Urbanisation, complexity and poverty or why aid agencies should be reading Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs, renowned urban scholar and grass-roots activist, has recently topped the Planetizen list of the 100 leading Urban Thinkers by an ’impossibly wide lead’.

Jacobs is something of a heroine for many communities around the world, real and virtual, not least the complexity science community. She approached cities as ecosystems and suggested that over time, buildings, streets and neighbourhoods function as dynamic organisms, changing in response to how people interact with them. She explained how each element of a city – sidewalks, parks, neighbourhoods, government, economy – work together in synergy, in the same manner as the natural ecosystem. She used this understanding to show how cities work, how they break down, and how they could be better structured.