• What: Jane’s Walk 2009
• When: May 2 and 3, 2009
• Where: your neighbourhood, hopefully!
Bring Jane’s Walk to your neighbourhood this year by leading one. You can take part in Jane’s Walk 2009 (May 2 and 3 in Toronto and other cities across North America) by putting together a tour of your local community. Show and share your local pride. Jane’s Walk tours are an informing and inspiring way to learn about growing neighbourhoods all over your city. They connect people by promoting urban literacy and citizen engagement.
For tips on how to lead a tour, click here .
Jane’s Walk is a simple idea that can be brought to any kind of community and setting. Some walking groups look at urbanism and the built environment; some wander through parks, ravines, and vibrant street life; and some focus on a neighbourhood’s social history and special hidden stories.
Last year, over 6,000 people took part in Jane’s Walks in 141 neighbourhoods in 11 cities in Toronto and across Canada in places like Vancouver, Edmonton, and Guelph. This year it’s going to get even bigger by including cities and towns like Montreal, Waterloo, Sudbury, and Regina. American communities like in Chicago, New Orleans, Washington and New York are also in the works for the walk.
Jane Jacobs is widely known as one of the founders of the “new urbanism,†a movement which has gained growing prominence as an alternative to conventional approaches to land use and transportation planning. She was an early voice warning that what was being billed as urban renewal like big housing projects and highway building was actually destroying neighbourhoods rather than bettering them. In addition to celebrating her life, Jane’s Walk is about learning and appreciating our neighbourhoods.
For more information about getting involved in Jane’s Walk, visit www.janeswalk.net.
