory?  These are central to her criticisms of and proposals for public policy but are frequently overlooked even by her most enthusiastic admirers.  Jacobs’s insight that “a city cannot be a work of art” underlies both her ideas on planning and her understanding of economic development and social cooperation.

This lecture will be presented as a conversation between Sanford Ikeda and Roberta Brandes Gratz.

To learn more about Sanford’s book, A City Cannot Be a Work of Art, please click here.

This lecture is sponsored by Marywood University’s School of Architecture and the American Institute of Architects of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

AIA CEU Credit is available for this lecture.

This event will be conducted online via Zoom. Space is limited but the event will be recorded and available on our website and YouTube channel afterward. 

The Jane Jacobs Lecture Series is free and open to the public, but your support makes our work possible.

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SANFORD IKEDA

Sanford Ikeda is Professor Emeritus at Purchase College, The State University of New York, a fellow of the Colloquium on Market Institutions and Economics Processes at New York University, and serves on the boards of The Economic Freedom Institute, Cosmos+Taxis, and The Center for the Living City. He is the author of Dynamics of the Mixed Economy (1997). His research focuses on the interconnections among cities, spontaneous social orders, entrepreneurial development, and urban policy.

To learn more about Sanford’s book, A City Cannot Be a Work of Art, please click here.

ROBERTA BRANDES GRATZ

Roberta Brandes Gratz is an award-winning journalist, urban critic, international lecturer, and author, was voted one of Planetizen’s top 100 urban thinkers in 2011. Her most recent book is We're Still Here Ya Bastards: How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City.  She is also the author of The Battle For Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs; The Living City: Thinking Small in a Big Way; and Cities Back from the Edge: New Life for Downtown.