Robert Fishman, an expert on cities and suburbia, will lecture at U.W. on how two seemingly unqualified authors transformed our ideas about cities and protecting nature with seminal books in the 1960s.
The NextCity series at the UW hosts a talk Wednesday (1/20) evening by Robert Fishman, "On Jane Jacobs and Rachel Carson: The Death and Life of Nature and the City." Fishman, University of Michigan professor of architecture and urban planning and the author of seminal works on the history of suburbia and "technoburbs," will explore the revolutionary impact that books by two women lacking public clout at the time (1961-62) exerted on 20th-century ideas about the city and the environment.
Despite the separations between Jacobs' and Carson's areas of interest, their ideas coincided in their commitments to fine-grained diversity in their respective fields, and in their vocal opposition to policies undermining these essentials. Today Carson and Jacobs are basic to the understanding of sustainability and to a "new regionalism" uniting urban with exurban areas.
Wed Jan 20, 6:30pm, UW Kane Hall, Room 120. Free and open to the public. Reservations have almost filled the event; arrive before 6 pm to score a remaining seat.
